Andy Bamante, welcome back to the Jack
Neil podcast.
>> Thanks for having me, Jack.
>> Yeah, it's good to see you again. A good
place to start here. Andy, you recently
hosted a series on Discovery Channel
called Conspiracies and Cover-Ups where
you stress tested various conspiracy
theories using spy trade craft, expert
interviews, and hands-on experiments.
What do you think is the biggest lie
we've been told in the last 10 years?
That is a hard question to answer
because I think in the last 10 years
especially, we have been lied to more
than we've ever been lied to in the
past. So to find the biggest lie is
difficult to isolate.
In many ways, I would say that what my
experience both at CIA and after CIA has
shown me is that we live in a world
where misinformation, meaning mistaken
or errant information, misinformation
propagates much faster than fact. And in
that misinformation, there's an
opportunity to seed disinformation.
Both misinformation and disinformation
are are wrong. They're not true. But the
intention is different between the two.
Disinformation is an intention to lie,
to create incorrect information.
Misinformation is accidental. It's just
mistaken, incomplete, inaccurate. You
know, something that changed over time
and nobody corrected.
But especially in the last 10 years,
what we've seen is that disinformation
and misinformation are very hard to
separate, which just creates an
environment for more people to lie. more
people to lie because they have a
perfectly good justifiable reason.
They're trying to, you know, protect
sources and methods. They're trying to
prepare prepare a legal case. They're
trying to, you name it. They're trying
to maintain a IP advantage over a
competitor. So, they lie to protect
something valid. But then we're also
finding a lots of opportunities where
the disinformation is not valid. It's
part of an offensive shaping campaign
for political reasons, for financial
reasons, for algorithmic manipulation
reasons. We're seeing more
disinformation from foreign intelligence
services trying to impact and shape
social issues, political issues,
military issues. So, it's very very hard
now to even isolate what information is
wrong on purpose and what information is
wrong accidentally. So, that's I mean
that's a non-answer to your question.
And I fully admit, but I don't think I
can even isolate the lies that are the
biggest from the errors that are the
biggest.
>> Right. I guess as it pertains to the
show, which of the lies you uncovered uh
or maybe halftruths
were the most shocking, the most
disturbing to you?
>> There are a few. So I think for me
personally there were three that
absolutely immediately jumped to mind.
The first is the question of whether
Epstein was murdered or whether Epstein.
The second is whether the New Jersey
drones incident was actually something
that was coordinated across government
or something that was truly completely
unknown across government. And then
third, the idea that the MK Ultra
experiments from CIA in the 1960s and
70s, whether those were truly a failure
or whether there was an element of those
that were successful and upon
discovering that success, all the other
experimental efforts were just shut
down. I would say those three areas
under pressure, under active
investigation with real world
experimentation from multiple experts,
under pressure, those three raised
questions that I had never seen before.
In episode 5 of your show, you
investigated the mysterious
circumstances surrounding the death of
Jeffrey Epstein, rebuilding the cell to
a tea that he allegedly died in. After
everything you found, what are the odds
that Epstein deleted himself?
when you stack up the actual
experimental evidence, which is the only
evidence I can really lean on because
the investigation that was done by the
Bureau of Police, the investigation that
was done by law enforcement, the
investigation was done by uh by the
actual prison system itself, they all
have too many inconsistencies, too many
gaps, too many questions. So when you
can't rely on that information, you can
only rely on the information you
control. So I only have the experimental
information that I brought, the actual
data from the experimentation that I
brought to that very same question. And
when you look at the question of whether
he or whether he was killed, there is
far more evidence
that points to him being killed rather
than himself. There are just too many
inconsistencies
on the side of, oh, he himself and
there's too many consistencies on the
side that he was killed. But in reality,
I think what bothers all of us is that
neither one of those outcomes really
sits well with us. Neither one of them
really actually makes sense. And that
was certainly what made the Epstein
investigation something I wanted to dig
into. And then after pushing my own
experimentation, after investigating
with with people in my network, we
recreated the entire cell, like you
said, a third option presented itself
that I had never taken seriously ever
before. this idea that maybe he's not
actually dead. And in the actual course
of our recreation of the cell, I was
shocked to find out that there is
actually a way that he could have been
hidden and a body double inserted and
that he may actually still be alive. It
seems ludicrous to say it out loud. It
certainly seemed ludicrous to me when I
first heard it, but then after actually
recreating the circumstances of his
death,
whether it's a 2% probability or a 25%
probability, the fact that there's any
probability that he actually is still
alive is amazing, right? We talked about
this a bit on our last episode with
Julian Dory, who had went to the cell
with you and was shocked when you had
basically showed that there was a vent
inside of Epstein's cell that wasn't
inside of any of the other cells in that
prison. And I think that vent was on one
of the schematics, but not on the other
schematics.
>> It was on none of the schematics.
>> It was on none of the schematics.
>> Yeah. So we, my team, we built the cell
based off of photographic evidence, not
department of prison schematics.
So photographs of the cell from all
different angles. We recreated
everything. Then we brought in a former
inmate from that penitentiary to come in
and fact check whether or not we had
created the cell correctly. And his
response was fantastic. He walked in and
he he said it was it feels like home.
The paint was a little bit too bright.
the floor was a little bit too clean,
but otherwise dimensions, sights, like
where the window was, where the grading
was, it was all accurate. So, it was
based off of photographic evidence.
Well, when I compared the actual
dimensions of what we built against the
schematics created by the Department of
Prisons, there was a difference. There
was a a gap, an inconsistency. The
Department of Prisons makes the cell out
as if it is a perfect rectangle, but the
actual cell isn't a rectangle. It has a
a wall. It has an extra section that's
available. And that section has a vent
in the wall that goes into an open space
on the other side of the wall. But that
open space is about 4 ft by 2 ft. 8
square ft on the ground. And then cubic
feet, it's 8 * 10. So 80 cubic feet of
space on the other side of a vented
wall. Vented means the free flow of
oxygen without needing like an oxygen
tank. And on the other side of Epstein's
cell is a stairwell in freedom.
>> So how in the hell of all the accidents
of all the happy accidents in the
universe, how did this guy end up in the
only cell on his block that had a hidden
kind of access area and on the opposite
side of that access area was an exit to
a stairwell and out the front door of
the penitentiary? How does that happen?
If he would have been put in any of the
other I think there were eight blocks on
his prison floor. If he would have been
put in any of the other seven cells, he
wouldn't have had that. But that cell
did. And none of that made it into the
investigation. None of that made it into
the report. None of that was documented
in any of the formal released documents
related to Epstein. Does that mean he's
alive? No. But what the man in terms of
opportunity, possibility, probability,
inconsistencies, investigative gaps and
faux, it just exacerbates a giant sore
in our existing trust of government. If
Jeffrey Epstein were still alive, break
down for me how you, a former CI spy,
would run that operation. like how would
you fake Epstein's death?
>> So, there's a number of things that are
more difficult than others, right?
Finding a body is arguably one of the
most difficult things to do just really
because of the ethics of it. Finding
another dead human being to swap out so
that it can, you know, meet all of the
requirements of what it's like to move a
body. A body has a certain amount of
weight. You know, when rigor mortise
sets in, it feels a certain way. Like
there's a lot there that you have to do
that would be very difficult to mimic.
So you would really need an actual
corpse and an actual corpse that fits
the approximate time of death that
you're trying to create. So in my
opinion, the hardest part of the whole
debacle would be trying to answer that
question. Trying to have a body that
looks like him is approximately his
weight that doesn't immediately turn the
heads of any of the guards or medical
professionals or whatever in the prison.
We don't really know what happened after
they came in and got the body because
none of that's very well documented. And
the only person who ever we know of that
ever saw the body was a relative of
Epstein who I think it was his brother
who said that the body was his brother.
So even the witness who validated the
death could have been motivated to go
either way.
>> Is it his twin brother or just
>> I never heard it was a twin brother.
>> Okay, got it.
>> Yeah. But with all that said, the
hardest part is the body. All of the
logistics are really quite easy. You
would need someone on the inside of the
prison system who would have the ability
to pick a cell. I don't know how most
prison systems work, but specifically
the Department of Corrections in New
York, that municipality where that
prison was located was absolutely just
defunct, understaffed, undermanned,
perpetually ill-kept. So finding
somebody willing to compromise
themselves inside that prison wouldn't
be hard. The actual lead guard the night
of Epstein's death had a series of
suspicious payments that had been given
to her going back almost nine months
before Epstein was killed. Payments that
were never verified, never confirmed,
never explained that were identified
during the investigative report, but
never actually answered for. I think
they came out to something like 12 or
$25,000.
>> Not a lot of money to a wealthy person.
a [ __ ] ton of money to the kind of
person who works backtoback shifts in a
prison system, right? So, finding a
corrupt person on the inside to help you
get the right cell. And then you would
need some kind of engineer to actually
engineer the quick entry and exit to
that 80 foot 80 cubic foot space. How
would you get into the wall, get out of
the wall? How would you move through the
walls? That sort of thing. You would
need hinges. You would need can levers.
you would need ways of of mocking
cement. Uh so the people didn't realize
that there wasn't a real seal. That is a
little bit difficult. Not as difficult
as getting a body, but a little bit
difficult. And with enough lead time,
which is what they had in Jeffrey
Epstein's case, they knew where he was
going. They knew when he was going to
arrive. They didn't know how long he was
going to be there. But that kind of lead
time makes it possible to go in and
create everything you need for what we
call in the agency a concealment device,
which is a run-of-the-mill device that
somebody an engineer tampers with to
conceal the tampering. And that's
essentially what would have been needed
to create a space for him to escape. And
then through that space, you store a
worker, basically a worker to swap a
body. A body's brought in. They move the
body into the 80ft space. They close the
door behind it. Open the door to
Epstein's cell. Put the body in
Epstein's cell. Bring Epstein himself
into the open space. Close the door
behind them. And then wait. And then
Epstein can literally just sit there.
Maybe he has a stack of Ritz crackers
beside him. I don't know. But he sits
there and lets the whole thing play out.
And he has free flowing oxygen. Takes 8
or 12 hours for all the Hubble Bub to
end. When you look at how the discovery
of his body was actually executed, it
was very fast, quickly cleaned up,
quickly straightened up. A couple of
pictures snapped, over and done. So, he
could have been just sitting there on
the other side of the wall for 45
minutes just dumb and quiet waiting. And
then as soon as the night shift came and
the same corrupt person comes back on
duty, you roll in anything. You roll in
an appliance, you roll in a laundry
basket, you roll in a empty box,
open that wall on the other side. One
person gets in, empty wall behind it,
you leave. Somebody would actually have
to go back and test the integrity of the
wall to see whether or not it's
currently been tampered with. And if it
was an actual professional intelligence
or law enforcement job, then as soon as
he was out, they would have staged some
kind of correction on that wall again,
which 3 days after he left, his entire
cell was refurbished, cleaned, washed,
repainted, everything else. Perfect time
to go in there and seal up any breaks in
the wall.
How many people would you guess are
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code Jack. But anyway, guys, back to the
podcast. How many people would you guess
are capable of executing auto plan like
that? more people than any of us want to
admit. At CIA, we actually had an entire
office dedicated to well, arguably we
had two offices. We had one office
dedicated to the engineering of existing
devices to conceal tampering. They they
did everything from make secret pockets
and jackets to making uh hidden walls
inside of uh inside of buildings. So,
you had that team, but then you also had
a different team that was in charge of
covert penetration. a breaking and
entering team, right, that could break
into a place, tamper with it, and then
exit without ever leaving evidence that
anybody broke it in the first place.
Combining the skills of those two teams
would be the perfect way to carry out
something like this. But that's just
CIA. And if CIA has a team like that,
two teams like that, so does SVR for the
Russians, MSS for the Chinese, the MSAD
for Israel, the Turkey has a team like
that, Cuba has a team like that,
Venezuela has a team like that. The list
goes on and on. And especially the
allies of Epstein, the Saudis, the
Emiratis, the Omanis, all the wealthy
shakes, they've all got teams like that,
right? If Epstein did fake his death,
how many people would you suspect know
that he's still alive? And how hard
would the process be after the escape
itself?
>> I would estimate if he is still alive,
there's less than seven people who know
about it. And that's not including
Epstein himself and any like family that
Epste may have felt like he could tell,
>> right?
>> But when it comes to the type of
specialty politician or specialty
operator who would know about it, it
would be less than 10, less than the
number of fingers that you have. It
would not be a overly difficult
operation to execute. It would take
planning. It would take time. It would
take a little bit of luck, but that's
what all operations take. I want to make
sure that I say this because I don't
think Epstein could fake his own death.
I don't think he was the mastermind. I
don't think he was the driver. I don't
think it was his idea, if it happened at
all. I don't think he I don't think he
could do much other than whip his dick
out of his pants, right? I don't know
that the dude was very capable
otherwise.
But he had friends in high places that
were more than capable of this kind of
thing, who had more than enough reason
to pursue this type of option. And I'm
not just talking about foreign friends.
It could have been domestic friends,
too. It could have been foreign friends
that had domestic connections. It could
have been domestic friends who used
foreign connections. It's it's a whole
giant spiderweb of power and and
connections outside of Epstein himself.
So I don't want to give him credit that
isn't due to him. So with less than 10
people involved in the entire thing, two
or three would be witting on location of
what they were doing, right? So for as
an example, you could have somebody
engineer a wall two weeks before the
prisoner ever shows up. They have no
[ __ ] idea who the prisoner is.
They're just engineering the wall. And
even after the fact when they find out
that Epstein was in that cell, that
doesn't actually confirm for them that
they helped Epstein. It could have been
anything. It's it's suspicious for sure.
But this is why you hear in the
intelligence world and the legal world
the shadow of a doubt. Shadow of a doubt
is an important thing, right? Because
without silver bullet evidence, you're
innocent in the United States. Without
being able to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt, then you're innocent. So for lots
of people, a shadow of a doubt makes it
not beyond a reasonable doubt, which
means you're safe. So that's an
important thing here. With less than
seven people, two or three people were
the masterminds. Two or three people
were the actually engineers involved.
One or two people kind of saw the face
of the man they were helping. But
otherwise, you put a man in a box and
you turn him over three different times
in three different shipping locations,
nobody ever sees the man.
>> They may not even know it's a man in the
box. They're just told, "Here's a box.
Here's a couple hundred bucks. to make
sure nobody knows this box ever existed.
And that's how you move somebody across
a border. It's how you move someone
across a country. It's how you move
somebody, you know, someplace where they
can disappear forever.
>> Where would you take him?
>> Or would you hide him in plain sight
with
>> Everything's hiding in plain sight.
>> Everything's hiding in plain sight. I
wouldn't
>> um medically alter him. I wouldn't put
him through that kind of thing because
now you're involving too many more
people. Now there's doctors,
anesthesiologists. If anything goes
wrong, there's nurses. like, "Holy [ __ ]
you don't want to deal with that." Just
put the guy somewhere where he's not
relevant and then just see what happens.
Uh where I mean, there's lots of great
places to hide somebody where they have
a comfortable life and they're not that
relevant. Like if you just think about
Europe, you've got places through
Greece, Cyprus, um you've got all the
whole Mediterranean kind of area is an
is an area where somebody can be famous
and nobody in that region is going to
even know who they are. You can't put
them in Paris. You can't put him in
Barcelona, but you could for sure put
him in Tissi in Georgia. No one's going
to know the difference. He's going to be
quite comfortable for what, two years,
four years, eight years. How long is it
really going to take before the news
cycle moves on to the next thing? And
that's if you put them somewhere where
nobody's going to recognize them. If you
put them somewhere where you have power,
like if it's the Chinese that helped him
or the Israelis that helped him, now you
can put them in a city in a country that
you control. You just pick a city that's
maybe not a mainstream city. put him in
a small village outside of Jerusalem.
