Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'she.
Speaker 2: I served in the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years,
Speaker 2: living undercover all around the world.
Speaker 3: And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I
Speaker 3: served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Although we don't usually look at it this way, we
Speaker 2: created conspiracies.
Speaker 3: In our operations. We got people to believe things that
Speaker 3: weren't true.
Speaker 2: Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the
Speaker 2: news almost every day.
Speaker 3: Will break them down for you to determine whether they
Speaker 3: could be real or whether we're being manipulated.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Mission Implausible.
Speaker 3: So this is the first episode after the election results,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, John Adam, I'm shocked at the
Speaker 3: fact that the one candidate declared victory and has launched
Speaker 3: over sixty court cases to try to overturn this. And
Speaker 3: there are people are armed and marching on the Capitol.
Speaker 3: And isn't that what's going on?
Speaker 4: No, I mean, what's amazing is how well run the
Speaker 4: election was. Nobody's questioning the results.
Speaker 3: That was the last election. This is the way an
Speaker 3: election should be run. I may not like the outcome,
Speaker 3: or you may like the outcome, But no conspiracy theories
Speaker 3: this time. Why is that?
Speaker 4: It's an obvious point, but conspiracy theories are not about
Speaker 4: truth seeking. They are a tool to achieve certain ends and.
Speaker 3: Who uses them and who does it. And at this
Speaker 3: particular point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a little let down that the Democrats put
Speaker 2: together a full plan to steal the last election and
Speaker 2: then apparently just forgot to do it, forgot to do
Speaker 2: it this time. Maybe they didn't pay their bills or
Speaker 2: some kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: It was a fair election, got to say that, and
Speaker 3: the votes were counted fairly, and as far as we
Speaker 3: can tell, Russia, China and the others didn't have a
Speaker 3: huge least overt impact on the certainly tried.
Speaker 2: They were calling in bomb threats to the Democratic.
Speaker 3: But there wasn't like Rudy Giuliani coming in ten days
Speaker 3: before the election and saying he's got the goods on
Speaker 3: the other candidate to show that they are criminals and
Speaker 3: then not producing the evidence. This time around, they neither
Speaker 3: side really engaged in that, and that was maybe a
Speaker 3: small slid of bright light.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't hold onto that too tightly because all of
Speaker 4: that can, like all of that can bounce back pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: Okay, I eat those words pretty soon.
Speaker 4: But yeah, yeah, the last time people observed that a
Speaker 4: lot of the folks calling foul on the election had
Speaker 4: been elected in that same election and didn't seem to
Speaker 4: want to redo their own elections. On the long list
Speaker 4: of things I don't understand, one of them is the
Speaker 4: nature of truth. Like not in some philosophical there is
Speaker 4: no truth, but in a just very basic here are
Speaker 4: facts that are undeniable way. It's not just it doesn't
Speaker 4: penetrate or people don't have the right information. It's this
Speaker 4: idea that truth is just not relevant. And I think
Speaker 4: there's no way all of these groups who voted for
Speaker 4: Trump want all the things that Trump says he's going
Speaker 4: to bring, since they contradict each other. Right, decisions are
Speaker 4: being made for reasons that are not rational. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is an obvious point. This is how the human
Speaker 4: brain works. But I think the value of studying conspiracy
Speaker 4: theories are one value of sudden conspiracy theories if you
Speaker 4: think of it as like, how do I compose a
Speaker 4: bunch of words to paint a picture of how the
Speaker 4: world works that satisfies something that has nothing to do
Speaker 4: with truth or not truth or a description of the
Speaker 4: world or not, it's some other thing. It's about power.
Speaker 4: It's about making yourself feel better or making yourself feel bad,
Speaker 4: but feel bad about a particular person. Like it's somehow
Speaker 4: different from a thing of Oh, let me evaluate what
Speaker 4: happened in the world. Let me list a bunch of facts,
Speaker 4: and then let me come to some conclusion about it.
Speaker 1: It's a whole different process.
Speaker 2: It's creating a mental model that fits you what you want,
Speaker 2: and then things fit into that and stuff that doesn't
Speaker 2: just rolls off you. We all do that to a
Speaker 2: certain extent.
