Was Epstein CIA or Israeli Spy?

Summary

Flagrant Podcast: "Was Epstein CIA or Israeli Spy?"

Date: September 3, 2025

Hosts: Andrew Schulz and Akash Singh
Guest: Andrew Bustamante (ex–CIA officer, author of Shadow Cell)
Also featuring: Mark Gagnon, AlexxMedia (Doug)

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Overview

This Flagrant episode features a wide-ranging, no-holds-barred conversation with Andrew Bustamante, a former CIA operative and author of Shadow Cell. The notoriously irreverent hosts drill Bustamante on spycraft, US-Israel intelligence relations, the global espionage landscape, conspiracy theories (e.g., was Epstein Mossad?), and the future of America and China, interspersing heavy topics with characteristic comedic banter.

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Main Segments & Key Discussion Points

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1. Is Bustamante Still CIA? — Tinfoil Theories & Spy Drills

• [01:30–07:30]
  • The team jokes about whether Bustamante is still secretly with the CIA.
  • Bustamante walks through an actual Agency exercise: Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) — weighing reasons he might or might not still be "active."
    • Subjective points: He speaks positively about CIA, is married to a former Agency officer, and has an influential presence.
    • Objective point: "You can’t actually ever leave the CIA,” due to lifelong secrecy contracts. (“...based on the fact that we signed two contracts ... we technically can't ever leave...” – Bustamante, [03:48])
  • He explains why the YouTube landscape isn't easily subverted by covert mouthpieces: “Most of what CIA does, nobody ever hears about ... Most of what they do publicly, they do wrong.” ([06:19])
  • Ultimately, he says the more likely truth is that he is simply a former officer.

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2. US-Israel Relations: Pragmatism, Distrust & the “Egg” Analogy

• [08:09–23:00]
  • Why is Israel such a key US ally?
    • Bustamante: “Having Israel as an American ally is a very pragmatic, practical decision ... It's kind of like a 401k. It's a good idea.” ([08:18])
    • Israel is described as a protective ‘egg’ absorbing Middle East shocks for US interests. “Israel is supposed to absorb the impact.” ([09:06])
    • The military/economic symbiosis is explained: Israel’s US-supplied weapons act as anchor points for potential American deployment.
  • Distrust between supposed allies
    • “Israel actively tries to send Mossad agents to penetrate the United States ... They don’t trust us. They don’t trust us to do what we say...” ([18:54])
    • Reciprocated: “At the government level, the US does not trust Israel.” ([21:59])
  • Why such intense lobbying?
    • “If we're already getting so much out of Israel, why does APAC exist? ... Israel doesn't trust us ... they want to shore up that gap.” ([18:54])
  • Allies of convenience: “There are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.” ([22:44])

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3. The Current Middle East: Genocide, PR, Power Calculus

• [10:32–15:56]
  • They discuss US support for Israel during Israeli actions in Gaza, international perceptions of genocide, and historic amnesia around atrocities.
  • “Netanyahu’s decisions ... have essentially taken three major adversaries ... and knocked them all back 10 to 15 years." ([14:35])
  • “The ugly truth ... 10 to 15 years of increased security for 330 million cost the price of 50,000 Palestinians.” ([15:39])
  • The hosts push on moral cost vs. geopolitical benefits.

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4. Pre-9/11, Mossad, and “Did They Know?”

• [24:29–31:18]
  • Mossad forewarning on 9/11?
    • Bustamante: “There's actually probability to it ... even in the US, CIA and FBI both had info before 9/11.” ([25:03])
    • He points to chronic agency miscommunication and silos that led to intelligence failures.
  • Changes after 9/11
    • Creation of the DNI (Director of National Intelligence) and moves toward “fatter, more expensive, but more effective” agencies. ([26:48])

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5. Mossad vs. CIA: Effectiveness and October 7th Failure

• [29:40–34:54]
  • Mossad is likened to “CIA in the 50s–60s ... almost no oversight.”
  • Debates what “effective” means; Mossad is laser-focused on existential threats, while CIA has a much wider but thinner portfolio.
  • On October 7th: “Parallel to 9/11 ... reporting was communicated up [the chain] that was never acted on.” ([31:22])
  • He suggests that “miscommunication, mishandling, and a poor series of decisions” — not conspiracy for power grabs — explain Mossad’s intelligence miss.