Put him in a small town outside of Non
King. Like, you can put him in lots of
different places to hide him. All you
have to do is kind of tell him, "Hey,
don't [ __ ] this up. We made this happen.
You get arrested a second time. You're
on your own." Now, this is essentially
exactly what happened to Edward Snowden.
They smuggled him country to country and
now he lives perfectly openly in Russia.
And it's not a new method. It's just a
new person.
Now, there's common sentiment online
that Epstein was an asset for MSAD. Uh,
MSAD was working for him or it's common
sentiment that he was involved in every
intelligence agency around the world.
Your rhetoric online has led me to
believe that you think that he was an
access agent for FBI, something along
those lines. But my question is more
like why would Epstein fake his own
death in the first place? because we
still see that Gazain Maxwell is alive
in prison.
>> It's uh I don't really put a lot of
weight between like in Sentiment online
>> because Sentiment online is just a
fool's errand and I have for sure heard
and been part of the debate. Was he an
access agent for Israel? Was he an
access agent for somebody else? For the
Russians, for the Chinese, for you name
it. Was he a covert informant for the
FBI? When I've looked at and considered
them all, the one that makes the most
sense to me is not the Israel one. It's
not the fact that he was an access agent
for Israel. And I understand that there
are some people out there who are very
strong, very adamant he was an access
agent for Israel. We don't know. They
don't know. Nobody has that level of
access. Nobody knows for sure. There are
just as many points of evidence that say
he was an access agent for a foreign
power as there are data points that say
he was an access agent for FBI, which is
considered a covert informant. And when
you think about his rise to power and
the protection that he had against
American law enforcement specifically,
keep in mind, he's an American citizen.
He's dealing with American politicians,
doing business in the American dollar,
traveling across American borders. The
[ __ ] Israelis have no power in the
United States. They have the ability to
project their influence, and they can
project operations, but they don't have
the power to protect an American citizen
from being indicted by American law
enforcement. But FBI does. FBI does. And
one of the chief priorities for FBI at
all times is uncovering corrupt
politicians. So if Epstein built his
kingdom helping rich people hide their
money, and it that for sure included
helping rich people hide their money as
they paid off American politicians. And
then you can look at the long list of
both red and blue politicians that he
knew that went to his island that
communicated with him. All of that
criminal activity that we're all finding
in the Epstein files ourselves. All of
that is obvious to us. So, it must have
been obvious to FBI. So, how in the hell
was he not arrested 20 years ago? Or how
did his first arrest not actually stick?
How did he get away with being in a
Florida jail for 18 months or whatever
it was? How did that happen? The only
answer that I can really come to that
fits my understanding of how our system
works is that they found that he was
just a small fish that could lead them
to a bigger catch. How big could that
catch be? Presidential sized, Senate
sized, congressional sized,
foundation corrupt nonprofit supported
by multiple presidents. How big could it
really be? That's the kind of thing that
that shapes an entire agency's success,
right? If FBI can bring down a corrupt
senior congressperson, that's a big
deal. Far bigger than bringing down one
predator.
>> So if that is true, would it have to be
true then that someone at FBI made some
sort of decision that with his most
recent arrest that decided he needed to
be in jail again? Essentially, what
makes sense to me is that they found out
that the fastest way to get him off the
radar was to put him in jail because you
can't make somebody who's actively
involved in a criminal investigation
just disappear from their hotel. That's
too suspicious. You can't make them die
in a car accident on the way to the yach
club. That's too suspicious. There's too
much of this that's what what's the
media people call on the nose, right?
>> Too much of it's like, "No, that sounds
like a movie plot." But you put some
dude in a prison where there's a history
of him wanting to commit suicide. Where
there's a history of him being attacked
and then he gets killed or dies. Dies is
a better word. He dies and you can say
he or he dies and you can say it's
murder but no [ __ ] buddy says he was
smuggled out, right? That becomes like
an impossibility. What do you mean?
That's that's not like I was one of
these people. It's even ludicrous to
suggest that he was somehow his death
was faked and he was smuggled out of
prison. That's too hard. It's just when
I see the evidence of a wall that's not
supposed to exist, of an open space
that's not supposed to exist. I've I was
in the cell itself, and when you're
standing on one side of the wall, you
can't even be seen from the front
window.
>> Why anybody would engineer a cell like
that at all anyways is a good question.
But why the [ __ ] would you put what is
quite possibly the highest profile case
in a decade? Why would you put him in
that cell where he can't be seen from
the window if he stands in a certain
part of the cell? That's that's bad.
That's bad decision-m.
>> If you had to give a phrase to describe
how people in power stay in power, what
would it be?
>> Stupid [snorts] people.
Stupid people are what keep people in
power. Powerful people aren't usually
smarter than you and me. They just are
able to anticipate the decisions that
stupid people will make. And there's
always a huge group of stupid people out
there. Stupid people waiting to spend
their money. Stupid people ready to
raise their hand. Stupid [clears throat]
people. Like, and I know I'm
oversimplifying it by just calling them
stupid people. Sometimes they're
desperate people. Sometimes they're
uneducated people. Sometimes they're
misled people, admittedly, but I'm
categorizing it as stupid people.
Whether you're talking about why Rome
continued to let people kill each other
in the amphitheater. Why did that happen
in the coliseum? Because tens of
thousands of stupid [ __ ] people would
come cheering to watch two people kill
each other. That's why it happened. And
somehow when the coliseum gets shut down
and when the Romans stop uh exercising
the right for battle like that, now
everybody wakes up and realizes, "Wow,
that wasn't really ethical, was it? That
wasn't really a great idea. Same thing
with corporal punishment or the same
thing with Guantanamo Bay. Like after it
happens, then everybody's like, "Oh
yeah, that wasn't really a great idea,
was it?" So where the [ __ ] were all
those people beforehand?
It's just because there's an ability for
powerful people to be able to predict
and understand what the masses will do.
We give way too much credence, way too
much
responsibility, accountability,
authority. We give too much credit to
powerful people thinking that they're
smart. They're often not smart. They're
just smart enough to know that one or
two smart people can't take them down
when there's an ocean of stupid people
to keep them afloat.
>> Is there anything else on the Epstein
case I didn't ask you about that you
thought was particularly fascinating
that you don't hear anyone speaking
about?
No, I think they the Epstein case is
going to be something that carries on
with the culture that we're part of for
a long time because nobody likes the
idea that somebody so vile
doesn't have a nice clean ending to the
story. A nice clean ending like here's
proof it was here's proof he here's
proof he is dead. And that's what all of
us want from anybody who ples kids is we
want that person to be a neutralized
threat forever and we don't get that. So
that creates in our mind an open
cognitive loop and we keep coming back
to try to close that loop and we never
get to. So this topic continues to get
clicks and this topic continues to be
explored and this topic continues to be
talked about and theorized and whatever
else. Even though there are many smarter
things that we should all be talking
about and focusing on, this will
continue to fester
just because of that open cognitive
loop. And this is one of those things
that powerful, smart people do that dumb
asses like us don't catch on to. There
are better things for us to be talking
about, but we're still talking about
this. Does that make a rich, powerful
person smarter than us? I would say no.
But it makes them smart enough to know
that if you leave one piece of crusty
bread for people to fight over, they'll
fight over it. They'll never ask,
"Where's the fresh bread? But Andy,
surely the Epstein files are the most
important thing to be [laughter] talking
about right now, right?
Surely. I've asked this question uh to
two people, I think. I think it was
Julian Dory and Tucker Carlson. And
something along the lines of
past year we had the Epstein files, the
Iran war, the UFO files. Some people say
that everything the UFO files and the
Iran war were to distract from the
Epstein files. Do you think that's the
case or do you think all of them uh are
a distraction from something else?
>> It's a good question. When you use the
term distract, it implies that there's a
larger architecture. There's a larger
plan. I don't think there's a larger
plan. I think what happens is stories,
news, incidences occur and some of them
are convenient because you can kind of
amplify the noise that they make and
some of them are inconvenient and you
want to kind of dampen the impact that
they have. So I would say this goes all
the way back to the Biden
administration's
support for Ukraine when Russia invaded
in 2022. What was Biden looking for an
excuse to distract people from? His
failed COVID policies that were
destroying the American economy and
corrupting the US dollar. So now all of
a sudden Russia invades Ukraine. That's
a very convenient incident. And then
just you can kind of keep on going from
there. Why was the COVID incident so
convenient? Because 3 to 5 months before
that, China had just forcibly taken Hong
Kong. But nobody remembers that [ __ ]
It's so easy for the masses to be
redirected to focus on the new hot
topic, the new burning issue. Let's not
forget that at some point there were
active indictments against our current
president. Why did we stop talking about
that?
>> Because something else popped up. We're
living in an era now where the news
cycle is faster than ever before. I have
a good friend of mine who's an
investigative journalist and we were
working together in 2022
and I remember two or three things
happened in quick succession and he was
like Jesus man like this is a
once-in-a-lifetime unprecedented news
cycle
>> and then like 3 months later three more
things happened and then 3 months after
that another important and and by the
end of the year he was like I don't
think this is so unprecedented anymore
now this is just the norm and then when
you layer on to the real news, the real
actual changes of the world. When you
layer on to that all the commentary,
opinions, speculation that's happening
through the internet, whether it's
podcast speculation, ex speculation, you
know, shorts, people talking directly to
the camera. Whenever you layer all that
on now, it's just amplifying. It's just
making more and more noise. At CIA, when
we talk about influence operations, we
always talk about two things. We talk
about volume and pace. volume and pace.
And volume does not mean like the
loudness or the the sound of the of the
noise. Volume means the literal number
of stories. We have more volume than
ever before.
And we're moving at a faster pace than
ever before. So like I'm 46 years old.
You're in your late 20s.
>> 25. Yeah.
>> Mid 20s.
The world that you and I both grew up in
when we were 10 years old didn't move at
this pace or include this much volume.
So in just 10 years, just since I've
been since I was in my 30s and you were
in your teens, we've had a huge increase
in both volume and pace. And what does
that mean is going to happen in the next
10 years now that AI is contributing to
both volume and pace. And what does that
mean 20 years from now when the next
evolution of AI happens on top of that
or when X or Facebook or YouTube kind of
acquies to the AI era and they stop
trying to dampen it or prevent it? What
happens then? What happens when whole
new methods of communication have been
created that we haven't even thought
about yet? So we have so much coming at
us all the time. It's hard to navigate.
I do want to ask on media.
In our last episode, you broke down the
idea that major social media platforms
will hire ex CIA agents to ensure that
no one is planning terrorist activities
on their platform and implied that they
might have the ability to limit
unfavorable speech. A more recent claim
by many online is the idea that the CIA
actually creates content to manipulate
the masses, often in the form of XCIA or
FBI agents that go on podcast. And
within that idea, a lot of people have
accused you of being a current asset on
the CIA's payroll. You've said to this
CIA is not my friend. They send me legal
letters. I'm most certainly not part of
CIA.
Okay, I believe you, Andy. But here's my
question. [laughter]
If the CIA did want to manipulate people
through podcast, would they be so
ignorant to do that through an XCI spy?
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the podcast.
If the CIA did want to manipulate people
through podcast, would they be so
ignorant to do that through an ex CIA
spy? I I like the way you're thinking
here more than most people who ask
themselves this question. So, first of
all, for CIA to carry out any kind of
covert operation where the target is
American citizens, that is a massively
difficult thing for the modern-day CIA
to do. Now, I say modern day CIA because
under director Dulles, the original CIA
actively tried to shape Americans
through influence campaigns to get them
to be anti-communist.
Newspapers, TV shows, radio broadcasts,
active active active CIA efforts. 911
changed everything because when CIA
failed to prevent 911 from happening,
the Senate and the Congress stepped in
and basically said, "Hey CIA, you are
incompetent at your job. By the way,
FBI, you are also incompetent at your
job. You both let the greatest
intelligence failure happen in history
because you were too busy, you know,
playing with your own toys in two
separate sandboxes. So, we're going to
step in and force you to cooperate, and
we're going to create this new office
called the Director of National
Intelligence, and we're going to put
both of you underneath somebody else to
make sure this kind of mistake never
happens again. Since then, it's become
incredibly legally complicated for the
CIA to do anything that even comes close
to affecting American opinion, American
policy, American life. And I get it. All
those people out there who love to hate
CIA and love to distrust their
government are gonna tell me that I'm
lying. That's fine. Stupid people do
what stupid people do. The law is clear.
The code is clear. Every FBI officer,
CIA officer, military officer, NRO, NGA,
they all will tell you the same thing
that it's incredibly legally difficult
to get anything approved that could
potentially impact an American life.
Even if you have an American that you
know is a terrorist part of al-Qaeda
planning to kill people on American
soil, you still got to jump through
hoops to collect on their cell phone to
surveil them at their address. It's
incredibly difficult to track down an
American citizen. That is why ISIS is
now actively developing lone wolf
operatives that are American citizens
virtually because they know that it's
very hard for the US law enforcement
agencies to collect against Americans.
But it's legal for the CIA to run
propaganda on American citizens.
>> No, it's not legal for them to run
propaganda against American citizens
unless it is approved by a court. But
the process to get that approval is
nearly impossible. Nearly impossible.
Now, what
>> they didn't change with Obama's
legislation in 2018.
>> I think the Obama administration made it
even harder to go after American
citizens or that wasn't 2018. Sorry. I
think it was 2014 maybe. Uh John Kiryaku
had talked about this that there was
something in Cuba where they were
running like uh radio propaganda. Do you
know what I'm referencing?
>> Go ahead.
>> It was some kind of uh radio propaganda.
Maybe it was like Puerto Rico, but it
was like on a US territory. And
>> let me ask you radio signal was going
into Florida. Let me ask you this
>> because you know this is an important
question that not enough people are
asking. When did John Keryaka go to
jail?
>> 2003.
>> Why the [ __ ] does anybody think he has
any idea what's happening in the federal
government after 2003?
He has no [ __ ] idea. He tells a great
story. He's very opinionated. He has his
strong beliefs, the beliefs of a
whistleblower, but he lost access in
2003.
I am fully admitting I lost access in
2013
when I left. I'm still 10 years more
current than he is and I never heard
about any of this.
>> Right. So, was there a propaganda
campaign happening in Cuba that was a
targeting American citizens? If it did,
I don't know about it. And neither does
[ __ ] John. He just, for whatever
reason, isn't saying it that way. The
CIA that I left had a very difficult
time getting anything through a court
against an American citizen. Even with
the Patriot Act, even with proof, even
with layers of documentation that are
required to be approved, not only by
leadership, but also by court systems,
it's incredibly difficult. And then the
stuff that did get approved still got
turned back a second time because John
when he whistleblue on Guantanamo Bay
and torture torture efforts. Same thing
with Edward Snowden when he whistleblow
the public court had a different
conclusion than the private courts the
secret courts. So even though secret
courts people went through the process
they spent years making a case and
secret courts approved of the case. Even
then it was overturned by public courts.
Whether you like that or not, that's up
to you. But the point is there's a
process and the process is difficult. So
if CIA wanted to run some kind of
influence operation specifically on
American citizens, that idea would die
in court and most likely the people who
drafted that idea would have been like
stuck into a basement, fired. The
original request would have been burned
three different times. They would never
want that kind of thing to ever reach
the light of day, right? Very different
than the old school CIA that came up
with an idea of like killing people in
Florida and faking it as the Cubans. We
live in a whole different era than what
people want to believe. They want to
believe that CIA is some rogue agency
just out there doing its thing. No, CIA
serves under the executive branch. The
only thing rogue about it is that it
goes and does whatever the [ __ ] the
president tells it to do. And we're
changing our president every four years.
