WEBVTT - From Spy to Spy Novelist (with David McCloskey) 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.840 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.520 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.640 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.799 our adversaries. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.520 theories large and small. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:24.680 Could they be true? 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:26.280 Or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:28.840 This is mission implausible. 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.320 This is part two of John and Jerry's conversation with 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:39.000 David McCloskey, their old CIA co worker, former analyst, and 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.239 current spy novelist and the host of the podcast The 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:43.599 Rest Is Classified. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:50.640 So as a writer, as an author, everybody wants a 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.400 conspiracy on their plot right as they're replete with conspiracy theories. 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:57.400 Do you find, as do we to a certain extent, 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.440 that outside of maybe the Beltway some you know, people 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.400 who are like foreign policy walks, then it's hard to 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:08.040 keep fictional conspiracy theories and what the CIA and what 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.000 the intelligence community and what the US government actually is 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.920 and can do like the deep state. Do you find that, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.880 you know, you feel questions from people where they're they're 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.160 not quite sure of where the line is between like 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.200 a fun fictional conspiracy and books or a movie or 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:27.959 you know, the way shit really works, and how do 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:28.679 you resolve of that. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:32.679 So I continue to be surprised, although I shouldn't be, 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.760 at just how little most people know about the way 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.319 the intelligence community or the CIA more more particularly works. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.759 I mean, most people, even you know, very smart, well 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.640 read people, just don't have an understanding of the way 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:52.560 it functions. And I think almost all of the primary 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.280 source material for people's perceptions come from Hollywood. They come 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.920 from spy films and TV shows and and spy novels. Right, 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:02.680 that's the way. 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:05.320 People president of the United States understands how it functions. 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:07.280 Just to be clear, by the way, I didn't realize 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.640 this is not actually a tangent, although it'll sound like it. 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.680 We write a the CI writes like a chapter in 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.400 this book that they put out every presidential transition about 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.560 the transition for the like the briefings and all of 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.640 that to kind of get the new potus in office. 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:28.200 And the chapter in the book for Trump the first administration, 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.200 because they haven't done the second one yet, was called 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.880 Donald J. Trump a unique challenge. That was literally that 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.880 that was literally the title of the chapter, and it 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:39.840 did confirm that he's not I don't think he's he's 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.639 not really a PDB reader kind of guy, let's put 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:44.960 it that way. That is, by the way, the reason 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.359 why I think there continues to be a tremendous demand 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:53.760 for spy related, espionage related content because people don't it's 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.320 it's sort of secretive. And if you, as a reader 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.000 or a watcher of spy content, feel as though you're 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.560 being led into a secret world, there's something interesting and 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:09.040 intriguing about that. And I generally try to write things 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.800 to be as authentic as possible, but you you sort 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.920 of get to a point in every story where something 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:17.680 has to happen for the demands of the story that 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.280 are not the way it actually happens, and yeah, there's 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:26.200 there's there's somebody the directors working for the Russians or something. 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.639 There's got to be something big and that sets the 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:33.040 stakes for the whole story, and that that tends to 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:35.880 break the rules of the way things actually work. And 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:37.800 so I think as a you know, as a writer, 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:41.240 I'm generally trying to create enough of a sort of 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.120 foundation in the novel that you, as the reader, are 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:47.920 willing to take those leaps, or maybe are just so 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:50.200 kind of a lulled into the world of the story 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.760 that you don't even know that at three or four 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:56.000 points along the way, I'm positing a scenario that you 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.600 know is extremely unlikely to happen, although I would say 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:01.800 what I'm generally also trying to do, And you talked 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.880 about conspiracy conspiracies, and I think I'm trying to create 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:12.120 a scenario in the novels that is highly improbable, But 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.120 in the world of the novel and the characters of 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.320 the novel and the rules of the novel, it's not implausible. Right, 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.039 So you read it and you'd be like, this never happens. 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.720 But if you dip into the world of the. 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.960 Book's internally consistently. 