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6. Terrorism Lexicon & Global Judgments

• [34:40–36:16]
  • “The definition of terrorism is really loose. It’s defined by each country ... In Iran, the US is a terrorist organization.” ([34:54])
  • “One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.” ([36:16])

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7. Why Are Israeli Agents Linked to Child Sex Offenses? The Epstein Question

• [36:23–46:36]
  • Twitter rumors: “Why do they like kids so much?” Mock outrage at repeated rumors of Mossad-linked child abuse (Epstein).
  • Bustamante posits: US and Israel have mutual extradition pacts that sometimes yield bad optics—men accused of child crimes in America are handed to Israel and later released.
  • On Epstein: “I actually had a convo with another intel friend ... most sound theory is that Epstein may have been an FBI source ... Not a CIA source, not a Mossad source.” ([39:48])
  • Explains that protecting “clandestine informants” is prioritized over prosecuting informants, because “every confidential informant is watching.” ([46:34])
    • “You protect the CI ... at all costs. Every future CI is watching what happens to today’s CI.” ([46:34])
  • On releasing the “Epstein list”: “Investigations take a painfully long time ... Lucky if we saw it in four or five years; more likely 7–14 years.” ([51:36])

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8. Conspiracies, Power, and Accountability

• [52:30–55:36]
  • The hosts press if Trump was ever going to release the full Epstein files. Bustamante is blunt: “He’s dishonest.” ([52:50])
  • Discussion of “does Israel or other states have dirt on Trump?”: It’s possible any big power does, but nothing confirmed.

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9. CIA Under Trump & Agency Weakness

• [56:00–59:36]
  • Trump’s presidency saw a mass exodus of CIA clandestine officers: “One per month before Trump ... to 30 per month in 2016.” ([57:06])
  • The agency, now, is “weak ... access is weak ... reliant on foreign partners.” ([57:36])
  • “Have we been worse off before?” “Great Depression, the Cold War ... The only reason we ‘won’ the Cold War is the Soviet Union imploded." ([85:50])

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10. Decline of US Power: China’s Rise and “Superpower Parity”

• [59:40–94:54]
  • America faces “10–15 years of horrible existence ahead of us ... we have to fix the shit we’ve broken.” ([59:31])
  • China’s economic ascension is said to have paralleled post-WWII American growth, using our playbook (“belt and road,” exporting cheap tech and financing to the Global South).
  • China's method: "They play the long game ... Not innovative, but they steal, promote, and drive." ([84:53])
  • The endgame is parity, then Chinese dominance. "Once [China] has parity, they start to unravel us ... The SOE [state-owned enterprise] model means they’ll just buy and own our innovations directly.” ([92:52])

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11. Could Parity Just Mean a “British/Spanish” Decline?

• [92:43–94:54]
  • Mark wonders if the US could just become like Spain or the UK—a “post-superpower” country with a decent standard of living. Bustamante says in the short term, but much depends on whether we regain competitiveness or stagnate under Chinese influence (“state-owned enterprise” model, innovation stifled, national wealth declining).

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12. America’s Short Political Cycles are a Weakness

• [112:47–114:34]
  • US presidents think in four-year chunks; adversaries play longer games.
  • “That’s now the president’s problem ... after three presidents, the mistake is someone else’s problem.” ([112:47])
  • Cites the Founders' hope for citizen-leaders, not lifer politicians: “If you want to make America great again—get the fuck out of office, all of you.” ([114:01])

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13. Where Would a Former Spy Move?

• [116:44–120:00]
  • Akash asks Bustamante where he’d move his family to escape US decline (he plans to leave in 2027).
    • Shortlist: Spain, Portugal, France, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Georgia (Caucasus), Armenia, Croatia, Aruba.
    • Criteria: must be pro-American (“one of our biggest parameters”), stable government/economy, not liable to switch alliances fast.

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14. How Easy Are Fake Passports?