That's the problem with the CIA right
now.
>> You had a second part to your question.
>> Yeah.
>> Would they be so stupid to use a former
CIA officer to be the one that was the
voice of their propaganda?
I think this is like an excellent
sound point.
Why? Of all the people that you think
would be above suspicion, do you really
think a former CIA officer would be
above suspicion? No. It would be the
worst person to choose to be the voice
of pro-CIA anything. If one person would
be a horrible choice to be the voice of
any kind of propaganda operation because
you're putting all your eggs in one
basket. If CIA really wanted to run a
covert influence campaign against the
American citizens, they would run it the
same way they run covert influence
campaigns against foreign governments.
They would find 12, 15, 25 different
faces, different genders, diversities,
ages, backgrounds, everything. Right?
Here's a oneeyed black guy. Here's a
partially [ __ ] white guy. Here's
like a beautiful woman. Here's a short
[ __ ] woman. And they would all go out
and they would all promote on their
platforms and campaigns with the same
message. And then as each of them grew a
million followers each, there'd be 10
million followers between all of them
promoting the same message without
anybody being able to point a finger at
all of them. putting out one former CA
officer like me and being like, "Oh,
we're going to put all of our money on
Boo Damonte." Bamante couldn't become a
case officer. Uh Boo Damonte didn't have
a great career. Uh Bamante left early.
Let's make him the voice of CIA. That's
a [ __ ] stupid idea. Same thing with
Karyaku. Let's find the guy who went to
jail for whistleblowing on our secret
operation, who still doesn't really
believe in us, uh who can't get a job
because he's a felon. Let's make him the
voice of CIA. [ __ ] no. It's not going to
happen. What kind of person would you
choose, though? Like, do journalists
make the best spies? Journalists are
often accused of being spies because
their skill sets are so similar. They
ask questions, they find sources, they
protect sources, they create stories,
they take pieces of disparate
information and weave them into a story
that people understand. It's the same
job as an intelligence operator. The
only difference is that journalists do
it because they're trying to inform the
public. case officers and CI officers do
it because they're trying to inform
policy makers before the public. Same
skill.
When you're talking specifically about
who would make the best influencer,
that's really what you're asking. If
you're trying to carry out a covert
influence mission, you need someone who
can create influence or somebody who has
influence. So, it's much easier to find
somebody who already has a platform,
somebody who already has a voice,
especially if the voice and platform
that they have are already in line with
the message that you're trying to
promote, right?
>> That's who you want. And then you just
amplify it from there. The way the
Russian and Chinese covert influence
works inside the United States is that
the Russians and the Chinese will find
existing niche groups that already have
existing conflict, existing issues,
whether it's Islamophobia or whether
it's women's rights or whether it's woke
or whatever it might be. They find it
and then they create cutouts, corporate
cutouts, sponsorship cutouts, you name
it. They create cutouts and through
those cutouts they fund the debate. They
fund the argument on both sides. And all
they're doing is they're creating more
volume of the existing issues. And
because the people they're funding
already have this zest and this zealatry
for what they believe in, they don't
even have to convince them. It's like,
"Hey, yeah, you know what? You already
don't like the American government.
We're just going to give you $100,000
over the course of four months to amp up
your platform about why the government's
so bad." and here's this other person
that has a platform that says that
anybody who hates the government is
anti-American. So, we're going to give
you $100,000 over the next four months
to just amp up your platform. So, now
these two people who maybe only had
150,000 followers over the next four
months they triple in size. Their voices
get bigger. The conflict gets larger.
And all anybody who's listening is is
asking themselves is, "Oh [ __ ] do I
trust my government or do I hate the
people who don't trust the government?
Which one do I do?" Neither of those
being the question we should really be
asking.
>> That's an interesting one. I think it's
a really good point that people can get
wellunded and support a cause without
knowing who they're being funded by and
what cause they're actually supporting.
>> It's not even a thought. It's empirical
evidence. Right? If you just look at the
Department of Justice records for the
last 12 months, you're going to find
about two dozen politicians from across
politicians from across the United
States who have fallen victim to
becoming unregistered agents of foreign
influence. Meaning that a foreign
country working through some kind of
cutout was supported by the American
politician to reach their foreign goal.
So whether that's like what happened to
the uh former mayor of New York who
secured a real estate deal on behalf of
the Turks across the street from like a
fire department in New York. He didn't
even know he didn't even know that the
money he was being paid to close this
real estate deal was originating from
Turkey.
>> And that happens all over the place.
That happens with legislation. That
happens with real estate. That happens
with investment deals. It happens with
technology deals. happens with, you
know, second and third round venture
capital. There are not enough people
vetting the source of the money that
they're being offered. And when you
don't vet the source, you become liable
to wherever that money is actually
coming from. And if you're an
unregistered agent of a foreign actor,
that's breaking law.
Clearly, you don't think John Kiryaku
still works at the CIA,
but do you think it's possible that
he's funded by some source that's not
100%? He's from the time he left prison
in 2016 to 2024, he was funded by the
Russians. That's crystal clear. That's
documented. That's overt. Russian state
controlled media wrote the checks for
John Kiryaku
until 2024.
Who's writing the checks now? We don't
know. Could it still be Russian
stateowned media?
I don't think there's enough people
asking that question. But who is writing
the checks now? And when I debated him
on Julian Dory, with Julian Dory and
Danny Jones in the room, when I
challenged him on this fact, his
response was, "Somebody's got to write
my checks." So clearly the guy does not
have an ethical foundation for what he's
doing now. Maybe he left his ethics, you
know, on the cutting board back when he
whistleblow on CIA, but now he's a total
unknown. We don't know who he's
representing. We know he's representing,
you know, his own case. But who else is
he representing? We don't know. But he
speaks with a [ __ ] ton of confidence
about what he knows. He got on Julian
Dory's podcast what four days before the
Iranian invasion and very clearly said
that I have sources in the White House
who said that they're going to attack on
Monday or Tuesday and then they didn't
attack on Monday or Tuesday. They
attacked on Thursday that or Friday.
Either way,
who in their right mind would have reach
into the White House, get on the
internet, and then disclose their access
to White House secrets publicly. A
whistleblower would do that. Sure, if he
wants to keep in line with
whistleblowing, but he's not helping the
American people by doing that. Remember,
whistleblowing is all about highlighting
a grievance and injustice against the
American people. It's not about
highlighting an injustice against the
Iranians. So, why is he doing that? But
why is he saying that? How does he have
that access? Where does he get that
information? Is there really a White
House insider who believes that John
Kuryaku is trustworthy to keep secrets?
Is John Kuryaku trustworthy to keep
secrets? I mean, I think there's a
reason that no corporation hires him, no
government hires him because he's proven
that he can't keep a secret. He will
dishonor an NDA. He will dishonor a
secrecy agreement if it's something that
he feels is against his personal code at
the time.
So either he has reach in the US federal
government and he is publicly disclosing
that reach putting his friends and
contacts at risk or he's getting that
information from somewhere else maybe
the same place he's getting a paycheck.
When you look at John's messaging
and just his consistent themes in
general like what's your
what do you think is the purpose of it?
>> I don't follow John. I don't really know
what his themes in general are. He's
pretty viral because he
always seems to have a new story to
tell. I would say that's a large part of
it, especially with the Jin Alpha, Jin Z
audience, is they love uh some of his
funny stories with his time at CIA. But
do you suspect some of his stories may
not be fully truthful? Let me do let me
do one better.
I have a number of friends who run big
podcasts. And not that long ago,
somebody interviewed John Kuryaku and
reached out to me. And I just want to
tell you what they said when they
reached out to me. I sent a message and
I said, "Hey man, I saw your recent
interview with John Kuryaku. Great work.
Uh, it was awesome to see his reaction
to your questions." The person gave back
some other responses. I don't want to
throw them under the bus on on camera,
but here's what they said. John, you
never know what is true coming out of
his mouth.
That's not my words. You asked the
question, do you think that what he says
is true? Which means you already have a
question. And now here's another major
influencer saying, you never know what
is true coming out of his mouth.
>> So I would say that in answer to your
question, you're not the only one asking
that question. And my understanding of
what made John Kuryaku viral was that a
Tik Tok clip with laser beams coming out
of his eyes made John Kiryaku viral. And
now he gets to go around telling
stories, saying that he knows things
about current politics in government
that are current even though he was in
jail for 30 months starting in 2004.
It just doesn't add up. But I get it.
Sometimes Gen Alpha doesn't really do
the math.
>> Can you tell a completely madeup story?
>> It's hard sometimes. It's hard because
with someone like me, with John, with
anybody who comes from a trained
intelligence background, we are taught
how to lie. We're taught how to lie
convincingly. We're taught how to how to
persuade. Persuasion being a skill where
you just you create emotion to distract
from the lack of logic. Right? So, we're
trained how to do these things, and it's
very hard when you're going against
someone who's trained to be able to
piece those pieces apart. Fantastic
example of this is Tucker Carlson's
interview with Vladimir Putin. That
[ __ ] interview was brilliant,
not for Tucker. It was brilliant for
Vladimir. Putin did a spectacular job
shaping the whole interview, directing
the whole interview, controlling
Tucker's American audience throughout
the entire interview because Tucker is a
trained journalist. Putin is a trained
intelligence officer.
He knows how to distract from logic by
persuading with emotion. He knows how to
tell a story. He knows how to weave a
tale. He knows how to to bring in
history and make it applicable and
exciting in the current day. Meanwhile,
Tucker just sat there quiet. Tucker was
just the channel for Putin to have
access to 15 million conservative
Americans at a critical time in the
Ukraine war.
That's interesting. I think that's
something people don't think about often
is that world leaders often have
a lot of the same training that
intelligence officers have.
>> Not a lot. They don't often have it, but
some of them really do. Right. Putin is
a career
>> Oh, yeah.
>> KGB officer, right? But Xiinping didn't
come from a career in security services
at all. He's what's known as a groomed
princling, meaning his his family line
lineage comes all the way back to to
Maoadong's original inner circle. So his
entire
personal and professional
history was shaped by this
responsibility of cultivating the next
communist regime. It's very different
than here in the United States where
it's like you start out as a teacher,
you end up as president. One day you're
playing the saxophone in college, the
next day you're playing the saxophone,
you know, on the floor in Congress. It's
a whole different ballgame. You get four
years to do your best, and then two of
those years you have to spend convincing
people that you get another four years
to do your best. It's a whole different
world, right?
>> You said on the first day at the CIA,
they tell you how the world works.
and the next day and the rest of your
time at the CIA is about learning how to
operate within that system.
Do you think the CIA told you the truth
about how the world works?
I like I like that question for the same
reasons you like that question because
that is a very cool
twist.
I'm going to say yes. I think they told
me the truth. And I don't think they
told me the truth because I believe in
CIA or because I believe that they would
tell me the truth. I believe that they
told me the truth because if what they
told me was a lie. There's way too much
evidence that I've experienced in my
life even to this day that confirms what
they first taught me. Cuz really what
CIA taught me is that the world's not
fair. That equality doesn't really
exist. People make emotional decisions.
that if you command a person's emotions,
you essentially command their person,
you command their logic, you can control
their decisions, you can for sure
predict their actions, but that's how it
all works. And when you're not part of
CIA, you see that everywhere. I mean,
you saw that in your first job, you saw
that in high school. Some people get
really wise to it when they're in middle
school and they learn to kiss the
teacher's ass and do all the extra
credit and they learn how to have top
cover. They learn how to get a C on a
test, stay after class, ask a few
questions, do a little extra effort, not
actually get smarter, but get that C
turned into an A. Like some people, it
just comes naturally. But I'm not one of
those people where it comes naturally.
I'm one of those people that was like,
that's just unfair.
I'm still not going to stay after class.
That's some crazy [ __ ] I'm going to go
play in the river, right? But it's
unfair. And I used to get so upset about
it being unfair. And that's a big part
of why I joined the military. I joined
the military because the military
message taught me that you can come
fight for your country and you can fight
evil and villain and you can bring honor
to yourself and your family. So I joined
the military. Military didn't work that
way.
>> Military is just another version of high
school with rank and camouflage and
guns. That was pretty much all the
military was, right? So, I'm frustrated
and frustrated and frustrated and I join
CIA and the first thing CIA does is
validate
all of my pre-existing frustrations.
They're like, "Yeah, world's pretty
[ __ ] up. It's not really fair. Honor
doesn't really matter for much in the
United States or most places in the
world. Leverage is the most important
thing. Human beings are dumb and
predictable. If you can control the
masses, you can make amazing things
happen. If you fight a one-on-one
battle, it's very inefficient." That was
what CIA taught me. And then they taught
me the systems and the tools and the
techniques to do exactly what they said
would work. And now here I am still
carrying the same techniques out whether
it's on a show like this or in my
business or when I negotiate a deal or
when I create a new product. I'm still
using all the same tools, all the same
techniques and it works. So I don't
think they lied to me that first day.
But great question. They could have. I
don't have a follow-up for it. Yeah,
[laughter] I that makes a lot of sense.
And I guess your experience over time
would validate everything that they
would have originally told you.
>> It doesn't validate everything they told
me, but it validates that lesson, right?
Because CIA taught me other things, too.
Like
>> they taught me other things that were
culturally relevant to them, but not
actually relevant in life. Right? One of
the examples is CIA has this saying,
"Nobody cares as much about your career
as you do." And that's something they
teach us because it's their way of
saying, "Hey, if you don't fight your
hardest for an assignment, you're not
going to get it. No one's going to, you
know, reach down from two steps up and
give you a helping hand." And they tried
to drill that into our heads. So when I
left CIA, I was like, "Well, [ __ ] man.
Nobody's going to care about me or my
business or my success as much as I do."
That is not the truth out here. There
are strangely, there are always people
who, for no good reason at all, really
care about you. I don't know why. I
haven't found well I guess I found one
or two but I haven't found many where I
like really care about them for a
completely selfless reason but there are
people like that in the world who really
do care sometimes more about you than
they care about themselves and I don't
understand those people and I'm so glad
that those people exist and I could
learn a lesson or two from those people
but that's something that CIA was wrong
about right and there are other things
too but I've had to learn that through
experience that there's still culture in
my system that is CIA culture and isn't
correct, isn't helpful, isn't accurate,
and I still have to kind of purge that
from my system. Now, in the third
episode of your Discovery Show, you
tried to find out if the government can
actually control the weather. Your team
dug into cloud seating, chemtrails, even
space lasers. Does the government use
space lasers to control the weather?
This was one of my favorite episodes to
explore because the whole idea of
weather control is a terrifying idea. At
first blush, everybody wants to just
discount it, right? Like it's a
ridiculous idea. But if you just take a
second to just even entertain the idea,
you can first see how strategically
valuable it would be if you could
control even something as simple as an
innocent rainstorm. If you could control
that, you could make sure certain
regions have drought and other regions
are plush.
>> You could use it as a negotiation lever
for the Middle East. Guys want rain, we
can make it rain, right? And that's just
a simple like sprinkling rain shower.
[snorts] Now, when you start to think
about things like tornadoes, hurricanes,
you know, earthquakes, tsunamis,
whatever it might be, if you start to
think about that, that's a legitimate
weapon. Well, then in the investigation,
I ended up finding my way back into
history and finding that there were
already programs, especially during the
Vietnam War, that were built, tested,
and successful
in extending monsoon seasons, in
exacerbating existing weather. That's
not the same thing as weather control,
right? That's adding to something that's
already there, but it's a whole step
closer than I ever thought we got. And
then I meet the CEO for Rain Maker and I
learn about the cloud seating operations
and I go on site and I actually see an
area that's actively seating for clouds.