Speaker 3: We can almost predict what the conspiracy theories to tom
Speaker 3: are going to be. If you round up millions of
Speaker 3: people who are plucking chickens and cleaning the streets and
Speaker 3: doing construction and picking crops for minimum wage or less
Speaker 3: and can't replace them, food prices are going to go up, right,
Speaker 3: and you're going to get inflation. And so you say, oh,
Speaker 3: that's our fault that in tariffs. You have to come
Speaker 3: up with a conspiracy theory as to why somehow the
Speaker 3: Democrats or your opposition is responsible for this.
Speaker 2: Right So, what you're saying is is the right wing
Speaker 2: is it going to become the left wing, and they're
Speaker 2: going to say that that's the big corporations that are gouging.
Speaker 2: This might turn the whole country around.
Speaker 3: I think conspiracy theories allow you to explain the world
Speaker 3: in a way that you don't have to take responsibility for.
Speaker 4: I remember dealing with somebody who is an alcoholic and realizing, oh,
Speaker 4: denial isn't some super complicated psychological process. It's just here's
Speaker 4: an obvious fact, let me deny it. So can I ask?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 4: Know, Trump in his first term did not have the
Speaker 4: easiest relationship with the CIA. What do you think the
Speaker 4: vibe is at CIA right now?
Speaker 3: I think it is inescapable that our relationship with NATO
Speaker 3: and Ukraine is going to be different and certainly strained
Speaker 3: in our relationships with our allies, and I think CIA
Speaker 3: is going to struggle with that as well as our
Speaker 3: State Department colleague.
Speaker 4: Has there ever been a president who's been so hostile
Speaker 4: to CIA, so openly, has said such critical things about
Speaker 4: the intelligence community, been so dismissive.
Speaker 2: Well, he did that last time. He was pretty negative
Speaker 2: towards the intelligence community. We've mentioned a number of the
Speaker 2: ways before, but in some sense, the CIA, for example,
Speaker 2: or the Intelligent Committee were able to keep themselves out
Speaker 2: of the regular daily political fighting at the White House,
Speaker 2: and I think they protected themselves with it, and they
Speaker 2: might have been more careful about bringing in what He
Speaker 2: didn't want to hear, those kind of things which slowly
Speaker 2: over time hurt the professionalism of the organization. The concern
Speaker 2: now in what they're talking about is they want to
Speaker 2: put like true Trump believers in a position to make
Speaker 2: the organization, not just CIA, but probably the FBI and
Speaker 2: just Department of other places, to be essentially openly partisan,
Speaker 2: to work for Trump. Their job is to dig through material,
Speaker 2: find stuff that benefits him, get it to Trump, over time,
Speaker 2: change some of the regulations to weaponize as he can
Speaker 2: use it against his politicetical, or personal enemies. The intelligence
Speaker 2: community has been over the last decades slowly reforming itself,
Speaker 2: and by the time when Jerry and I were there,
Speaker 2: it was a very professional, non partisan group. We took
Speaker 2: great pride in speaking truth to power, and we realized
Speaker 2: that we were restrained by congressional and Justice Department oversight
Speaker 2: such that and we saw ourselves as a professional working for
Speaker 2: the American people, not working for political party or whatever.
Speaker 2: And if it changes, it's really going to be difficult.
Speaker 2: There's gonna be lots of people officers inside the CAA
Speaker 2: who are probably Republicans or even supported Trump, but they
Speaker 2: still believe in that ethos that the organization should not
Speaker 2: be partisan. And if it's going to be made head
Speaker 2: and ly partisan, I think it's gonna be a real problem.
Speaker 2: You can see a lot of people leave. Our hope
Speaker 2: is that it just doesn't get degraded to the point
Speaker 2: where it's unfixable.
Speaker 3: But the real danger is that it turns into a
Speaker 3: partisan organization. You know, they should be careful what they create,
Speaker 3: because if they create, if they go on to people's
Speaker 3: social media, you know, senior agency officers and only take
Speaker 3: those in who are Republican, four years later, there's going
Speaker 3: to be a change and all those people are going
Speaker 3: to be out, and the Democrats are going to do
Speaker 3: the same thing, and we'll have a sort of I
Speaker 3: guess a right to do so. John's really right. We've
Speaker 3: created an intelligence community that's a political and that does
Speaker 3: its job and answers questions that policymakers need to at
Speaker 3: least be informed about whether they do the right thing
Speaker 3: or not. Is up to them, and I think that
Speaker 3: is really the danger with Trump, not only with the
Speaker 3: intelligence community, but probably more importantly with law enforcement, DOJFBI
Speaker 3: and so forth. That's I think one of the greatest fears.