• [121:00–123:11]
  • “Shockingly easy ... it's really just a matter of putting a new picture on an old passport ... As long as the chip and barcode match, you’re good.” ([121:09])

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15. The Book: Shadow Cell & CIA Memoir Ethics

• [123:37–129:41]
  • Shadow Cell details how Bustamante and his wife—a targeter—created new espionage methods to counter rising adversaries.
  • The book was initially classified in entirety; after threat of lawsuit (First Amendment), the CIA allowed publication with names and key particulars changed.
  • “Three years ago, everything in that book was classified. Now it's publicly available on the bookshelf. This is the most contemporary, most accurate spy novel to date.” ([123:37])
  • Describes how their real-life mission was partially to serve as “bait” to catch a CIA mole. “If I was director, I’d have done the same thing.” ([127:00])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

With Timestamps & Speaker Attribution

• On Israeli–US Relations:
  • “Israel is supposed to absorb the impact.” — Bustamante [09:06]
  • “Israel actively tries to send Mossad agents to penetrate the United States ... They don’t trust us.” — Bustamante [18:54]
  • “There are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.” — Bustamante [22:44]
• On US global morality:
  • “That's the ugly truth ... 10–15 years of increased security for 330 million cost the price of 50,000 Palestinians.” — Bustamante [15:39]
• On Epstein:
  • “Every future CI is watching what happens to today’s CI.” — Bustamante [46:34]
• On China:
  • “China plays the long game ... Not innovative, but they steal and they promote and they drive.” — Bustamante [84:53]
  • “If China is a superpower by 2035, guess what? Your child’s going to have to speak Mandarin.” — Bustamante [89:13]
  • “Once they have parity, China will tip the scales and start unraveling us.” — Bustamante [92:52]
• On US decline:
  • “10–15 years of horrible existence ahead of us ... we have to fix the shit we’ve broken.” — Bustamante [59:31]
• Spycraft Wisdom:
  • “Every government agency is penetrated by five foreign spies. That’s the rule of thumb.” — Bustamante [145:22]
• On leaving the US:
  • “One of our biggest parameters is it has to be a place that’s pro-American.” — Bustamante [118:28]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:30–07:30] — “Are you still CIA?” & Spy drills
• [08:09–23:00] — US–Israel alliance, distrust, and intelligence games
• [24:29–31:18] — Mossad, 9/11, intelligence failures
• [36:23–46:36] — Child trafficking allegations, Epstein and Mossad
• [56:00–59:36] — CIA under Trump, weakening of US intelligence capability
• [59:40–94:54] — China’s rise, the decline of American power
• [112:47–114:34] — US political short-sightedness vs. long-term foreign strategies
• [116:44–120:00] — Where should a spy move? Bustamante’s expatriation criteria
• [123:37–129:41] — The Shadow Cell story, writing about real-life espionage

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Noteworthy Flagrant Humor & Color

• Akash repeatedly jokes about his weight—“I’m your fat co-host...” [00:00]
• The comedians riff on Reddit/Twitter conspiracy rumors (“Why do they like kids so much?” [36:23]); Bustamante takes it seriously rather than shaming the question.
• Sarcasm and frankness are frequent, cutting against the “sensitive” style of many current podcasts.

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Conclusion

The episode navigates the overlap of espionage, morality, geopolitics, and pop culture scandal with sharp (but often dark) humor and revealing candor. Bustamante gives rare, plainspoken answers blending realpolitik with behind-the-scenes spy truths, making clear that intelligence work is as unromantic and ethically fraught as the public suspects—if not more.

For listeners who want straight talk, O.G. spycraft, and absurdist comedy about international affairs and scandal, this is a flagship Flagrant episode.

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Book Plug:
Shadow Cell — Bustamante’s real-world, recently un-classified memoir of his and his wife’s modern CIA operations—legal battle, moles, tradecraft, and all. “This isn’t the Cold War, this is now.” [124:03]

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Transcript

[Akash Singh]

What's up guys? Welcome to Flagrant. I'm your fat co host Akash Singh and we are here with CIA agent, former and probably present author of the book Shadow Cell. One of my favorite guests ever, even though he still works for the Agency. Andrew Busta Monte guy. Give it up for him. Thank you for coming through, man. Thank you for coming through.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I'm sorry you got fat. That's new. Since the last time we were saying.

[Akash Singh]

This off pod, I have been fatter on this podcast. I must have just hidden it better. I'm not saying I'm not fat now. I am, but I'm less fat slightly. So the comments didn't bother me as much. But if you look at the episode with Ralph Barbosa, every comment is about how fat I am. And they're so funny.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Are they making comments about how fit you are? It's almost like you're just how black he is.

[Mark Gagnon]

They've talked about that a lot of transfer.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I gave him a fat transfer. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Can you teach them how to go deep undercover? Your favorite comment about how fat I am. Do we have one on deck or Joey can pull it up.