And it's still doing the same thing we
were doing in Vietnam. It's still adding
to something that was already there. But
it works. It works so well that now
people are suspicious that it works too
well. That it creates floods, not just
creates rain. that it creates
exacerbates natural disasters rather
than actually helping human beings. So
yes, weather can be manipulated, but can
it be controlled yet? I don't think so.
But what's the first step that you would
want to prove before you invest more
money into controlling the weather? You
would want to first prove that it can be
manipulated
>> and it couldn't be stopped.
I would be willing to bet that there's
if there's something you can put in the
sky to make a cloud, it would make sense
there's something you can put in the sky
to take a cloud apart, right? Not that
different from you make something too
salty, you add another ingredient to cut
the salt down. So, it would make sense.
But with all weapons, nobody creates the
defense first. They always create the
offensive capability first. They create
the nuke before they create a way to
stop the nuke. They create the poison
before they create the antidote, right?
They create the bullet before they
create the bulletproof vest. That's just
the way it works. Because once you have
the advantage, then you can leverage the
advantage against an enemy who's
completely unprepared. And while you're
leveraging the advantage, you can be
actively investing in the solution.
In January this year, the US captured
Venezuela's President Nicholas Maduro
and pulled him out of the country with a
few Americans getting hurt. There were
reports that Maduro's own guards
suddenly got violently ill that night.
Many said they were throwing up, felt
disoriented, and even reported having
nose bleeds. On episode 6 of your show,
you looked into directed energy weapons,
even tied them to Venezuela. Do you
think the US used directed energy
weapons to capture Venezuela's
president? I don't personally believe
there's enough evidence to conclude that
directed energy weapons are being
actively employed by US forces.
I know that sounds like a very
qualifying specific statement and that's
on purpose because to your point, I
don't believe the reports that are
coming from Venezuela are true.
If elements of them are true, I don't
believe it's because of a directed
energy weapon. And Venezuela is a it was
and still is in many ways kind of a [ __ ]
show. You had the president Nicholas
Maduro being protected by Cuban
mercenaries on a Venezuelan compound
that had Venezuelan military forces in
like a support role. So who's really
reporting, you know, bloody noses and
blood from ears and falling to their
knees and losing consciousness? Who's
reporting it? Is it actually a
Venezuelan military or is it Cuban
mercenaries? Or is it nobody? It's just
a story that was made up somewhere along
the line because some influencer in Cuba
or Venezuela was like, "Oh, let's make a
story up." What we know is that this
unverified, unvalidated message was
amplified by the White House press
secretary. When that happened,
everything went crazy
>> because that
>> that was one that was the day after the
the reason that this whole story went
viral was because the White House press
secretary shared it on X.
>> This is Caroline Levit and she stepped
down recently, right?
>> Uh I'm not sure on that status, but
that's where it came from. That's what
made this a viral message. It was
unsubstantiated, unproven, and literally
all she did was just share a post that
some Venezuelan posted, some other
American right-wing influencer posted.
It wasn't even an analysis. It wasn't a
statement or a comment. It was just a
repost. And her statement, her addition
to the repost was, "Everybody should
stop and read this." So to your point
about the speed of media and what can
you trust and my point about volume and
pace, so much noise, so much information
so fast that when we hear from a
credible voice like the White House
press secretary that we should stop and
read this, we all just assume it must be
true.
>> Would you say that's unethical if it
were true?
>> Ethics are uh ethics are not the thing
you want to talk about with me. I think
>> would you say it's possible? [laughter]
Would I say it's possible that
>> a directed energy weapon would be used
to capture a president?
>> I think it's possible that directed
energy weapons exist. I think it's
possible that directed energy weapons
are actively being employed by our
adversaries, possibly even against us. I
do believe many of the reports about
Havana syndrome. I do believe that there
are all sorts of strange ailments that
are
recurring in people in areas of
sensitive information and sensitive
access. I 100% believe that those things
are real, that what they're reporting is
real, but the source of where it's
coming from is what I don't know. And
I'm I'm being specific in my mind down
to the idea of a directed
energy weapon. If it's just like almost,
you know, if you put a box out in the
middle of a street and you just turn it
on and it's not directed, it's just
emanating in all directions,
that's not a directed energy weapon, but
it is an energy weapon. Right? If
something uses microwaves versus radio
waves versus something else, X-rays,
that's a energy weapon, but is it
directed? And then you've also got these
ideas like it what if something is
present in the workplace,
right? What if there's an active effort
to radiate a place with some kind of
energy, but then at home a separate
thing triggers the radiated energy that
was presented in the workplace.
>> Is that a thing?
>> Anything's possible, right? Anything's
possible. And what I know from my time
at CIA is that it's very common for us
to build a weapon by taking piece A from
one country and peace B from a different
country and then putting them together
in a third country location and now you
have a weapon that neither country
actually built.
So it wouldn't be a new strategy. It
wouldn't be a new form of tradecraftraft
for them to do the same kind of thing
with an energy oriented weapon. So could
there be a directed energy weapon? Yes.
In my investigation, I saw prototypes. I
was taught the science by people who are
much smarter than me and much more
scientific than me. I heard eyewitnesses
to Havana syndrome themselves explain
symptoms that were in line with what
researchers would tell me these directed
energy weapons would do. The thing is,
nobody actually saw a directed energy
weapon that had the same effects that
were being reported. We can see them in
like LRADS and you can see heat weapons
that the military uses for crowd
control. We know they work. We know they
exist. But by and large, they require so
much energy. It's not practical to use
them on a small scale. So what does that
mean? That's the frustrating part about
any investigation is when you don't get
to a conclusion. You just get to the
next question. And that's what people
they don't realize that when you're a
intelligence officer, a police officer,
when you're in the investigation world,
when you're in the information world,
you don't reach many conclusions. The
best you get is assessments. The best
you get is suggestions. The best you get
is probabilities.
>> This is a dumb question, but I think
dumb questions are important. Do you
think something like this has the
ability theoretically to emit enough
frequency, enough energy to be some kind
of weapon?
>> For sure. Not the energy part, but the
frequency part. Absolutely. And
frequency is something that's really
fascinating. Frequency is something that
really became interesting to me about
four years ago when I started
researching strange frequencies that
occur around areas of alien abduction or
reported alien sightings. Again, I'm I'm
a skeptic. So when people pull me into a
project, most of the time I say, "No,
unless you pay me this much, and then
when you pay me this much, I'm still
going to come in and try to poke holes
in everything you give me." Well, some
people still take that challenge and
they pay me and I come in and I look and
frequencies were a legitimate,
strange, unexplainable event. in areas
where people reported seeing aliens, in
areas where people reported being
abducted, in areas where people said
there were like historical demons and
ghosts. There are also these frequency
anomalies, frequencies in the radio
spectrum, frequencies that can be picked
up that change over the course of the
day. Almost always they relate to some
kind of thin area of crust in the
planet. So I don't know whether
something's like radiating out energy
from the core of the earth or whether it
has something to do with the magnetic uh
poles. I have no idea how to explain it.
But the consistencies are real and the
effect that frequency has on human
beings is real. That's why some people
get a little bit motion sick or get a
little bit irritated when they hear a
frequency. Nobody likes the sound of
fingers on a chalkboard. Nobody likes
the sound of a very high-pitched
wheezing in the background. My kids uh
my kids were with me recently in Tokyo
and we were going through like a major
Tokyo intersection and they could hear
the frequency
at a high pitch of all of the TVs and
all of the media in that square because
they have young ears. Well, I couldn't
hear it. So, as we're crossing the
street, they start covering their ears
and complaining about the frequencies
that they're hearing and I don't hear
them. But that doesn't make it any less
real for them. So, frequencies can
absolutely bother you. And that little
phone that can throw out a frequency
that can throw out a frequency that's
binaural that helps you or it can throw
out a frequency that hurts you.
Entertain that one for me. Uh when you
walked away from I think you went to
Skinw Walker Ranch to investigate that
and I can't remember the exact hertz
that the frequency was emitting in that
area, but
>> 1.6 GHz. I'm pretty sure it was
>> 1.6 GHz.
>> And 1.6 GHz is fascinating because 1.6 6
GHz is also the same frequency, the same
band that's used for satellite
communications
between the Earth and space. So that's
how
Starlink is communicating. That's how uh
military assets are communicating that
are American assets. Arguably that same
band because it's got the right
frequency to pierce through multiple
levels of atmosphere. That would also be
the same frequency that's being used for
Russian satellites and Chinese
satellites and whatever else is up
there. So essentially we've painted the
whole sky with this specific band of
frequencies.
Well, if that frequency also is
effective on the human biological
system,
then just like I was telling you about
what if you were radiated office but
then triggered the radiation at home.
What if we're all walking around being
exposed to 1.6 to 6 GHz. But in certain
areas of the planet, there's also an
energy that's coming from the core that
when those two energies mix, it makes
you see a ghost. It makes you feel faint
or lightheaded. It makes you
hallucinate. What if that's what's
happening? The place that this really
came to a head for me was with the idea
of skinwalkers. Skinwalkers are this
Native American belief, this kind of
demon that passes through plains of
existence. It's kind of a wacky idea to
a western mind, but to a a a native
mind, it helped explain a lot of the
scary things that kind of went bump in
the night back in the day.
>> Well, these skinwalkers often get
reported at high frequency in specific
areas. One of those areas is in Navajo
Nation in an area called Satan's but I
went to Satan's but when I was on
Satan's but I found no radio frequency
anomalies at 10:00 in the morning when
it was me and one other guy.
We go back. I meet with the team. I'm
like, "Hey guys, there's nothing there."
They're like, "Really? So many people
report something." I was like, "Come on,
grab the whole team. We'll all come
prove it." We go back to the same
[ __ ] spot at 3:00 in the afternoon
and there's radio frequency anomalies at
1.6 GHz. What happened? What was the
difference between 1:00 and 3:00? So,
time of day changed. Yes, the weather
didn't change that much. Time of day
changed. Maybe whatever was in the sky
at the time changed.
Number of people changed. So, is this an
example of like a collective
consciousness effect? Because remember,
human beings are just batteries. So did
10 people being above this specific spot
in the geo like geological anomaly
itself. Did the number of people affect
it? Two people wasn't enough power, but
10 people is enough power. Biological
chemical power? Did something else
change? Was it my human error with the
machine itself? I don't know. But now
I'm going to sound like the skeptic
here, but wouldn't a you you implied
that a satellite was the thing that
emitted that frequency. So, couldn't a
satellite have just moved its location
around that time on a
>> except do you know how fast a satellite
moves?
>> How fast?
>> Like tens of thousands of miles per
hour,
>> right?
>> So, a satellites passed us in fractions
of a second. So, I agree like there's a
part of me that wants to be like, "Oh,
that's easy. There's just a satellite
parked up there emitting a signal." But
they they move so fast around the Earth.
Like, they'll they'll pass around the
earth three times in a day. So, that
means they're cruising. They're moving
fast, way faster than a plane. So, how
do we see this consistent signal? Could
it be 10 satellites? Could it just be
that we're triangulating an area right
now where that signal happens to be
something that we can pick up? I don't
have an answer. I don't have an answer.
But I will tell you this. When I took
three Navajo Nation
natives who live in Navajo Nation to
Satan's, but when they didn't want to go
to prove to them that there's nothing
strange about the area and then I show
them, well, that's strange. Something
weird's happening right now. They
[ __ ] create like game over. They're
like, "We told you. We told you there
was something about this area that was
evil, that was dark, that was
villainous." And now you have your fancy
machine that's telling you there's
something about this area that isn't
normal. And they were themselves the
ones that were like, "Maybe it's just
because you actually have Navajo at this
spot right now." Maybe you white people
don't have the same effect on our
ancient burial grounds that we have as
natives.
>> Aren't you Native American?
>> I am. And I I always thought I was
Navajo until a Navajo medicine man was
like, "I hate to tell you this.
>> You're probably Pueblo and not Navajo."
[laughter]
>> Gotcha. The next episode of your series
after the uh directed energy one
investigates the origins of CO 19
looking at the potential ways a virus of
its nature could spread into a general
population. I don't want to focus on CO
too much, but just briefly, I'm curious
of your opinion on this. Like, what was
the biggest lie we were told about CO
19? I think the biggest lie we were told
about CO 19 happened very early on when
we were told that it had to do with some
sort of natural spillover, that animals
originated the virus and it spilled over
to human contact.
Biologically, that is possible. What's
not possible is that it happened as
quickly as COVID happened. It takes
generations. It takes multiple species.
I didn't realize any of that prior to my
investigation. I thought, "Oh, it makes
sense, right?" Like a a bat is eaten by
a badger. The badger is cooked by a
Chinese guy and eaten later on by a
Chinese gal in some wet market and boom,
we've got CO. It sounds ridiculous, but
that's what we were told and that's what
a lot of us believed. When genetic
scientists actually looked at it,
they're like, "Yeah, what happens is
over the course of like decades or
centuries, the bats that are constantly
eaten by different varieties of badger
start to mutate the badger itself. And
then when that badger is later on
consumed by yet another animal for
decades or more, it mutates that animal
as well. It doesn't just happen in rapid
succession.
And I was shocked because I remember not
only hearing that explanation, but
believing that explanation and then just
kind of damning the Chinese wet markets,
which I've experienced personally before
as kind of cool and gross at the same
time, and then being like, "Ah, well,
[ __ ] something that dirty is of course
going to make make us all dirty." Right?
It's it was like the simple elementary
school, don't wash your hands and other
people are going to get a cold kind of
explanation,
>> right? Something you said in your book,
too. Uh,
I can't remember the exact quote, but it
was something along the lines of like
lies are typically complex and filled
with good storytelling, and then the
truth is often more simple and boring.
Uh,
in that episode, did you
say that it was from a lab leak? Most
likely,
>> I believe that it was from a lab leak.
Coming out of my investigation, what
makes the most sense is that it was a
lab leak. not an intentional lab leak,
but that a lower level biological lab
like a BSL level 2 was carrying out
investigations and experimentation that
should have been happening in a BSL
level 4.
Now, in the United States, there's
strict laws against BSL level 2 carrying
out BSL level 4 experimentation, but
that doesn't exist in China. And because
that doesn't exist in China, American
research institutes will pay for Chinese
labs to carry out research that
Americans want to use. And they'll send
American researchers. And they'll send
American scientists. They'll send
American dollars. And they'll say, "We
are not allowed to use a BSL2 lab, which
comes at a cost of whatever $10,000 a
day."
>> They're telling us we have to use a BSL4
lab, which costs $100,000 a day. So for
that reason, we're going to partner with
the Chinese
and have the Chinese carry out the lab
results for us because not only does
their BSL level 2 lab allow BSL level 4
experimentation, but it costs way less
than our BSL2 level lab. So we have two
reasons now to work with the Chinese.
And then when something goes wrong, it
goes wrong in China
until something like CO happens. When
the thing that goes wrong in China
becomes so viral that it carries from
person to person over oceans over land
and it comes back and bites you in your
own ass. Did you have CO? I've had I
think I I would be surprised if there
are people who still haven't had CO.
I've had CO two or three times. I've
never had CO. You've never had Or maybe
you just you have but you were not uh
affected by it. I don't I don't think I
ever tested positive for it. That's
crazy. Uh, but your book talks about the
uh like trying to figure out what your
own confirmation cognitive biases are.
And I think one I have about CO is the
fact that I've never had it. But I
everyone around me has had it. So it's
like
>> of course it's a thing. I just it it's
hard to get over that bias, you know. Uh
>> once you have it, you'll [laughter] you
don't forget it. At least I mean affects
everybody a little bit differently.
On your show, you investigated the
series of drone swarms, which you said
you think was the second greatest lie
we've been told in regards to the work
you did on your Discovery show. What's
the most surprising thing you learned
about hunter drones? And how advanced
are they in 2026?