Speaker 2: We look back to the Nixon time period and before
Speaker 2: and JAGR hoovert FBI. We look back at those places
Speaker 2: now at times and realize that using those organizations for
Speaker 2: personal vendettas the FBI was going after Martin Luther King,
Speaker 2: they were doing essentially illegal break ins and listening to
Speaker 2: people's phones. The CIA was overthrowing governments without full congressional oversight,
Speaker 2: all those kind of things. Those days are gone, and
Speaker 2: with good reason over time that the publics are turned
Speaker 2: against the view that these organizations where their power could
Speaker 2: be used against us. There's been people who claim snowed
Speaker 2: new who defected and gave out information claiming that he
Speaker 2: was listening to people's phones and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: It wasn't true. Our organizations are pretty focused on foreign intelligence,
Speaker 2: not on Americans. But they are really powerful organizations, and
Speaker 2: if they are used and turned against American people that
Speaker 2: the president or the administration considers enemies, these are incredibly
Speaker 2: powerful organizations that can cause great problems.
Speaker 4: For there's also just basic competence like it. You know,
Speaker 4: I think of Iraq like that first year in Iraq
Speaker 4: rather famously the Coalition Provisional Authority, the US presence in
Speaker 4: Iraq was staffed by a ton of Republican operatives and
Speaker 4: the children of Republican operatives. There were all these like
Speaker 4: kids in their twenties.
Speaker 3: As a twenty eight year old kid who was trying
Speaker 3: to build the Iraqi basically the Iraqi stock market, and
Speaker 3: you know, no surprise it failed.
Speaker 1: That is a false statement.
Speaker 4: He was twenty three and I spent some time with.
Speaker 3: Him being fit.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really was stunning because it was people. You know,
Speaker 4: there are a whole bunch of things went into it,
Speaker 4: including the fantasy that they could decapitate. You know, they'll
Speaker 4: just put someone in charge of the oil ministry and
Speaker 4: then this massive complex bureaucracy will just function the same
Speaker 4: as it used to. But it was a very young
Speaker 4: team and none almost no, maybe zero Arabic speakers. I
Speaker 4: had a friend who was a career diplomat.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: We took over Baghdad in May of two thousand and three,
Speaker 4: and this guy came in August. He says he was
Speaker 4: the only Arabic speaker he knew in the CPA, and
Speaker 4: he would start each morning's American Guy, lifelong diplomat. He
Speaker 4: would start each morning with a bunch of Arabic newspapers
Speaker 4: so he could see what's going on. And several people.
Speaker 1: Said, why are you reading that stuff? What are you
Speaker 1: one of them?
Speaker 4: Like that kind of thing, And there is and I
Speaker 4: think you saw this with Hitler, you saw it with
Speaker 4: Saddam himself, that staffing people for political willingness to be
Speaker 4: co opted is the opposite staffing people for skills, so
Speaker 4: you just also have incredible incompetence. The people who will
Speaker 4: do that don't tend to be our best.
Speaker 2: That's what our government did in the nineteenth century and
Speaker 2: early twentieth century is a political job was a job
Speaker 2: where you could give out positions and jobs to friends
Speaker 2: for your own personal purposes. So it wasn't a professional
Speaker 2: bureaucracy you had. It was essentially just handing out jobs.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like that's what they want to go
Speaker 2: back to.
Speaker 3: And I think it's important to state that at the
Speaker 3: very bottom of this the whole reason for weaponization that's
Speaker 3: given and I've argued with family members about this is
Speaker 3: either a lie or a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory
Speaker 3: is that the Biden administration that they had weaponized DOJ
Speaker 3: to go after Donald Trump. So there's two options here.