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.200 It's internally exactly how these places work. There actually is 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:34.599 material out there available to you. You can listen to 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.160 this podcast, you can listen to my podcast. You can 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.400 go out there and get the memoirs of any number 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:43.279 of CI officers who have written actual books about the 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.880 way the place really functions and read it. It's not 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.120 that there's some dearth of material. It's that very few 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.680 people actually know where to look, or frankly are probably 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:56.120 not even maybe that interested in the reality of it. 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.640 They just they want the spy spy attainment. 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.040 To go, then to the stories and the content. You've 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.240 now had a number of episodes with your new podcast, 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.039 which is very popular and getting quide attention and good praise. 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.839 Do you have some favorite stories? You guys have covered 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:18.040 Edward Snowden, You've covered the Israeli killing of nuclear scientists. 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:23.320 You've covered MK Ultra and tests, tests inside the CIA, 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.880 Klaus Fuchs and the atomic program, spies inside of Russia. 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.279 Do you have any sort of favorites or anything you'd 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:31.720 like to aim people towards. 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:34.559 Yeah, I mean, well, so I would point people toward 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.640 the Snowden series that were just dropped recently. That one 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:43.640 was really interesting for me because I was at the 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.560 Agency when that happened, and of course not involved in 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.840 it in any way, but had some awareness of sort 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.919 of how it had gone down, but had never spent 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.640 days researching it and talking about it with Gordon. So like, 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:02.400 getting into that story was really really interesting and confirmed 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.960 all of my preconceived biases about ed Snowden. Also, I 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.200 would say I was not. My opinion of the man 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.640 was not changed, So that was a really fun one. 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.040 The other one that I've really enjoyed doing was there 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:19.359 was a spir ring of Bulgarians who were operating in 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.520 The Minions. The Minions. Yeah, I love the Minions one 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:26.160 because I've got three kids and they're avid watchers of 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:28.400 the Despicable Me franchise and the Minions, and I had 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.960 a legitimate work reason to rewatch those movies and to 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.160 go deep into like internet research on all the various 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.599 like spy tech and the Minions. The thing that I 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:41.240 think has been most fun on the podcast is finding 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:45.360 stories that do have a legitimate spy story at the 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:48.280 heart of the of whatever the tale is, but are 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.360 also sort of darkly comedic at the same time. And 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.520 any it seems like anytime you're dealing with like Russian 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.760 espionage in Europe, you we hit that kind of like 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:04.120 nexus of there's bizarre characters and they're doing things that 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:08.560 are also if they succeed, potentially very damaging or lethal 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.200 and awful and murderous and all this kind of stuff. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.000 So it's this weird package that I think make makes 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.040 those stories really fun for me to research and they're 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:18.760 really I mean, they can be sad too, but it's 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.440 it's it's the kind of mixture of all of that 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:22.280 that mix them appealing. 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.360 Well, I found it very disappointing in your research on 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.440 the minions that you didn't include me in it. You 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:33.080 missed that part. Yeah, I see by the gobsnaked gobs 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.040 an uncaring look is what that? The look of gob 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:37.559 snakedness on your face? 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.480 I am gobsback because I have no idea where this 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:39.880 is going. 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.240 So our world, the world of di I folks and 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.440 DO folks is pretty limited sometimes right, we keep bumping 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.800 into each other. But after I retired, one of the 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.480 first sort of job offers I got, and I won't 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.520 go into detail here, but I was brought out to London. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.800 This is after I'd retired and someone tried to hire 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.640 me to use my operator skills, which of course we 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:06.960 don't really want really security guys, but to basically investigate 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:11.320 the ft because the guy was saying that the ft 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:12.720 is a bad actor. 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:14.240 The Financial Times, the. 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.360 Financial Times, and that what the what I was supposed 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:19.560 to investigate them for, and the journals I was supposed 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.920 to go after were the ones who were looking into 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:27.720 Wirecard and uh In macellk right, the Austrian guy, and 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.200 so I was supposed to come save them, and it 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.920 was outlined to me, you know that the journalists are 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.880 up to know good, they're being hired by a bad 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.080 actor to wreck investments. And they went through all this 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.280 and I thought, sounds like the Financial Times is onto this, right, 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.920 I'm Marcelic. It's like he sounds like a bad guy. 