>> I mean, are you talking about drones
that are like fire and forget and
>> able to track someone, fire a shot,
something like that?
>> Oh, yeah. Hunter drones.
So drone technology
is relatively I mean it's complicated
technology obviously but it's a
relatively simple concept. A device an
unmanned device goes up and carries out
whatever orders you give it. If you give
it orders to follow a certain signal it
will follow that signal. So you can send
a drone to follow a Wi-Fi signal. You
can send it to follow a telephone
signal. You can send it to follow a
radio signal and it will just track to
that signal. You put a camera on that
thing and now it's tracking and
recording whatever it sees about that
signal until it runs out of battery or
to it runs into low battery and it comes
home. You can send a drone to follow a
certain target and crash into it. You
can send a drone to follow a certain
target and when it's within a certain
range drop a grenade. You can send a
drone to to park in the sky and just
watch everything like a mobile camera,
right? A drone can do a lot of different
things. I think what I was so excited
about in the drone investigation that I
did was two things. One, drones have
weaknesses and we never give them credit
for their weaknesses. Their battery life
is not long and they're still largely
either programmed or controlled by a
human being. So all the flaws of the
human being still carry forward into the
drone itself. So if they make a manual
steering error, then the drone goes the
wrong direction. Or if they program it
wrong, it goes the wrong direction. So I
had to evade a police drone as part of
that investigation. And I was not
looking forward to that. The police were
very confident they were going to track
me the whole time. The Navy Seal, former
Navy Seal, who was helping the police,
who actually controlled the technology
itself, was very confident they were
going to catch me very quickly. And then
the team, the cameramen that deployed
with me were just waiting like they the
joke was this is going to be the biggest
letdown in like television history.
Andy's going to go out in a car 15
minutes later the police are going to
roll up on him because the drone is on
top of him the whole time.
>> That's not how it actually turned out
because the drone is still only able to
see what it can see. It can't see
through walls. It can't see through
garages. It can't see through concrete.
And then CIA taught me how to evade a
surveillance team. A surveillance team
works just like a surveillance drone. So
I was able to execute the same
techniques that I learned at CIA. So I
was able to to demonstrate and kind of
validate the limitations of drones in
terms of their operational capability.
And then when it couldn't find me, it
also ran out of battery. So then the
primary drone had to go back and a new
drone had to deploy. And because I was
aware of my own location, my own uh
environment, I was able to actually see
the two drones swap and use that gap in
time to relocate my physical presence
again. So, it was a really validating
experience to me because all of the
fears that we have about drones are
valid fears. They are transforming the
battlefield in Ukraine. They will
transform the future, but they're not
all powerful. They are scary, but
they're not as powerful as we often
times make them out to be. When you
project that forward onto what happened
in New Jersey and the New Jersey drone
incident and the thing that had so many
people concerned that still had no
explanation where you had Congress
people saying it was a mother ship from
Iran, you had forest rangers saying that
they could see hundreds of lights coming
in from the ocean. You had everyday
citizens saying that they saw, you know,
giant aircraft hovering over military
bases flying in formation. That was a
scary scary time with a scary scary
technology that people didn't understand
and they were getting broken mixed
messages about. We still don't have
complete clarity on what was happening
there. But in my research, what I
believe was happening is that there was
experimentation happening on the
military base and it was not properly
coordinated with local government. For
sure, it was not coordinated across
multiple federal government
representatives and then people just
started panicking and people just
started guessing and nobody had the need
to know to actually answer the question.
The last thing anybody wants to do is
raise their hand and say, "We made a
mistake." So, it's not like the
commander of the base is going to raise
their hand and be like, "Hey guys,
sorry. We were flying classified
aircraft that day." They can't say that
because now people know there's
classified aircraft on that location and
it's public knowledge. And now Chinese
satellites are going to zoom in on that
location, too. So, it was this kind of
total clown car incident. So, you would
say that they're pretty much overhyped
in their capabilities, but I want to ask
on the death of Charlie Kirk. The
mainstream narrative says that Tyler
Robinson shot him with a rifle, acting
completely alone. Others speculate the
shot came from another angle, and some
believed it was an exploding microphone.
Based on what you learned about advanced
drone technology, does the technology
exist right now to do a hit like that
and make it look like a lone gunman?
If it does, I haven't seen it. The drone
technology that I've seen and and I'm
not privy to classified drone
technology. Keep in mind that anything
that we know exists, there's probably
two generations
that are actively being researched and
modified for military and intelligence
purposes.
So, if you and I are drinking water that
came out of a water filter, somewhere
there's technology that pulls water out
of the air. No filter needed. But we
don't even know that exists. That's
science fiction to us, but to other
people it's their whole company mission.
So, for you and me, drones are being
used by police to surveil us. In China,
they're being used to make announcements
down the street that tell people to, you
know, wash their feet or pay their taxes
or whatever it might be. So, that's
where we think drones are oppressing us.
We're worried about flock [ __ ]
cameras on the street corner surveilling
us. Two generations of technology above
that is what's actually being developed.
So, could there be a classified drone
that can fire a
standard rifle bullet and then get off
the X? Is it strong enough to stabilize
itself to handle the recoil for the the
time it takes for the bullet to actually
pass through a long barrel? Maybe. But I
haven't seen it. The science of it from
my experience shooting and my experience
in intelligence doesn't make sense
really.
>> It just doesn't make sense. There would
be too much room for error. And
if it missed, the collateral damage
would be tremendous. It would hit a
civilian college kid in the audience. It
would hit a building. It would be so
wildly inaccurate that the investigation
into the projectile direction wouldn't
even be attributable to Tyler Robinson.
It's just too much too much room for
error. And what people never realize in
all of their speculation and conspiracy
theory is that government, military, and
intelligence don't take high-risk
actions,
>> right? They primarily take actions that
are moderate or controlled risks that
have minimum blowback. Something like
that would have massive blowback,
>> right? Because of the second, third,
fourth order effects of using an
advanced hunter drone, right? What if it
falls out of the [ __ ] sky? What if
anything goes wrong? What if one of the
blades goes haywire and it doesn't even
have to be anywhere near the college
campus? What if a drone just happens to
fall out of the sky in some poor
bastard's backyard and it's got a rifle
barrel on it? In a world where
everybody's on Facebook and they pull
out their phone before they even look at
it themselves, the the risk is
>> too great. You want to test something
like that, give it to the Ukrainians so
they can test it in in Ukraine on the
Russian border. Don't give it to some
wild person who's trying to assassinate
a a largely unknown influencer at the
time. Big in his circles. Charlie Kirk
was massive in his own circles. But by
and large, the most majority of people
didn't know who Charlie Kirk was. Didn't
know what Turning Point was. Didn't know
that there was a guy out there debating
conservative values with young people at
all. He became much more famous after
his death than he was before. But we
forget that.
You've said that take before, have you?
>> I don't know. That's an interesting one.
Something I talked about with people
when it first happened was I was like,
"This is interesting. This is not who I
would think anyone would see as the most
influential of the right influencers,
>> right?
>> But there's a lot of conversations
behind the scenes that I don't have
access to, knowing in his life.
>> That's the problem with all of us.
There's conversations that none of us
have access to. And we live in a
generation where we distrust so much
faster than we trust.
>> So now when there's something we don't
know, it must work against us. It must
be nefarious. It must be evil. it must
be malicious intent. Whereas I think our
parents thought differently. My parents
certainly thought differently. Oh, if
it's something I don't need to know, I
don't have to worry about it. I guess in
a world of flock safety cameras, axon
surveillance, uh their software updates
that allow them to purchase private
cookies and metadata from our phones.
Basically, Flock safety cameras have
installed updates that allow them to
interact with uh some of the metadata
from our phones that can be purchased
from other companies. Uh do you think
assassinations are even possible in the
age of surveillance? Yes.
>> Like to get away with perhaps?
>> Well, that's a different question,
right? Getting away with it without
evidence, it would take a lot of
premeditation, preparation, training. It
would take a team. It would take
multiple people.
The criminal activity isn't going to
end. It's just going to change. It's
going to adapt to whatever the law
enforcement elements are using. That's
the way it's always been. I will say
this, I'm not against flock cameras. I
think flock cameras are more in line
with the future that we all actually
want for ourselves than they are against
the future that we all want for
ourselves. If the United States intends
to remain the most powerful, successful,
wealthiest country in the world, the age
of surveillance is virtually guaranteed.
We will want a surveillance state. We
are already giving permission to every
app that we download on our phone to
collect information on our location, on
our contacts, on our app usage, on our
sleep.
We want it. We just for some reason are
lying to ourselves thinking that oh it's
bad if the government has it but it's
good if Google has it or if Apple has it
or if a big tech company has it. Well,
who the [ __ ] is paying the big tech
company there, guys?
The government. And what does big tech
do with all your information? They sell
it. Sell it to who? The highest bidder.
Who's often the highest bidder? Not our
government. Somebody else's government.
So, who are we lying to in trying to say
flock is bad for us? Who are we lying to
in trying to say that the government
shouldn't collect our personal data? Who
are we lying to when we say that we
shouldn't have cell phone metadata be
available to law enforcement? All we're
doing is lying to ourselves, making
ourselves not only less safe, but
putting ourselves in an economically
disadvantageous
position than our adversaries who have
long ago given up this fight. The
Emirates don't even use police on the
highways. It's all a camera system, and
the camera system reads your license
plate, and your license plate is tied to
your national ID, and your national ID
is tied to your credit card. So, what
happens when you're caught speeding?
your credit card is automatically build
and your driver's license automatically
has points deducted before you even get
to your house, right? So, think about
what that does for the economic
viability of a country. And meanwhile,
what are Americans going to [ __ ] about?
Ah, it's not fair. It's not fair. Like,
I was surveiled on the interstate. No,
you were caught breaking a law driving
too fast. You can't [ __ ] about the fact
that you were caught breaking a law.
When somebody else is caught breaking a
law, you want them to be brought to
justice. But when you break a law, now
all of a sudden it's a violation of your
privacy. Privacy that was actually not
promised to you by the founding fathers.
That was not documented in any kind of
article that has not been protected by
the courts, but that has just become
kind of common vernacular. Oh, we have a
right to privacy. Actually, you have
rights to lots of things. You have no
right to privacy. It's not written down
anywhere.
Benjamin Franklin recommended we write
it down and the other founding fathers
took his recommendation and ignored it.
Why?
>> Because they didn't want the population
to have a [ __ ] right to privacy. The
founding fathers, the beliefs of our
country, they already knew if you give
the people a right to privacy, they will
abuse it. They will use it against the
government. They knew that because
that's exactly what they were doing to
mount the revolutionary war. They were
privately conspiring against the king of
England. If they would have had a right
to privacy, their conspiratorial
meetings would have been protected by
law. The last thing they wanted to do
was give future conspiratorial
teams a chance to undermine the federal
government in a legally protected
category. That's why we don't have a
right to privacy. We have a reasonable
expectation of privacy, but that
reasonable expectation is essentially
contingent on the fact that you haven't
done anything else that allows them to
dig into what you're working on. So if
you break some other law, if you are
become suspicious in some way, shape, or
form of something else that you're
doing, then they can essentially violate
your privacy. But you don't have
>> So you agree with predictive policing?
>> Uh that's a stretch. I'm not saying I
agree with predictive policing. I'm
saying that I believe that a
surveillance state is inevitable for the
United States to maintain its
geopolitical dominance. Predictive
policing, you can't arrest a person who
hasn't committed a crime. If they've
done something that creates reasonable
cause,
>> that's already part of how we operate.
And I think reasonable cause is a sound
effort. I Dude, you're talking to the
wrong guy because I also believe in
profiling. I'm a Latino.
If I'm driving a nice car and some white
cop pulls me over because he's racially
profiling me, I don't [ __ ] care.
Here's my driver's license. Look it up
on your machine. If I'm speeding, give
me a ticket. But you're going to see
that I'm not a criminal. But in my eyes,
good job, Mr. White cop, for trying to
keep the street safe. I don't really
care if you think that I'm the one you
should be following just because I'm a
Latino in a nice car. That doesn't
bother me as an American citizen. might
bother me as an individual, but as an
American citizen, that cop could have
been doing nothing. Could have been
jerking off. Could have been, you know,
scrolling through Facebook, but he
wasn't. He was trying to do what he
thought was right. So, do you suspect to
carry out
something as grandeur as a political
assassination, you would have to be
someone who operates outside of the
system of those being surveiled?
>> Not necessarily. Because surveillance
is an active word.
But what often times happens in mass
surveillance is you don't see what's
about to happen. You don't see it even
as it's happening. It's only available
to you after you dig into the data,
>> right? It's like somebody breaks into a
jewelry store, there's a camera watching
them break in. There's a camera watching
them cross the parking lot. There's a
camera watching them when they pull out
the gun and point it at the teller. but
nobody can do anything about it until
after the footage is reviewed, recorded,
scrubbed, and then brought to a court of
law later on. In the moment, they're
being surveiled, but in the moment,
there's nothing you can do to act on
that surveillance.
>> Again, to clarify the question, uh that
that's super useful, actually, but to
get away with it.
Is that impossible?
>> No, not at all. Not at all. Uh if you
look at if you look at what happened
with the killing of United Healthcare
CEO
>> Luigi Manion,
>> he has a killer. Luigi Manion was the
alleged killer, right? Brian Thompson
was the victim.
>> Luigi Manion did a very very good
amateur job of being under surveillance,
carrying out a crime and almost getting
away with it. Right. He had a ingress
route. He had an egress route. He knew
he was under camera surveillance. He
kept his face covered. He kept his hair
covered. He wore clothes that made it
difficult to identify his body shape,
build, height, etc. He had multimodal
transportation, moved in cars, moved on
foot, moved on bikes. He crossed state
borders. He stayed off the radar.
>> It wasn't police that found Luigi.
It was a person. and it was a a citizen,
a dogooder at a McDonald's that reported
his location. That's what ended up
happening. That's what brought down
Luigi Manion in the modern-day era in
the most populated city in America.
He almost got away with it. So, do I
think people will be able to get away
with it in a surveillance state?
Absolutely. There's going to be new
technologies that are created that
scramble Wi-Fi signals and scramble
cellular signals. It's already possible
now. Like if I steal your cell phone, I
have the ability to use your cell phone
for all of its functionality. I just
have to turn off its ability to lock
itself so it doesn't lock me out. But
otherwise, in the eyes of the law and in
the eyes of the cell phone provider, I'm
you. I can do whatever the [ __ ] I want
and then just drop the cell phone
somewhere, disappear, and when they
recreate all the evidence, there's a
whole criminal case
against you,
not me. That's fascinating.
In episode one of your show, you
investigated the idea of an MK Ultra
style assassin. Basically, can you
brainwash someone to carry out a crime,
commit a murder, perhaps? In episode 7,
you pressure tested whether AI models
and algorithms have the ability to
influence and manipulate human behavior.
to connect these two ideas. Based on
everything you know about AI,
brainwashing, and human behavior, do you
think an algorithm can brainwash someone
to murder?
I don't think you can rule that out. And
I say that because
brainwashing, while it's a term that's
overused, is really nothing more than a
persuasive argument.
And algorithms can certainly create
persuasive arguments. AI agents can
already create persuasive arguments.
Even simple AI agents can create
effective persuasive arguments. So if
the persuasive argument was just built
in such a way to conclude on the logical
inevitability that
you need to kill him or her
fed to the right person, it would work.