Speaker 3: Option A is that a guy who's cheated on his wife,
Speaker 3: whose charitable organizations turned out to be scams, who ran
Speaker 3: a scam university, r on sketchy casinos, that he engaged
Speaker 3: in illegal activity and no one's above the law. Or
Speaker 3: B it's a huge conspiracy theory of thousands of people
Speaker 3: to include like jury members and grand juries to convict
Speaker 3: an innocent man, and that the weaponization has already begun.
Speaker 3: I think it's B. I think any rational person would say,
Speaker 3: the guy broke the law, you got a fair trial,
Speaker 3: he was found guilty. He's not getting a feld trial
Speaker 3: for these other things like stealing documents, which should be
Speaker 3: an open enclosed case. But the justification for using this
Speaker 3: now is that we didn't start it, and it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, either he committed crimes and he's out above
Speaker 3: the law, or B it's a huge conspiracy theory.
Speaker 4: All right, we're going to get right back into that,
Speaker 4: but first let's hear this John you ran You're in
Speaker 4: Moscow for many years for CIA, you ran the Russia
Speaker 4: desk at CIA headquarters, Like, how could that be different?
Speaker 4: Under an administration that either in the most benign sense
Speaker 4: sends out a message we don't see Russia as a
Speaker 4: strategy a top of the list strategic threat anymore, or
Speaker 4: a less benign like we want to really help Russia
Speaker 4: with their aims and goals, or see we want to
Speaker 4: make a corp ton of money and embarrass our friends
Speaker 4: and stuff, Like.
Speaker 1: How does that work? Within CIA?
Speaker 2: These organizations are in the executive branch and work for
Speaker 2: the president. So if in fact, US foreign policy writ
Speaker 2: large by a president by an administration professionally pushed through,
Speaker 2: is changed so that Russia is meant to be our friend,
Speaker 2: we will change. We have sources that are providing us information.
Speaker 2: If those sources are providing us real information, we will
Speaker 2: try to keep those sources, even if they're telling us
Speaker 2: things we don't want to hear. We take great pride
Speaker 2: in the fact that we may get information that presidents
Speaker 2: and things don't want to hear, but that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Our job is to find what's truth. If it turns
Speaker 2: out that information is something that the White House really
Speaker 2: doesn't want to hear either we'll turn it off or
Speaker 2: we just want for that information up.
Speaker 1: And if foreign.
Speaker 2: Policy changes, then yeah, we'll try to work with the Russians.
Speaker 2: We already do have a professional relationship with them. We'll
Speaker 2: share counter terrorst information and other kinds of things. And
Speaker 2: the US changes and allies all the time. But it's
Speaker 2: crazy as is. But I think the bigger threat, frankly,
Speaker 2: is that turning against our allies or creating an impression
Speaker 2: around the world to all of these places that take
Speaker 2: their own secrets very seriously. And because of decades and
Speaker 2: decades of close relationships working with the United States, working
Speaker 2: with the CA, working with our officers that live there
Speaker 2: night and day for year after year, that will share
Speaker 2: sensitive information with US countries, you don't even think about
Speaker 2: that we have these relationships with that maybe even aren't
Speaker 2: the allies that you're thinking of, share very sensitive information
Speaker 2: with us, and we sometimes help them and find ways
Speaker 2: to find mutual places we could work together if those
Speaker 2: places think that we can't be trusted with information because
Speaker 2: when information gets to the White House, it's just on
Speaker 2: sale to the highest bidder, or that we're no longer
Speaker 2: a professional security service that keeps our secrets, or that
Speaker 2: the President of the United States is disparaging allies and friends
Speaker 2: from giving us things. They just won't do it. They'll
Speaker 2: still smile and we'll have drinks together and we'll chat.