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:49.760 And then of course he runs off to Moscow and 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:52.720 he hires the minions, right, right, I have a small 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:54.959 little ten slices. 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:56.560 But if you had done it, you could have become 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:58.560 rich and then you would be part of the ministry. 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:02.480 Probably I was someone tried to hire me to basically 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:07.400 do opposition research to undermine stories that were undermining Workard. 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:09.280 And the other part you didn't have in there, which 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.640 I really love, was that it wasn't really your focus. 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.600 Your focus was on the minions. But Wirecard, the German 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:20.120 B and D was using this to pay their agents, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.520 and they're yeah, so the Russians were controlling the payment 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:29.200 mechanism to Germany's most secret you know, their version of Knox. 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.200 How they financed them and all their agents around the world. 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.439 So when you're you know, when you're chief of station 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.240 in Berlin and you want the Germans are like, hey, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:37.520 let's work together, You're like. 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.280 So you're saying that Germans screwed up IRAQ WMD and 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.800 then later screwed up everything else the. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:47.240 Next one and they lost two World Wars. Yeah, I'm 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:48.000 just saying, you know. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:49.800 It all leads back to Berlin. 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:50.720 It all. 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:52.760 That's bad. That's bad. 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:54.839 Yeah, it was a small world. It is. 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.840 And that's why that that Marsalid character is like a 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.480 great I mean, he's just it's like when you read 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.360 it out last but he actually did, it's yeah, it's insane. 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:05.560 I mean, it's the kind of character. If I had 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.679 written that in a novel, my editor would have been like, 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.520 this is ridiculous, this isn't realistic. And you know it's. 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.640 Yeah, you seem like you've got it. Seems like you've 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.520 got some decent sort of self confidence. So I don't 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:17.280 want to deflate it. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.000 Oh, who knows where he's going with this? 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.400 There goes but I got to say your German accent 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.920 and your podcast and people have said it was really 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:26.480 more Colonel Clink than no. 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.679 I know, I know, because that's I loved it. 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:30.280 It was great. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.240 I'm so bad at the accents, I can't. 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:35.440 Yah, it was it was excellent. 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.720 When Jerry does his German accent, like he speaks almost 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:41.880 like native German, it's obnoxious, sort of like you know 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:43.960 when people had to head the Latin accent and they 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.600 go like Venezuela. He does the same kind of thing 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:48.599 with with the German and then makes you want to 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:49.079 punch him. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.280 You're saying, Colonel Clink, isn't isn't authentic? 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.480 Sort of he was authentic. He was a German Jew. 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:58.160 Yeah, he might be too young to You have watched 0:10:58.200 --> 0:10:58.880 Hogan's Hero. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:10:59.840 Oh I watched Hogan zero. 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.200 Yeah, his father it was a conductor Klemner. Yeah, it 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.360 was like it was a famous, famous orchestra conductor. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.400 Well you need to improve. Yeah, the accents will, they'll 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:10.360 come with time. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.199 More of this exciting fainter after a quick breaking. 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.520 So what is your favorite conspiracy theory on CIA that 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:33.920 it gets either get thrown at you you find yourself 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.920 defending or you're wondering yourself, like you know, whiskey tango foxtrot. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:44.120 So the one that I get pretty frequently nowadays. It's 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.559 a mixture of some of the people who bring this 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:51.320 forward or hostile, and then others are just curious. But 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.880 it is the deep state, and it's a fun one 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.120 because it's kind of a it's extremely vague, and so 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.959 it kind of becomes anything that the holder of this 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:07.720 worldview wants it to become. And I I really try 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.440 to understand every time what they're talking about, like what 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:17.559 the allegation is, but it comes down to some unspecified 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:21.120 cabal of senior CIA officials who are working with the 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:28.559 FBI to undermine American right. Yeah, exactly, like stop you 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.760 right there, This doesn't doesn't It's not gonna work like that. 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.360 They hate each other. That's probably the most frequent one 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.640 that I get in some way, shape or form. The 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.800 other one that comes up a lot are someone will 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.880 just say Hunter Biden laptop and and you know, and 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.040 and the letter and all of that. That's another one 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.839 that'll come up. And uh, and again it's a it's 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.760 very hard to sort of usually walk the person through 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.600 to like what they're what's really going on. But that's 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:55.600 that's another one that comes up. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.160 But I'm the state thing. I often wonder like if 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.559 you had time to walk people through this like, don't 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.080 you want a deep state in a certain sense, you're 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.600 what you're saying is you have a professional group of 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:10.240 experts in an area who don't always agree with what 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.480 the politicians tell them. So I think these people are saying, Hey, 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.920 the first time President Trump was in power, all of 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.960 these bureaucrats didn't just automatically agree and support everything he said. Instead, 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.200 they were doing what they supposed to do. They would 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.240 come and say, sir, that actually is against the law, 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.679 or if you do that, China's going to retaliate. You 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.680 might not want to And so yes, it probably for 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.200 a president who didn't understand how power works, it probably 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.000 was frustrating to him. But if you get rid of 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.280 that and don't have expertise or people who actually try 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.319 to tell you what really is going on, a far 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.480 bigger problem for that president, it's going to then walk 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:46.520 right into the busk. 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.120 Because coming full circle, you know, with Rock w D, 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.160 if we had a better deep state, they would have said, sir, 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:57.160 we don't have absolute evidence, we don't have proof of WND. Yeah, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.959 conjecture and hypothesis. Go to war on that if you want, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.800 But you can't go saying it is. You can only 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:03.800 say maybe. 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.800 Right, because I think all of that is true. To me, 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.080 that conspiracy theory is more symptomatic and just the general 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.920 sort of collapse of trust in the institutions of our 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.360 state and our media and our civic life. And so 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.960 the CIA is like not immune to that. And so 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:24.480 it's like, it's weird because irack WMD has in some 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.760 way contributed to that, because people go back and say, oh, 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.200 you know, you guys, you screwed this up, and we 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.600 went to war and we spent a trillion dollars and 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:35.280 you know, a whole bunch of people died, so we 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.320 got nothing. But the solution to that would be to 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.520 have a better intelligence service, not to just undermine the 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.000 one that we have now even further. And don't I 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.000 don't think that circle gets squared. I also just think 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.720 that the immense secrecy makes it a lot harder to 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.880 I mean, there is and this is not a super 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.640 aha moment, but it's you know, obviously in an open 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.080 society and in a democracy, there's an incredible amount of 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.440 tension with that, the secrecy that the CIA needs to operate, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:09.440 and we're inherently distrustful of anything that happens in secret 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:10.680 in this country. 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.320 Which you say trust has collapsed, you know, sort of 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.160 it's fallen out of a window like a Russian oligarch. 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:19.600 But did it fall or was it pushed? Because I mean, 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.960 you've got people at the typical, at the at the 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.960 epicenter center or at the very acme of US power 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.000 who are still talking about the deep state. They are 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.320 the deep state, right, So it seems to me that 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.200 there is isn't a conspiracy in some way, shape or form, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.560 depending on the definition to actually push the narrative that 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.600 there is a deep state. But I'm not sure that 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.880 it's just it's collapsed. I think that it's been monetized 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:44.280 and there's a there's a. 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:46.120 How long can you be in charge of it? And 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:47.960 keep saying that it exists, Like. 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.600 Yeah, it's very trumpy in to kind of have the 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.080 he taught because he does kind of talk out of 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.880 both sides of his mouth on the intelligence community, right. 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.280 I mean, for one of the episodes that we did 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.360 on kind of in tell in Politics, and we did 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.000 the Halloween massacre story as part of that. When Stan 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.400 Turner did a bunch of cuts back in the late seventies, 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.480 primarily in the doo and the director of Operations. And 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.200 when you go back and you really read what Trump 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.200 has said about the IC, you get a lot of 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.800 stuff where he is like, man, you guys are the best, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.680 and I love you and I love what you're doing. 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:24.280 And then you get a lot of other stuff that's like, 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.720 at the same time, there's this deep state that exists 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.760 inside the FBI and the CIA, and we need to 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.440 root it out. And he'll kind of talk about both 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.520 of those things in the same conversations, in the same 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:40.120 press conferences, right And when he went out to Langley 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.280 on day one of his first administration, you read the 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.840 transcript of that speech, which is insane, and he says 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.880 all of that stuff multiple times. It's kind of contradictory. 