And here's why I say that
ISIS is actively leveraging the internet
to find disenfranchised American youth
and radicalize them towards not the ISIS
cause but similar
ideological causes that are like ISIS
because they understand that if they say
ISIS that same American isn't going to
act. So instead it's about it's not
about we love ISIS, it's about we hate
America. and they're radicalizing them
through online forums that are backed by
human beings creating persuasive
arguments. I'm sure there's an AI
element supporting that as well, but
we've already seen that you can
radicalize an American from abroad using
a digital bridge to get them to take
actual lethal action in their home
country,
whether that's driving a car down a
crowded street in Minnesota or whether
that's, you know, doing something else.
So, it's already been proven that the
process works. All you have to do is
really just remove one human from the
equation and arguably that would make it
a stronger equation because now anytime
that human being, that American
disenfranchised youth, anytime they want
to talk, the AI is there ready to talk.
Whereas, if they want to talk now,
whoever's on duty is the one that
they're talking to, right? So there's a
inconsistency that exists in the current
process that would arguably be even more
efficient and effective with an AI bot.
How long do you think it would take an
AI chatbot to brainwash someone to
commit murder?
>> I think it depends more on the person
than the bot. If you're putting somebody
in front of an AI engine who's already
proviolence, already feels
disenfranchised, already feels
desperate, already has a weapon, already
has access to the target, somebody who's
already
compromised their moral and ethic
ethical values, you could do that
quickly. I would argue, especially if
the AI bach got a hold of somebody who
had already had violent ideiation, you
could probably get them to be
brainwashed, convinced, persuaded for
murder in 5 days or less. You can
convince a person to kill
[clears throat] another person,
sometimes in less than 24 hours. All you
have to do is find the right person and
give them permission to hurt the right
person and you're just letting them do
what they already want to do. That
sounds crazy to a person who doesn't
really want to hurt anyone. But I mean,
I don't think you'd have to stretch your
imagination very hard before you know
that there's somebody in your family, in
your circle, in your peer group,
somebody that you've met who's already
itching for a fight. And if they just
had a drink or two and a little bit of
permission, if they just knew the police
wouldn't arrest them that night, would
they punch somebody in the face? The
answer is probably yes. We are a violent
culture. Do you think it's at all
possible that anyone has been
MK Ultra by an algorithm
today? Like, you know, we said general
energy weapons versus directed energy
weapons. How about directed algorithmic
control?
>> I would almost argue that based on the
question you're asking, we all have been
MK altered by an algorithm,
>> right?
>> We all see what the algorithm wants us
to see. We hear what the algorithm wants
us to hear at the pace that the
algorithm wants us to find it.
We've all been MK altered by the
algorithm. Now, does it mean that we are
fully shaped by the algorithm? For the
majority of people, I would say no.
We're not fully shaped by the algorithm.
But we all know people who are. We all
know people who are so zealous and so
radical in their beliefs that even when
the algorithm isn't feeding them
echo chamber information, they're
looking for it themselves. They're so
religious. They're so political. They're
so
anti-establishment. They're so pro-an
animal rights. whatever it might be,
like they are so into it that the
algorithm just feeds them. And when the
algorithm isn't feeding them, they're
looking for it on their own, which is
training the algorithm what to feed
them. That's a fully MK Ultra person
right there. That person who refuses to
believe that, you know, you name it,
that anything Donald Trump ever says or
ever does could possibly be be right.
Like that's a MK ultra person. Person
who fully believes that every homeless
person should die. That's an MK Ultra
person. When you think about the
hundreds of hours of content you filmed
in your Discovery show, uh, all the
research, interviews, experiments you
conducted, what's the most interesting
thing that was deleted from your show?
This one breaks my heart, man. Because
for anybody who's ever participated in
anything on television, so much gets
cut. The rule of thumb is that you film
an hour for one minute of finished
content.
And that's just that just kills me. So
I was super excited to film the entire
Epstein investigation with Julian Dory.
So Julian and I put 12 hours into that
investigation in just one of the five
days that we were investigating it. And
still the episode itself only came out
to whatever 32 minutes of which Julian
was only with me for 28 of those
minutes. But some fantastic
conversations with Julian, some
excellent questions that we couldn't
answer that deserved a whole another
investigation on their own, and we
couldn't dig into those.
My evasion effort against the drones
that were being put up in the air by the
local police force. That was a
three-hour exercise boiled into a minute
and a half of television.
During the COVID investigation, I had
this incredible conversation with a
viologist who first blew the whistle on
the idea that it was impossible for CO
to be due to natural spillover and that
it was highly possible and there was
demonstrable proof that American
scientists were collaborating with
Chinese scientists and shortcutting the
system by using BSL2le labs to carry out
BSL level 4 genetic experiments.
So she had all this evidence, she had
all this proof, we had this incredible
conversation. It absolutely just brought
me to tears to hear not only what she
had discovered, but then to also hear
how the entire scientific and political
community worked against her to
undermine her and bring her down at the
onset of the COVID crisis, only to then
later on admit that she was right and
only later on admit that her research
was sound.
All of this didn't make the final show.
And what's hard about that is I got to
do the investigation. I got to advance
my own understanding and the
understanding of the guests that were
with me and I got to meet the experts
and I got to see the world that CIA
taught me existed
again.
But Discovery Channel had to make a
show. They had to make a show that told
a story that a complete novice could
start on minute one and leave on minute
59.
>> That's the journalist's conundrum. They
have to tell a story. The intelligence
operator is very excited just to
collect, collect and collect and collect
and collect and let me find my own
discoveries and let me make my own
conclusions. I don't need a story. Just
give me information. But part of what
made the Discovery Channel partnership
so strong was I dug in deeper when they
were like, "We got the story we need."
And then similarly, they said, "Here's
the story from the mountain of
information I collected." I couldn't
have done it without them. They couldn't
have done it without me, arguably. So
that's part of what makes a TV project
very rewarding. Yeah, that must [ __ ]
suck, honestly. [laughter]
That's terrible, dude. It's terrible.
Did you get the rights to any of the
content to use for your own channel?
>> No.
>> Before you ever start filming,
>> you actually they have all and it makes
sense. They're doing they're putting
forth
>> all the effort, all the talent. So, all
the content is theirs.
>> Yeah. In chapter 11 of this book, you
write, "The best way to spot a liar is
to give them an opportunity to lie, then
scrutinize their response." If you want
to break down just uh what are the four
techniques CI officers use to catch a
liar? There's many techniques uh I list
four in the book that try to help people
realize it's not rocket science, right?
So you can there all four
essentially elicitation techniques. You
can use something called a false
statement. A false statement means you
know the truth but you say the truth
incorrectly. And the reason that you
make a false statement is because you
want to see how they react to your false
statement. Do they correct your false
statement? which is a sign of what we
call veracity. They're being honest and
correcting what you just said
incorrectly.
>> Or do they agree with your false
statement? Amplify your false statement.
Essentially blow up the lie that you
said and but you don't know whether or
not they're doing that because they are
also trying to lie to you or they just
don't know the truth. So false statement
is one technique.
Another technique is something that we
have called false recap, which is they
tell you something and then you say it
back to them incorrectly on purpose.
The reason that works is because if
they're telling a lie, most likely they
haven't committed that lie to memory.
>> So when you say it back to them
incorrectly, it was already not fact
when they said it. So when you say back
something that's also not fact, what
their cognitive brain hears is, "I said
something that wasn't true. that person
said something that also wasn't true.
Therefore, it's correct. So, you can
actually catch someone in a lie simply
by saying back a statement that they
previously said and just saying it back
wrong. These are elicitation techniques
to test them.
The most effective tool that I've ever
seen is something called the emotional
question. An emotional question is a
question where you ask somebody not
about the fact but about the feeling
surrounding an incident surrounding a a
moment surrounding a situation. Instead
of saying did you come home on time you
say how did it feel to be home on time.
if they were late, they've already
created a story to answer the fact about
being late, but they didn't actually
live the experience of being home on
time. So, because they didn't live
through that experience, they don't have
feelings associated with it. So, when
you ask somebody, "How did it feel to be
home on time last night?"
I wasn't home on time last night, but if
I was, it would have felt good. It felt
good. Like you can literally see the
story being created in their mind
because they haven't come up with the
feeling of the falsity, but they've come
up with the facts to cover the falsity.
So there's all these different
techniques that you can use to dig into
a lie. Why can't liars fake an emotional
response? They could if they put time
and effort into preparing for the
emotional response. What happens is all
of lie detection really just boils down
to reactions. It boils down to efforts.
When you're trying to catch a liar, we
logically think that catching a liar is
a logical process. It's actually not.
>> The liar always has the advantage in a
logical process because they've had time
to premeditate the lie, the response,
the story. They've practiced it in front
of a mirror. They've thought about it as
on their drive to come see you.
You can't out logic, especially not a
good liar, because they've prepared for
it. They're prepared to look you in the
eye. They're prepared to smile. They're
prepared to stay confident. They've
prepared for it all. And all of that
preparation happened on their left
logical brain.
The only way that you're going to beat
the liar is by getting them into their
right brain, their emotional brain,
their creative brain, because all that
preparation was happening in the left
brain. The way you get them in their
right brain is that you talk to them
about how it felt.
How did it feel when? How did it feel
after? How did it feel right before? You
know, did you cry? Did you laugh?
Something like that. Because the human
brain when it rehearses something, it's
living what you rehearse. That's what
makes acting so powerful. They're
reading a script, practicing a script,
rehearsing the script, carrying out the
emotions that they felt in the script.
They're putting themselves in the role.
So now when you ask Will Smith,
how did your character feel in that
moment? He'll tell you the truth because
he's thought through it all. He's lived
through it all. Really actually lived
through it. But a liar hasn't lived
through the falsity that they're
explaining. That didn't actually happen.
They didn't live through it. If they
would have lived through it, there'd be
automatic feelings, but they didn't. So,
the feelings are absent. So, the
superpower that we all have is finding
the effort that the liar is putting into
the emotion. The problem with putting
effort into a fact is that sometimes we
honestly just forget. I promise you,
there's factual questions I can ask you
and and you can try your hardest to tell
me the truth, but it's going to take
effort. What did you have for breakfast
yesterday morning?
nothing.
>> Like you had to think about it for a
second, but that doesn't mean that
you're lying. It just means that you're
actually trying to stretch your mind to
remember what you actually had.
>> H Did I actually have nothing? Or did I
maybe have a muffin?
>> Oh, did I have a banana? I had coffee.
Should I say coffee? Like all that's
happening in your brain.
>> Is that a reliable technique? Observing
how much people are thinking before they
speak.
>> It's only reliable if you're asking them
emotional questions. Because if you're
asking them fact-based questions, the
effort they're putting into it is to
come up with the truth.
Do you get what I'm saying? Explain that
to me slightly differently. Like I guess
like as a interviewer on podcast, like
when I watch people, it seems like some
people like think about my questions and
some people don't think about the
questions. Uh that doesn't necessarily
mean they're lying. So So there's two
CIA teaches us that there's essentially
two types of people. There are many
types of people, but for simplicity
sake, there's people who process quickly
and there's people who process slowly,
mentally process. A person who processes
quickly can hear information come in and
they process that information quickly
and they give you a response. That
doesn't mean they're lying. It also
doesn't mean they're telling the truth.
It just means that they're able to
process the information and process a
response. Similarly, there's people who
process information slowly. They process
the inbound, but then they take
additional processing time to process
their response. That doesn't make them a
liar. It also doesn't make them honest
either. So, the first thing you have to
do whenever you're trying to detect a
lie is understand who you're talking to.
It's what we call a baseline. Are they a
fast processor? Are they a slow
processor? M once you know if they
process fast or slow then you can start
probing with questions like emotional
questions with efforts like false recap
or or false statements you can use these
techniques to start measuring the delta
the variation in the effort that they
now need when they're trying to respond.
So a person who's a fast processor who
responds quickly and then you ask a
question and they slow down that could
be a sign of deceit. a person who
processes slowly and then you start
asking them a false recap question, they
respond quickly. That's a deviation that
you should pay attention to. And then
for sure when you stop asking logical
fact-based questions and you start
focusing on emotional questions, you
should expect a liar will slow down
because it's very difficult for them to
create a false story around an emotion
that never existed. So that takes effort
and it slows them down whether they're a
fast processor or a slow processor. The
challenge is if you ask a fact-based
question, they're going to be able to
answer it at their normal pace,
>> right? So let's talk about something
that only you know, right? Only you know
if it's true or false. Only you know if
you're playing it's, you know, 90% true,
10% false. So this is you have all the
advantages in this exercise. You with
me?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. So first I'll ask I'll ask
fact-based questions just so we can see
how you lie if you lie at all. Um
what time did you go to bed last night?
>> So I'm supposed to tell the truth or I'm
supposed to lie?
>> You can do whatever you want to right
now. I'm just going to ask fact-based
questions. 302 302. It's a very specific
number
because it's so specific. It makes me
lean towards the fact that you're
probably lying. There's a chance that
you're telling me the truth because
maybe last night was just a night that
you were actually looking at the clock.
But that level of specificity is very
suspicious to me. Also, you are a slow
processor and you answer the question
very quickly.
>> The entire interview is very clear.
Every interview you're on, it's very
clear that you process slowly. Right.
For that reason, some reason you
answered that that question very
quickly. So, next question. What's your
favorite book that you've read recently?
>> You got me, Anthony.
>> You see how you [ __ ] process slowly
though,
>> right?
>> You're thinking about it.
>> That gives me high confidence that
you're thinking about the truth first.
>> Maybe you're going to give me a lie. But
right now, this is very much in line
with the baseline that is Jack Neil.
>> Thoughtful, steady, stable. You're not
looking all over the place like you were
for the 302 answer. You're you're locked
in looking off in the space in
chronological order trying to decide
what did I read. Maybe you're
embarrassed because you haven't read
anything recently. I don't know. But
you're you're you're running into fact
right now.
>> It would technically be your book uh we
[laughter] have here. That's why I said
you got me and
I was like this smart good marketing
[laughter] method. Uh, so another quick
fact-based question because these have
all been fact-based question, not
feelings based questions. All right, so
fact-based questions. Uh, what what car
did you drive to get here today?
>> I didn't try.
>> Seems like a factual statement. Maybe
somebody else drove. Maybe you rode in
an Uber. That seemed like an honest
answer. Now, let's [clears throat] talk
about feelings based questions. All
right.
Did you wake your wife up today or did
she wake you up today? [ __ ] Uh,
I probably woke her up.
>> So, you probably woke her up. You don't
exactly remember?
>> I don't think she would say I woke her
up, but I I'd say I don't think she
would know that I woke her up, but I
probably woke her up.
>> How did it feel when you saw her this
morning?
Right now, there's effort. And I don't
know why there's effort, but there's
effort.
>> For all I know, you guys had morning
sex, and you just don't want to say that
in front of the camera, but there's
effort holding back. Your face went
bland. It's This is great to play it on
the replay. You can actually see the
muscles in your face. Relax, which takes
effort when someone's talking about
feelings. Because generally, if it's a
happy feeling, you'll start to smile. If
it's a sad feeling, you'll start to kind
of furrow your eyebrow. Like the the
face will react to the first emotion it
feels. So, the effort that you're
putting into answering my question about
how it felt to see your wife this
morning makes me already distrust
whatever answer is going to come out of
your mouth next. There's something that
you're covering up. Whether you're
covering up that you don't know, you're
covering up that you forgot, or you're
covering up that you had morning sex, I
don't know what you're covering up, but
there's something that's being covered
up. I was going to say confused was the
emotion because I didn't know if she was
awake or not. Um, but I couldn't tell if
I was waking her up by doing it. But
Huh. Let's keep going. Let's keep going.
Uh, did you eat dinner last night? No, I
wouldn't call it dinner. So, you didn't
eat breakfast or dinner yesterday?