Speaker 2: But when it comes time to saying, hey, let's share
Speaker 2: with the Americans this information we found out about this
Speaker 2: terrorist group, or this shipment of arms going from here
Speaker 2: to there, what have you, they're just not going to
Speaker 2: share it. And I've told people before a good seventy
Speaker 2: to eighty percent of the secrets that the Clandestine Service
Speaker 2: gets are from partners around the world that share stuff
Speaker 2: with US, and we spent years and decades building those
Speaker 2: relationships so that they share stuff that is very sensitive
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a secret, not really. It's directly from
Speaker 3: the newspapers just a couple of days ago, and the
Speaker 3: US air security folks are saying that it's true. Is
Speaker 3: that Russia was looking for I assume Russian gau is
Speaker 3: looking for ways to put incendiary devices into airplanes heading
Speaker 3: for the US. They're going to like bring down airplanes
Speaker 3: full of US people. And that was serendipitously. The devices
Speaker 3: were mailed from Lithuania, and the guys who mailed them
Speaker 3: have been arrested. And these are Russian proxies. And fortunately
Speaker 3: they both went off and exploded when airplane had landed,
Speaker 3: one and I think in Germany and the other in
Speaker 3: the UK. So we got lucky on this. But in
Speaker 3: order to make this work, and in order to protect ourselves,
Speaker 3: to keep our airplanes from being blown out of the sky,
Speaker 3: we need the Lithuanians, we need the Poles, we need
Speaker 3: the Germans, we need the British. We can't do it
Speaker 3: by ourselves. And the true genius of American diploonacy at
Speaker 3: the end of World War two is that we build
Speaker 3: a system of alliances at Europe and in Asia, and
Speaker 3: Russia has zero allies. It only has people who are
Speaker 3: afraid of an Turkey. Yeah, but they're completely true. Yeah, Syria,
Speaker 3: there's an ally until sod dies and then they don't
Speaker 3: have an Ala anymore.
Speaker 1: Ron neither, that's a good one.
Speaker 3: They don't even have Mongolia, and neither does China. And
Speaker 3: so the US we actually have a robust set of alliances.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's messy and it's difficult. They don't always
Speaker 3: come through, they don't always paying off via true all
Speaker 3: of that. I was there in Afghanistan after nine to
Speaker 3: eleven and they were like frigging Mongolian troops there, Lithuanians
Speaker 3: and land fans who fought with our troops. And that's
Speaker 3: not going to happen if, as John says, if we
Speaker 3: start screwing with them or you know, basically go isolationists
Speaker 3: and then say they're on their own, and that would
Speaker 3: be shocked when we're on our own.
Speaker 2: One of our other episodes, we were talking about the
Speaker 2: JFK assassination, and there's some information that has come out,
Speaker 2: and we were using the example that some of the
Speaker 2: CIA documents that have not come out publicly. We're respecting
Speaker 2: that some of that is because foreign services and foreign
Speaker 2: friends have shared stuff with us that we promise to
Speaker 2: keep secret forever. So it's not that it's we're hiding
Speaker 2: stuff that we don't want to come out about the assassination.
Speaker 2: It's that you name your country gave us stuff that
Speaker 2: hurts them. And Jerry brought up a concrete example that
Speaker 2: were apparently the Mexican I don't remember the maximum President
Speaker 2: of Mexican head of the service actually gave us information
Speaker 2: that they had collected illegally in their own country and
Speaker 2: shared it with the United States. Those relationships are so strong.
Speaker 2: They said, listen, I'm giving you something that could get
Speaker 2: me arrested in my own country. It's against my countries
Speaker 2: if I'm giving it to you because we have this relationship,
Speaker 2: and of course we promise to keep that secret forever.
Speaker 2: We didn't. It sounds in this case, but in general
Speaker 2: we try to do that and people just aren't going
Speaker 2: to be doing that in the future.
Speaker 4: Journalists love to quit in protest when an editor intervenes,
Speaker 4: what like would you imagine massed affection from CIA, like
Speaker 4: people just quitting and refusing go along with it and
Speaker 4: a different cohort coming in, or is it hey, our
Speaker 4: job is to do what the president asks. President says
Speaker 4: Russia as our friends, well.
Speaker 3: Senior people who've got their pension, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of them will say I'm leaving. So you know, at
Speaker 3: fifty we get to the baseline pension and you can
Speaker 3: it's a good time to leave. And people because they
Speaker 3: love the job and they're committed, stay longer and they
Speaker 3: use their expertise. I suspect that a lot of younger
Speaker 3: people will just like other places, they'll go into internal legs.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I'll pretend to work you pay me. I
Speaker 3: think that would be become less professional and less hard hitting.