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:52.400 I think he's very instinctive, and I think he realizes 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:56.560 that at maybe some basic level, there's some capabilities and 0:16:56.600 --> 0:17:00.560 some cool shit inside the intelligence community that could be 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.440 really beneficial to him, and probably some people in there 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.399 that want to help him. And then at the same time, 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:10.439 you know, you get irritating things like when Russia House 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.560 and the Russia analysts are putting stuff out that says, hey, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.600 you know, we're not saying that the Russians got you elected. 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.840 We're saying the Russians wanted you to win. And you know, 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.639 there's no difference, there's no distinction in his mind between 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:28.720 those things. But that, more than anything else, I think 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.399 in his mind was like, oh, there's like there's like 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.159 enemies or people who wish me ill inside CIA who 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.719 are putting these assessments together, letting them get out, like 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.080 I don't want that. And the relationship I think from 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.800 there really has been rocky, hasn't it. 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:48.840 The internal contradiction Just today that came out as you've 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:53.720 got RFK Junior apparently yesterday said that he's asked about 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.760 kem trails, right, the US government secretly putting out poisons 0:17:57.800 --> 0:17:59.960 into the air to whatever it is, to make people 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.840 infertile or to kill specific nationalities. And instead of saying 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.040 it's not true because he's in charge now, he said, well, 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.800 my department doesn't do that, and then he can't basically 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.320 said you have to talk to Pete Hegsith about that, right. 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.119 He blamed darb book and said, well that's the real 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.440 deep state that's doing this. Right, So they even when 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.040 they're in charge, they still are like the tweed ring 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:25.959 pointing at each other. 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.760 They can't just say, yeah, the CIA killed my father, 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:30.600 and so they get in they say, well, put out 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:32.560 all the materials. So they put all all the material 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.480 and then it's just like okay, let's move on to 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:34.920 the next thing. 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:37.080 Ye yeah, like yeah. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.040 The thing for me that is just kind of a 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.720 basic starting point is like, we would we want the 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.520 people in our country who are making the decisions to 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.560 have better information about other countries than those countries do 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:50.160 about us. 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:51.760 And so if you. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.840 Start from that premise, which I think most people would 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.879 agree with, you need an effective foreign intelligence service to 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.000 do that. You need one that you could argue about 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:03.760 what form it takes, You could argue about how the 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:07.880 whole thing's organize. We should be collecting information on other 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.560 big countries like Russia and China and Iran and North 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.520 Korea that potentially wishes ill and you'd want the president 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.399 to have the best possible information about what those countries 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.840 are up to. And that's what the CIA does, you know. 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.000 So if someone someone can't walk to that point in 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.600 the conversation, it's like we're not we're not living on 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:29.360 the same planet. 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.600 So David, let me ask you about yourself. So when 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.639 you supposedly left CIA. You know, of course none of it. 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.800 We're all still in yes, still in the deep state, 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.679 joining Operation Mockingberg to write these novels to like to 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.600 influence people. Yeah, so did you enjoy your time in 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:48.920 the agency and why'd you decide to leave? And how 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:53.399 are you? How you how does Hollywood compare to like 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.600 the intelligence community? Because we're finding Hollywood to be like, 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:58.560 way more screwed up than we ever worked. 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.119 Well, the agency was great because I got to be 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.040 at briefings with guys like you and tell me how 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.440 smart I was and how badly my you know, analytic 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:11.040 judgments were needed to support this critical operation. I really 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:13.840 enjoyed my time at the CIA, you know, as someone 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.719 who joined really young and who wanted to learn how 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:21.960 the world worked and get the opportunity to travel and see, 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:27.359 I don't know, see the world outside of Minnesota. I 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:29.760 really enjoyed it. And I found the problems I was 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.000 working on there to be really endlessly fascinating, and it 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.159 felt even though there were plenty of times where I 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.560 feel like we would write things and basically you'd get 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.400 the feedback of like read with interest, which generally meant 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:44.080 they looked at the piece of paper that it was 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.120 on that was a classic one, like it was read 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.479 with interest, and then you'd write that up in your 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.399