Well, I had food. Yeah. [laughter]
Did you pick the food or did she pick
the food or did somebody else pick the
food?
Damn, I'm pretty hard to have a
conversation sometimes. [laughter]
I mean, I the the honest answer is that
I think we ate around 11.
Uh, and it was she made me a sandwich. I
probably call that a sandwich. Yeah.
[laughter]
How does it feel to not remember what
you ate the day before?
>> I don't give a [ __ ] Yeah, that's a lie.
>> Really?
>> Yeah. You could see it on your face. It
bothers you. It bothers you. You feel
embarrassed. You feel self-conscious for
something.
You feel something negative about your
schedule, your lifestyle, your habits,
your health. There's something negative
there because you completely broke your
baseline to answer that question.
>> I I would have guessed that that was
just a strong belief that bled through
in the movie.
>> Maybe you do believe it, but that
doesn't mean that's true. Maybe you do
believe that you don't give a [ __ ]
>> but you actually do feel differently
about it.
So th this is what makes lie detection
so much more complicated than what you
see in the movies and what you're told
in an 11minute YouTube video. You have
to know the baseline. You have to
measure deviations from the baseline.
You have to have a strategy for that lie
detection going in. Right now I'm just
popping off random questions.
>> But for the people watching, they're
able to see even better than you can how
different your response is from question
to question. how some of those questions
froze you and you couldn't even speak.
Other of those questions you just spit
out an answer and it seemed completely
different from the persona that you are
all the time. So that does that mean I
have high confidence in my answers? No.
But it tells me that there's a there's
clearly a deviation between when you are
trying to come up with an idea, trying
to process an answer, and when you're
just spitting something up off the top
of your head. H
>> do I know yet whether or not the
spitting off the top of your head is a
lie or the processing is a lie? I don't
know for sure, but the deviation from
your baseline is very clear.
Right. That's interesting. And and
something people don't realize too is
that like the same thing that you would
detect like there's a straight up lie
and then there's a halftruth and then
there's like what is it? Pottering.
Partering. Do you know that word?
There's different words that are used by
different some psychologists, law
enforcement, CIA, but we essentially
think there are three types of lies.
There's white lies,
>> bold-faced lies, and lies of omission.
White lies are innocent lies. Boldfaced
lies are full fictional untruths, and
lies of omission are when you just leave
out certain details.
>> And then there's like the manicured
version of it that's like crafted with
certain adjectives in a way to see how
it's
>> Well, it depends on whether or not
that's a bold-faced lie, right? Right.
Is it are you crafting something that's
a complete fabrication or are you
crafting something that's just a small
deviation from that? That would be a
white lie. But you are correct. There's
different types of lies. There's
different intentions behind lies, right?
Sometimes we lie just because we don't
want to get into details. We just want
to move on. Sometimes we lie because we
honestly think that we're smarter than
the other person. Sometimes we lie
because we think we're helping the other
person by lying to them because they
can't be trusted with the truth or they
couldn't handle the truth or they won't
be happy with the truth. So lying is a
is a far more complicated thing than me
give it not black and white. Um
on like human intelligence uh
is there any one technique you use
regularly that is classified because
it's tradecraft? I don't think so. And
the and the thing that I'm really
thinking about right now is the term
classified.
I don't think anything I do on a daily
basis is using a classified technique.
And I say that because one of the things
that was always so shocking to me about
CIA is the techniques are not
classified.
That's how I teach them now. That's how
I teach them to you. It's how I wrote
this book. the foundation of so much
tradecraftraft
activities, so many tradecraftraft
skills, the foundation for those
tradecraftraft skills when it comes to
how you engage with people, how you
engage with your environment, how you
keep yourself safe, those are all
actually based in academic research. And
as academic research is updated and
changed, tradecraftraft changes. The
stuff that's really classified are
sources of intelligence, the human
beings, the databases, and the methods
that we use to collect that information.
>> Dead drops, you know, certain RFIDs or
RF signals that we use to transmit on
that kind of stuff is all what's
actually classified. The fact that you
can use these different techniques to
catch a liar, that's not classified.
It's actually buried in some Harvard
journal somewhere in the, you know,
medical school at in Massachusetts or
it's on the cutting edge uh research of
what's being done at UC San Diego and
and it's published in some medical or
psychological paper that nobody pays
attention to, but CIA psychologists
bring it in and make a tradecraftraft.
So, so much of what tradecraft is is
actually public knowledge that the
public just doesn't see because they
don't read it. So, is there any one
technique that you refuse to teach
because it's too dangerous?
>> I don't think so for that one either. I
don't refuse to teach anything that I
believe will help people. There are lots
of things out there that will hurt
people.
Yes. Yes. There are things that I don't
teach because I think people will hurt
others with them. I know how to
disappear. I know how to get away with
using my phone and not having it be
traceable to people who are close to me.
Still traceable to the cell phone
network, but I know how to
take steps to purposely cover up my
trail if I wanted to
have uh a secret conversation with
somebody. Whether it's on my phone,
whether it's in person, I know how to
set up meetings that would not be
noticed. So, if I wanted to have an
affair, I believe with a wife other than
my own that I'd have a good chance of
getting away with it. My wife has been
trained in all the same things, so it's
very difficult for me to even think
about pulling that on her. But that is
something I could teach. I could teach
men how to have an affair. I could teach
women how to have an affair and have
virtually no chance of getting caught,
but that is not something that I will
teach. Mainly because I don't see how
anybody would use that to get better.
So, what's the point, right? And, you
know, speaking as a business owner,
marketer personality, that's not what I
want to be known for. I don't want to be
known as the guy that can help you not
get caught in your affair. That's not a
good unique selling proposition. Not not
to the mainstream.
>> That's interesting. Is there uh a
technique around
when you meet a contact for the first
time
presenting a different baseline. Does
that make sense?
>> Everybody presents a different baseline
at first. So CIA teaches us that we have
three lives. We have a public life, a
private life, and a secret life. The
vast majority of our energy and the vast
majority of our time goes into
presenting our public life. This is what
I want the world to believe. This is
what I want the world to see. Your hair
is your public life. That's not what
your hair looks like in the morning.
It's not what your hair looks like when
you come out of the shower. That may not
even be what your hair looks like when
you go to bed,
>> but it's what you look like on camera,
>> right? There's uh there's things that we
all do, what we drive, how we dress, the
bracelets that we choose to wear that
are all part of our public life. Then we
have a private life. And our
[clears throat] private life is the life
that only a few people get to see,
right? That private life is where people
find out whether you wear boxer briefs
or whether you wear boxers or whether
you go commando everywhere you go. It's
the people who understand it takes you
25 minutes to do your hair in the
morning. It's the people who know that
you have like a bare spot under your
chin whenever you try to shave. That's
your private life.
>> That's where people discover that you
actually like to roll around on the
floor with your dog. Your public life
doesn't know that, but the people in
your private life do.
Then there's your secret life.
The whole world might see your public
life.
12ish people might know your private
life, but in your secret life, you
intentionally try to keep that number at
zero. But even though you try to keep it
at zero, there still might be one or two
or three people in your lifetime that
get into your secret life. Because your
secret life is the life where you hide
your shame. It's where you hide your
guilt. It's where you hide whatever you
think is a perversion. It's the place
where you put the things about you that
you are hopeful nobody ever discovers,
but you can't just let them go because
you care about them. Care about them
because they're humiliating or care
about them because they were injustices
that were done to you. Nobody knows
except you. And that's the part that you
try to keep secret. Your wife doesn't
know. Your kids don't know. You might
even go to a therapist and keep your
therapist from knowing this [ __ ] That
is your secret life.
We all have these three lives. Most of
our time with other people is spent in
the public space, public life. Some of
our closest friends make it into our
private life. But CIA teaches us that
the place where you become super
powerful in somebody else's life. The
place where you can control them, you
can leverage them, you can truly predict
them is when you get into their secret
life. When somebody will share with you
the thing that makes them ashamed of
themselves,
you have incredible power over that
person. Because by letting you into
their secret life, they have essentially
said, "I trust you now and forever." And
once you're in someone's secret life,
you're never out of their secret life.
There are people who got into your
secret life when you were a kid, and
they're still there now. You still would
love to talk to them. You still long for
them. You still miss them. You even have
their name and face coming to mind right
now as I explain this to you. There are
people, not many, one or two maybe. And
when you're on your deathbed, you will
still remember that person because you
let them into your secret life. And
likewise, there are people who are
thinking of you right now as they hear
this conversation about who's in their
secret life. And on the baseline
portion,
I'm trying to um gather how those two
ideas connect with each other because I
would imagine as someone doing
operations in the nature that you did,
you would probably be dealing with other
people who were spies as well. Sometimes
>> sometimes and
would probably want to be undetected and
maybe at first or probably at least want
to conceal your ability to lie.
Sometimes
>> if you're going up against another
trained operator, it's not about
concealing anything.
>> Really?
>> Yeah. Because if you believe they're
trained or if you know they're trained
and especially if they also know that
you're trained, then it becomes this
game of almost avoidance or gentlemanly
respect
because the last thing anybody wants to
do is go up against another trained
person and actually find out who's
better.
>> Have you ever met anyone
that you felt like you didn't have
control over the situation
psychologically?
>> Oh, yes, for sure. But there's a there's
a uh there's multiple different reasons
why you don't have control. So just
briefly to answer your previous
question, what you're looking for in
terms of a baseline is a baseline of
their public life because you have to
see the deviation from that baseline
before you can confirm that you're
traveling into their private life. And
then when you're in their private life,
you'll develop a new baseline for what
private life looks like. And then you'll
have to look for the deviations from
that to understand when you're getting
into secret life.
>> And then you'll know the baseline for
all three. So that when you're with them
in a public place, when you're with them
on a certain topic, when you're with
them 15 years later, you can literally
know where they are mentally based on
the baseline that they're showing you. I
have a very good friend of mine from
college. He's got a baseline that's
public. It's kind of a frenetic, busy,
anxious baseline because that's the life
he lives all the time with his kids and
with his wife and with his job. But then
when I'm with him in private, he has a
very different baseline. He has a more
mellow, more contemplative, more kind of
depressed baseline. But I'm also in his
secret life. We're in each other's
secret life. And when I know that when
that secret place, that's where his
actual hope comes out. That's his
baseline in there is a baseline of just
like transparency. And that transparency
means yes, I'm ashamed of these things
that I've done in the past. But I am so
lucky to have the wife that I have and
the kids that I have. That only comes
out in his secret life. That doesn't
come out in his private life or his
public life. In fact, when he talks
about how much he loves his kids in his
public or private life, it actually
seems disingenuous because it's so
different from the rest of the way he
carries himself.
So I say that because to your point
about being in control of someone
psychologically if you're going to be in
control of a psychological situation,
you have to be in control of the other
person. And there are some people who
are very difficult to control because
their public life is something that they
don't even realize is like oppressively
public. Let me just get a real quick
[clears throat] story. I did a speaking
event last year. Only two people spoke
on the stage. Tony Robbins and me.
That's it. And Tony Robbins went after I
spoke. And one of the things that the uh
event coordinator had arranged was a
private meeting between me and Tony and
the event coordinator after the whole
thing was over because the event
coordinator was a big fan of Tony and a
big fan of me. I had never met Tony
Robbins before.
>> Really?
>> Yeah. So, we go into the backstage and
or we go into the little private room
where they arrange this happy hour
cocktail thing with me, Tony the owner,
and all of the owners like, you know,
employees who were taking pictures and
whatnot. And Tony is an absolute force
of nature. And I think part of that is
him from 50 years of experience. And I
think part of that is him by nature.
There was no getting past Tony's public
life, his public persona, his public
presence, his booming voice, his giant
body. And it's funny because I kept
trying to be personable with Tony,
trying to like get him to shed some of
this bravado and this loud
just rashness or brashness. And it just
wasn't happening. He's just he is who he
is and that's who he's wired to be. And
that's why it costs a million dollars to
show up at your event at a minimum,
right? And that's that's just the way it
was. And then I remember I was not
pushing, but I was trying so hard to be
different from everybody else in the
event that at one point he was like, "I
really enjoy talking to you." And I was
like, "Oh, I appreciate that, Tony." And
he reaches out his hand and I shake his
hand. And as I'm shaking his hand, he's
pushing me away,
right? Like, "Get the [ __ ] away because
I don't want to talk to you anymore." It
was crystal clear to me that that's what
he was doing. Giant hand wrapped around
my tiny hand pushing me away. And I was
like, "All right, I can take a message.
I get that something about me is making
this guy uncomfortable, or something
about me is just not fun or interesting
to him, and he doesn't want to be there
anyways." Like, he's just doing what he
has to do to complete the contractual
agreement with the event coordinator at
this event. Right? That's a scenario
where I didn't have psychological
control. He had his public persona, his
public life was so impenetrable that
over the period of time that I was on
target with Tony Robbins, I didn't make
any progress. That just tells me if I'm
ever going to make progress with someone
like Tony, I need days, hours of
contact. I need a different environment.
Being in a hotel ballroom somewhere in
Orlando, Florida is not where I need to
be. I need to be maybe in Tony's living
room, maybe in Tony's kitchen, maybe on
the beach behind Tony's house. Maybe
that's the kind of place where that
public life might dissolve a little bit,
but for sure it wasn't going to happen
there.
That doesn't mean he was in control of
me, but it certainly means he was in
control of him. I would guess Trump has
that as well. I haven't met Trump in
person. It's something that you'll find
with many people who are very accustomed
to being in the public spotlight,
>> right? They know what it's like to have
fanboys assault them. They know what
it's like to have critics assault them.
They know what it's like to have to
worry that every [ __ ] person could be
hiding a gun or a knife. And that's one
of the things that people don't
understand about Tony Robbins. Tony
Robbins is if it if Tony himself is not
cognizant of his security for damn sure
his team is because there's an
incredible
detailed agenda about the security that
has to go into everything that Tony
Robbins attends. And that was projected
not just on the event coordinator for
this event, but also on me. Like I had
to fit within the confines. My team had
to fit within the confines of Tony's
security protocols just so that we could
complete our contractual obligations of
being at the event, me being on the
stage, me going to this afterevent
cocktail. On the Lex Freeman podcast,
you said the CIA is still in demand for
people with sensitivities to the
ethereal world. What does the CIA know
about the nature of reality that the
average person does not?
>> When I was at CIA, I wasn't actively
involved in any kind of collection
efforts or operations that were focused
on anything other than traditional
collection methods, human intelligence,
digital intelligence, surveillance,
counter surveillance, intelligence,
counter intelligence, you know, that the
the traditional world of spying.
But there are always experimental
efforts that are going on. And one of
the things that was highlighted to me
that I've never been able to shake was
when one of my instructors actually
pulled up the CIA website and scrolled
to this section that was talking about,
you know, if you want to apply for CIA
and you have any of these skills, we
would love to hear from you. And it was
this ridiculous long paragraph and
something that nobody ever reads unless
you are somebody who reads every single
word of every single sentence almost
compulsively.
And in the middle of one of the middle
paragraphs buried was this sentence that
was like, "If you have the skill of if
you have blah blah blah blah blah,
right? Like uh problem solving talent
like [snorts] traveling the world,
friends of whatever." 30 different items
down there was this little phrase that
said lucid dreams,
visions of the future, or something
else.
buried in the middle of this paragraph
of hard skills. And I had never noticed
it before. I had never bothered to read
past the second or third word. I'm a
skimmer, right? And he looked at me and
he was like, "Why do you think that's in
there?" And I didn't really have an
answer. I was like, "I have no idea why
that's in. It's a typo. Somebody in the
admin the administrative team didn't see
it." And he was like, "No, it's in there
because the CIA wants that." CIA is
looking for people who have lucid
dreams, visions of the future, and
whatever else was also in that list.