Speaker 3: If you're not taken seriously, or if you feel you're
Speaker 3: being used, I think there would be some people who
Speaker 3: will leave. But loyalty in a sense commitment. I mean
Speaker 3: speak for John, but almost all of us. You don't
Speaker 3: pay us enough to take our families to places where
Speaker 3: there's disease and poisonous snakes and poor health care and
Speaker 3: your wife can't have a baby there. But we go
Speaker 3: because we believe that what we're doing is the right thing.
Speaker 3: And if we don't believe that anymore, people aren't going
Speaker 3: to do it, or they're not going to go. They're
Speaker 3: not going to be willing to go to war zones anymore.
Speaker 3: I left a wife and three kids, and you know what,
Speaker 3: with two days notice, jumped on an airplane to fly
Speaker 3: off in Afghanistan and O two because I believed in
Speaker 3: it right. But if I thought I'm being I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I thought I was being fucked with, or I'm being
Speaker 3: used as a political pond. No, I'm going to think
Speaker 3: twice about that. So I think younger people will tend
Speaker 3: to stay, but commitment will disappear, professional will disappear, and
Speaker 3: some of the older folks will just say goodbye.
Speaker 2: But it is fun to be in the know. I
Speaker 2: mean being in the CI and finding out the sort
Speaker 2: of secrets. I saw one that finally came out publicly
Speaker 2: about the North Korean troops that were sent from North
Speaker 2: Korea for the first time ever to fight on behalf
Speaker 2: of Russia. And some secret information has come out that
Speaker 2: the North Korean troops, being in Russia for the first
Speaker 2: time where they had access to the internet, had become
Speaker 2: hooked on porn after being allowed unfettered access to the
Speaker 2: Internet for the first time. That's the kind of cool
Speaker 2: information you can't yeh wow.
Speaker 3: So you wouldn't quit, And I'll give you something exact
Speaker 3: opposite of that. That's a great example. So there was
Speaker 3: a very there was a very senior agency officer who
Speaker 3: came in and it was a political appointee. So one
Speaker 3: of the top guys and another a group of professional
Speaker 3: officers met him and he says, Okay, let's have a meeting.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about what we're doing and why we're doing it.
Speaker 3: But before we do, I want everyone to hold hands
Speaker 3: and we'll have a prayer. And the prayer was it
Speaker 3: was very skewed towards one particular, very evangelical denomination. And
Speaker 3: I'm standing there and I'm thinking, there's a Mormon in
Speaker 3: this group, there are two Muslims here, there's a Jew,
Speaker 3: and a bunch of Catholics, and all of them are going,
Speaker 3: what the fuck. I'm not doing this for like your
Speaker 3: version of God, right, I'm doing this for the Constitution
Speaker 3: of the United States. What binds us together is not
Speaker 3: this evangelical prayer about how Jesus died for my sins
Speaker 3: and you can't be saved unless you're washed again in
Speaker 3: the spirit, in my particular version of events. And afterwards
Speaker 3: people say it around and I'm like, I don't like this.
Speaker 3: This isn't what we do. And if that becomes the
Speaker 3: culture of the place, or even in a political sense,
Speaker 3: I think it's really harmful to what we stand for.
Speaker 4: On the plus side, though, they are all going to hell,
Speaker 4: and he did give them a shot at not going
Speaker 4: to hell if they chose not to take thoughts on.
Speaker 1: That, and we'll be right back. It's not to be coy.
Speaker 1: None of us like him.
Speaker 4: We all see him as very dangerous, But where are
Speaker 4: you on the All Right, this is gonna be a
Speaker 4: really rough four years, but we'll get through it too.
Speaker 4: This might be a fun mental strategic shift in our
Speaker 4: national security that will last generations.