He's like, "But you, being somebody who
doesn't have lucid dreams, and being
somebody who doesn't have visions of the
future, you don't read every single
word. So, you don't even know that that
sentence exists in the application or on
the on the desired talent list. You just
skip right past it. And so do thousands
upon thousands of other people who visit
the website. But you know who does catch
it? The person who has lucid dreams. Cuz
that person reads every single word
compulsively
really. And when they read, you need to
have problem solving skills and you need
to have focus and you need to have a
strong attention to detail. They're
telling themselves, "That's not me.
That's not me. I don't have that. I
don't have that." But when they hit that
line, lucid dreams, vision of the
future, ethereal, you know, contact with
spirits, whatever. When they read that,
they're like, "Oh [ __ ] I have that."
And that's powerful enough to the right
person to then get them to go raise
their hands, submit their name and the
inquiry form, whatever else. So, if CIA
didn't want it, it wouldn't be on the
website at all. And
>> it's on the website right now.
>> I haven't I haven't checked it recently.
The day that I was with him back in 2008
2008 when I was going through training,
it was still there. So for anybody out
there, visit the CIA website and look
for their list of talents that they're
looking for. And if it's still buried
there, that's why because they're
actively looking for it. And they know
that the right person who has that
talent will read that line where
everybody else will just skip it or see
it and laugh it off and move on. The
other part of your question is, you
know, whether CIA knows something about
the nature of reality that other people
don't know. And I think it's a mixed
bag.
When it comes to this idea that reality
is somehow like a shadow of the real
thing, this idea that there's like a
parallel reality that you can only
access by doing drugs or something like
that. That's not my understanding of
anything that CIA has ever taught us.
Reality is reality. And if anything,
people who question whether or not this
is reality are just incredibly that much
closer to being people that you can
manipulate and control because they
already have a doubt that this is real.
So, it's that much easier to kind of
play on the doubt that they have that
this is real. How much easier is it to
get them to give you their money, give
you their confidence, give you their
time? They already don't believe this is
real. That's an easy person to
manipulate. But what CIA did teach us is
that what we interpret as reality is
often times incomplete.
What you see, what you hear, what you
smell, what you touch isn't a complete
picture of what reality actually is.
It's a composite built by your brain
in an effort to conserve energy. There's
actually much more happening around you
than your brain communicates to you. You
and I can figure this out even right now
just as we sit here. This whole
conversation, we've been sitting here
for hours. Have you ever noticed the
feeling of the ground under your feet,
but you notice it now?
>> Have you felt the temperature difference
between your neck and where your hair
is? No, but you're noticing it now. You
haven't noticed how heavy your shoulders
are. You haven't noticed the texture of
your of your shirt against your skin.
You haven't noticed the pain in your
back. You haven't noticed the discomfort
in your hips. You haven't noticed
the noise that's happening outside right
now.
When the air conditioner comes on and
turns off, you catch that when it
happens. But the reason that you catch
it every time it happens is because
after it's been running for a few
minutes, your brain tunes it out,
>> right? it stops dedicating resources to
picking up that information. So the
reality that you and I are experiencing
at all given times is really only like
20% of all the information around us.
It's our brain shortcutting to give us a
composite of everything because
everything is too much information.
Everything you see in your periphery,
everything you smell in your nose, the
taste of the coffee from this morning or
the tea or the whiskey that we took 15
minutes ago, that bitterness, it doesn't
need to bring that to the forefront
right now. It's trying to minimize
resources.
>> So the reality that we're always living
in is a composite created by our brain.
>> I largely agree with that. Based on your
spiritual beliefs or your understanding
of the nature of reality, uh what do you
think OCD is? Do you think it's simply
what the DSM5 or DSM4 uh says it is, or
do you think it's something else?
>> What does the DSM4 or DSM5 say?
>> Obsessivempulsive disorder, just
compulsive thoughts, uh repetitive
behaviors, uh just something that people
are born with.
and uh I don't know a tendency to do
repetitive behaviors, have repetitive
thoughts, or maybe they have the feeling
that something bad will happen if they
don't do those things. It's just about
control. I think that's the standard
definition of OCD. I haven't really put
a lot of thought into what I believe OCD
to be. What I will say though is I
believe that
when people have cognitive
cycles, cognitive patterns,
that is a tool that they've developed to
overcome something else.
Overcome anxiety, overcome fear,
overcome some recognition that they
don't have control, something. But it's
not just OCD or ADHD or anything else.
Like I'm sure there's a chemical element
that medical professionals will talk
about, but what I'm talking about
operationally and behaviorally is that
when I see a person with any kind of
tick, it tells me that there's something
driving the tick.
>> And not all ticks look like somebody who
taps three times or washes their hands
three times or washes their hands, you
know, 100 times a day. Sometimes the
tick is the person who always sits down
in the chair, always leans back, always
opens their leg, always puts their right
hand over the back of the chair. That's
just as much of a tell, a tick to what's
happening behind the scenes. The person
who's always perpetually late, the
person who's always uh asking you a
question and then when you answer the
question, they pick up their phone.
>> There's always something going on there,
right? And and it's really hard to know
what that is. It's just a tell that you
can see. And from that tell, you can
create a baseline to try to start to
understand what is happening that's
causing the tick. What's happening that
makes them repeat themselves? You never
have a thought that you feel as though
is like divine or like do you think
anyone has like thoughts that are like
from a spiritual source? I do believe
that
in my faith, in my Christian faith, I do
believe that the Holy Spirit is acting
on all of us. I also believe that the
enemy is acting on all of us all the
time as well. I don't think of it as a
active battlefield. Like I don't think
the Holy Spirit is sitting here and the
devil is sitting here or some demon is
sitting here and they're trying to get
me to say nice things or say mean
things. I don't believe it's like that.
I I believe that there is an innate
element in us as human beings in this
world that we are always debating
between doing good or evil. doing right
or wrong, doing justice or injustice,
putting ourselves first or putting other
people first. I think there's always
this balance that we're going through.
And it's a spiritual
reality just as much as it is a
practical reality.
>> If I give my $10 to a homeless guy on
the street, it practically means I don't
have $10 in my pocket, which means I may
not be able to buy myself food later on.
So, does that make me a good person or
bad person? Does that make me more
Christian or less Christian? Is that the
the demon or the angel? It doesn't to
me. It all blends together. That is the
spiritual warfare. That is the struggle
that the father and the holy spirit want
us to go through is literally the
struggle of asking, should I have given
that homeless person $10 or shouldn't I?
That's the moment of self-discovery. Not
giving the $10 away, not saving it, but
the actual question that we actually
wrestle with. That's the self-discovery.
That's the spiritual challenge. That's
what I believe through my faith is what
happens to us of a divine nature.
Somebody who has a tick, somebody who
thinks that they hear angels, somebody
who leaps up in the middle of a church
and starts speaking in tongues,
they might believe they're having a
spiritual moment. But to me, that's not
what I believe is happening. I believe
that that's a response cognitively to
something else that's triggering it. I
just don't know what these are. Andy, in
your book, you write about getting
yourself invited to a translator's
family Eid feast, one of the holiest
days in Islam, uh because it kept him, a
man you called Muhammad, loyal to the
American mission.
Now, I know the key purpose of this
story was trying to set up a situation
to possibly handle objections from the
people who would tell him not to help
out America.
>> Correct. But uh I I want to ask on
religion, you teach that ideology is the
strongest lever you can utilize to
change someone's behavior in a way that
fits your own interest.
In your time at the CIA,
did you ever use someone's faith in God
to get them to betray their country? The
answer is yes.
But it's a more complicated answer than
that.
Faith, religion is just an ideology.
Catholicism,
Protestantism,
Judaism, Islam, it's just an ideology.
Your ideology tells you that there's a
real God. Tells you there's a real
Muhammad. Tells you there's a real
Messiah. But there's no proof of that.
There's just your belief, which makes it
an ideology. And all ideologies are fair
game for manipulating human behavior.
So when you say, "Did I ever use God as
a way to get people to betray their
country?"
I'm hearing that question is, "Did you
ever use religion as an ideology to
motivate someone to commit espionage?"
And the answer is yes.
But the more honest answer is that they
used their god as an excuse to betray
their country. They chose their religion
over their national identity. They chose
their faith-based ideology over their
faith-based national identity. They
believed that one was bigger than the
other. A fantastic example of this is a
spy that worked in the US Navy for the
United States who was Jewish and
betrayed the US to become a spy for
Israel. The dude was a naval engineer,
US citizen, naval engineer, Jewish
descent. But he started selling secrets
to the Israelis about the American naval
program. And then he was caught, he was
convicted, he was tried, and he was
ultimately resettled in Israel, given
Israeli citizenship where he still lives
to this day. In fact, I think he's even
running for office in Israel. Either he
is now or he has recently.
>> So, perfect example of a person who
betrayed their national identity in
favor of their religious ideology. He
was American,
but he was also Jewish. So he put his
god, his belief in Judaism above his own
national promises to keep a secret and
gave secrets to the Israelis because he
believed it was the right thing to do
according to his Jewish faith.
>> We could talk about that topic alone for
a while.
>> The dude got his son to do it too.
Became a whole family spy ring.
So whether you want to call that the
sins of the father or whether you want
to just call that a second person who's
who's influenced impacted shaped by
their father either way the same thing
exists.
>> I would love to talk religion with you
anytime you want. It's a fascinating
wonderful topic and it is it is
absolutely something that has been used
to manipulate human behavior for
generations.
In your book, you talked about your
father's grave. He was murdered when you
were a baby. He picked a fight with a
man who was high on drugs and it cost
him his life. You told the story about
driving to the grave, saying you broke
down in angry tears like your body was
purging. You talked about the anger you
felt as well that no one in your family
told you where your father was buried
because they didn't care enough to know
him or didn't care enough to mention to
you. You wrote, "Fuck them. Family is
just make believe [ __ ] anyway."
Is that honest?
Do you think family is [ __ ] I did
then. I did then. And that's what's so
powerful to me about the lesson that
that story is surrounding, which is the
lesson of emotional hijacking.
That experience shaped my opinion about
marriage, children, feelalty for
decades. That happened to me when I was
19 years old. Maybe I may have been 19.
I'm pretty sure I was a sophomore at the
Air Force Academy at 19. And it wasn't
until
I met my future wife and we had
conversations about marriage that were
very different conversations. I was
completely anti-marriage. She was very
much of a traditional family was like
marriage is kind of what people do when
they want to have kids. Completely
different perspectives. But it was
really being with my wife, hearing her
point of view, falling in love with her,
and realizing what love could be, what
love is, how powerful and completely
illogical
uh love does when it's when it takes
over. But that didn't happen till I was
30 years old. So from 19 to 30, there's
11 years in there where I was just like,
"Fuck family. Don't talk to mom. Don't
talk to my sisters. Stepdad's basically
dead to me anyways." Like, whatever. My
grandma matters to me because my grandma
is the only one who ever actually helped
me understand my dad. And she didn't say
good things about him, but she at least
talked about him.
>> I was not in the right headsp space. I
was not healthy. And I I know that
people listening to this right now have
been down that road where family has
been so disappointing to them that at
some point they were like, "Fuck this.
Family is [ __ ] I'll pick my friends
any day. Friendsgiving, whatever it is,
right? Like it's a very real thing.
Had you met me at 24,
you'd have a very different opinion of
me than you do now. Better or worse, I
don't know. But it would be different
for sure. Had you met me at 34, it would
be very different. Had you met me at 54,
it'll be different still.
We all change over time. And for me,
finding my father's grave, coming to the
conclusions I had that day and even now
so many years later, reflecting back on
my decisions and conclusions then still
shapes me today. I've only had two
experiences in my life where I was so
overcome with emotion that I felt like
it was uncontrollable. where it felt
like I was purging. Purging like
vomiting,
tears and sobs and not able to control
my diaphragm, not able to control the
buckling in my body, just
trying to find a place to like hide
because I didn't want anyone to come
across me looking like this
disgraceful, uncontrollable blob of a
human being. It's only happened twice.
Both times it was related to father
issues. The day I found my father's
grave and then
20some years later when I went to go
help a Ukrainian family flee Russia. I
did it with a photojournalist who
created a documentary about his own
journey with his stepfather. And when I
watched that documentary,
it just triggered all of the pain and
sadness and discouragement and
depression about my own experience with
my stepdad. And it just took me again.
And I remember in this mountain town in
Austria where we had evacuated them. I
remember barely being able to stand up
and make it to the back door, slide the
back screen door open, get out on the
back patio. Rain had just started. and
was getting worse. And I just I just
like crawled into the grass into the
rain around the corner so they couldn't
see me through the window. I don't think
I even shut the door. And the rain is
pouring and I am purging just tears and
groans and sadness and depression and
anger and just completely out of
control.
>> What were you purging? this the feelings
of of sadness and [clears throat]
depression and like what my childhood
could have been with my stepdad that it
wasn't
and that I've carried for so long up to
that point that I had carried for so
long as somehow my responsibility
coming to the realization that it wasn't
my responsibility that I was just a kid
I was just looking for love I was just
looking for a father figure I was just
looking for connection and I was trying
everything I could, everything that a
kid could try to connect with their dad
and none of it was landing. and that
that shaped who I became. And you know
in 2023
when I evacuated that family and those
multiple families from Ukraine to
Austria and and we had kind of confirmed
and celebrated that success and and when
I the night that I chose to watch this
documentary with the filmmaker,
all of those families were women and
children leaving behind their fighting
men because the men weren't allowed by
law to leave Ukraine. So we evacuated
families and left to the men behind
those children were going to go back to
dead fathers.
And it just was striking to me that my
father my father had died. I had that
purge in the book. But my stepdad was
alive and he was not anywhere near the
kind of figure that these Ukrainian
children were going to lose in a war
that they didn't start. And it was just
a
I came back in and I'm so grateful that
the filmmaker was an artist and a
sensitive artist. So there were no
awkward questions. He just saw me
soaking wet with mud on my trousers and
just shut the door behind me and let me
go take a shower and we didn't really
even talk about it. Just asked me if I
was okay. I was like, "All right,
better." Now, I don't know if you want
to add any one takeaway from all that
for people about their familial
situations. Uh, but do you think that's
useful at all? That family is [ __ ]
I don't think it's useful as like a
tagline.
Family's not [ __ ] is just as useful
as saying family is [ __ ] It's up to
you. It's up to you to decide what's
real, what's not real, what's valuable,
what's not valuable, what's worth your
time, what's not worth your time. What I
want to say is that
I try to be as transparent as I can be
about my skills, my experience, my
desires, my vision for the future.
That's why I come out and talk to you.
That's why I come out on stage in front
of cameras. That's why I write books.
It's because if there's value, I hope
you'll take it. And if there isn't,
drop it off at a secondhand bookstore. I
don't care. If I'm not helping you, find
somebody who is going to help you.
We only get one ride on this rock.
Whatever you believe, whoever you
believe in, whoever you take with you,
you only get one chance. So,
use it. What the?
[gasps] Well, everyone, uh, this has
been your guest, Andy Bamonte.
This is the Jack Neil podcast. Where can
people uh, get this book we have here?
Outsmart Everyone is available
everywhere on bookshelves around the
world starting September 8th. You can
buy it online if you go to the outsmart
everyone spy.com website or if you just
go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you name
it. Um it's available in print and of
course in audio and I'm very proud of
it. Beautiful. Awesome. Guys, go check
out Andy's book, Outsmart Everyone, Spy
Skills to Gain and Unfair Advantage in
Work and Life.
This is the Jack Neil podcast. See you.
>> Cool.
>> Thanks, man.
>> Yeah.
>> Appreciate it, man.
>> Absolutely, man. Thank you.