Speaker 2: Well, in a practical sense, one of the things that's
Speaker 2: already started to happen is is some people I know
Speaker 2: who are reaching out, who are interested in applying to
Speaker 2: the intelligence community, the State Department, or reaching out and
Speaker 2: saying should I still do it? Because you can imagine
Speaker 2: now that it's out there, there's people who it's a
Speaker 2: long process, a lot of security polygraphs, background checks that
Speaker 2: can take a year more to get in to one
Speaker 2: of these organizations. And as you can imagine, a lot
Speaker 2: of people come to us and say, you know, what's
Speaker 2: it like. And already people are coming saying I'm in
Speaker 2: the process of applying now that I see Trump's going
Speaker 2: to be in, I don't know if I can work
Speaker 2: for that. And so I've been giving the advice so far,
Speaker 2: and as we're only a couple of days into this,
Speaker 2: is that these organizations need good people. They need good young,
Speaker 2: talented people. You don't want to just give up and
Speaker 2: assume it's going to be bad and just give over
Speaker 2: the place to the partisans and anyone that just want
Speaker 2: to bring in. When you're young, you're still learning the
Speaker 2: learning the rule US, you're learning languages, you're preparing to go,
Speaker 2: you're learning background. You know, you really aren't engaged with
Speaker 2: anything partisan or political or senior like that. So you know,
Speaker 2: I've been telling people, I think you should still continue
Speaker 2: to try to go there. But I have some other
Speaker 2: friends that are getting the same questions and saying the opposite, saying, listen,
Speaker 2: if they have too much far of a partisan leader
Speaker 2: and they're going to try to turn these organizations into
Speaker 2: something that we didn't plan to join, you should think
Speaker 2: twice and not perhaps go work for the State Department
Speaker 2: or the CIA, or the FBI or what.
Speaker 4: You and we should say, this is not us floating
Speaker 4: conspiracy theories like there's an explicit overt plan or multiple plans,
Speaker 4: like even before Project twenty twenty five, although it's very
Speaker 4: much in Project twenty twenty five. The idea of increasing
Speaker 4: the number of people throughout the administration, but especially in
Speaker 4: the intelligence and law enforcement areas, to increase the number
Speaker 4: of them who are politically loyal is an explicit goal
Speaker 4: that's not us making that up.
Speaker 1: That is an explicit goal.
Speaker 3: So I think this is really tiara incognita here. We
Speaker 3: don't really know. So on the one hand, if if
Speaker 3: you listen to what is being said and what they're saying,
Speaker 3: they're going to do, militarization of the border, militarization of
Speaker 3: law enforcement, the politicization of civil service, throwing out millions
Speaker 3: of people who are gainfully employed, huge tariffs, recalibrating NATO,
Speaker 3: perhaps abandoning Ukraine. If you see all these things, you're like,
Speaker 3: holy shit. But on the other hand, these are the
Speaker 3: sort of this is the same guy who said he
Speaker 3: was going to build a wall and have Mexico pay
Speaker 3: for it, and so he was like, if they only
Speaker 3: do half of it, how bad will it be? And
Speaker 3: the answer is, we don't really know, because we don't
Speaker 3: really know what he really means. And more to the point,
Speaker 3: I think what the people around him intend to do
Speaker 3: and what they're going to be able to do, and
Speaker 3: whatever guard wheels are left, what they're going to be
Speaker 3: able to hold back.
Speaker 2: But indicators are not good at this point. When you're
Speaker 2: talking about putting RFK Junior in charge of our entire
Speaker 2: health system, and people like Mike Flynn and Kash Patel
Speaker 2: and these said, these are not serious people. These are
Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists who said horrible things. In the first administration,
Speaker 2: there was people Radcliffe and Grenelle and others who clearly
Speaker 2: tried to use their positions to cherry pick material and
Speaker 2: try to get information from intelligent community that they could
Speaker 2: use to help President Trump get reelected. These type of
Speaker 2: things which goes against our ethics and our way of
Speaker 2: doing things, and it created problems. But if you're going
Speaker 2: to bring in people that are even far less professional
Speaker 2: than those people were, it's.
Speaker 1: A real danger.
Speaker 4: So super fun show, guys, really uplifting and it's i
Speaker 4: will say, really good time to keep listening to a
Speaker 4: podcast about conspiracy theories. We're gonna have a lot to
Speaker 4: talk about.
Speaker 5: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'sha, John Ceipher,
Speaker 5: and Jonathan Stern.
Speaker 1: The associate producer is Rachel Harner.
Speaker 5: Mission Implausible It's a production of honorable mention and abominable
Speaker 5: Pictures for iHeart Podcasts. Oh