[Mark Gagnon]

I don't have a favorite one off.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Deck, but they were all great.

[Akash Singh]

Oh God, they were so good. I was genuinely laughing at them. I was with my wife just dying laughing and she can't go nowhere. I have this. She married my fat ass.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So what you going to do?

[Mark Gagnon]

I saw some bangers. Someone said the camera adds 10 pounds. Look like Akash ate five cameras. Unfortunately, that's a heater.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That was.

[Akash Singh]

That was just a mark joke right there. Oh my God, it's so good.

[Mark Gagnon]

One too many non bread. Oh gosh. When you eating good? Hell yeah, dude.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, this is so funny. Nah, the funniest one was just Akash. Looks like he gained 50 pounds in the last week. It's just like so blunt. Okay. Anyway, Andrew, Mr. Bustamente, as your fat co host, I have some questions for you to chew on. Get it address if you want to Just address. Everybody thinks you still work for CIA. What do you have to say to that? Alex thinks it. I believe I do.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So Alex is the exception. Everybody else is an idiot. Okay. Do you think I still work for CIA? You are so far off, like so far off in terms of anything rational, logical.

[Akash Singh]

Well, no, no, no.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I just want an agent would say.

[Akash Singh]

I don't believe, I don't believe you work for CIA, but we have to address this. It. It is rational and logical to think because you are seemingly very like pro CIA, you don't have a lot of negative things to say about them. So a person could make the leap that, oh, he probably still works for.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So let's do an actual CIA drill, right? Because this shit happens in CIA all the time where you have two very smart people who sit there and they're like, this is what's happening. And somebody else is like, nope, this is what's. And they're polar opposites. So me working for CIA still is the polar opposite of me not working for CIA.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So when you have this kind of impasse in intelligence, you go through something called an. An analysis of competing hypotheses. An ach. Right.

[Akash Singh]

This sounds like some he's workshop. Go ahead.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Competing hypoth workshop with like corporate clients.

[Akash Singh]

Yes. Okay. Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Is that what you mean?

[Akash Singh]

Sure, that's. Yeah, that's what, that's what they want me to mean.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's what I mean.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay, so. So you have to look at the two. Two options and then compare objectively the, the likelihood, the logic, the reasoning behind the two. So, so let's start with the camp that I am still working for CIA. So what are our. What are our objective like rational arguments for why you think I still work for CIA?

[Akash Singh]

It would make sense for the CIA, or CIA whatever, to hire an incredibly charismatic, likable, well spoken person to defend their actions in the guise of. For CIA.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay, so that is. That is not objective. It's subjective. Because what you're saying is it would make sense. So it makes sense to you. Might. Might not not make sense someone else, but let's still use it. So that's one point in the I still work for CIA camp. What's the next?

[Mark Gagnon]

Theoretically people would say you can never leave the CIA once you're in. You're always in.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Once you're in. Which based on the fact that we signed two contracts, right? We signed two secrecy agreements with them, one that's civilian and one that's federal. So that actually is demonstrably true. So we, we technically can't ever leave because they always have to approve what we publish what we make. So that's two things and two points in the Andy still works for CIA camp.

[Mark Gagnon]

You generally speak somewhat positively about the CIA and general operations.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think that still goes back to point one. The charismatic person who defends CIA.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What else?

[Doug]

They want someone in the industry rubbing shoulders and buddy, buddy with all the celebrities and people that you. You're around.

[Andrew Bustamante]

The Epstein argument right there, that is.

[Akash Singh]

Actually who I was thinking of. And I got I got uncomfortable sitting next to you.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But a very valid and, like, strategic argument. The last time I was here, you were the one that made all the really good spy, like, strategic observations. So I love that you're still doing it.

[Akash Singh]

He wanted to work for CIA or FBI. Was it CIA? Yeah, he wanted to work for CIA and then he started working for us and his whole life went downhill.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, but your bank account went up. That's three. Three points in that camp. Anything else? Why would I still work for CIA?

[Akash Singh]

Miles, I feel like you got one ready.

[Andrew Bustamante]

No, I was just going to say, Alex Media would be the worst CIA agent possibly ever in the history of mankind. Or the best. Or the best. Or the best so bad nobody would tell us when he was sort of a cop.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I just can't imagine the abuse of power.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I got four.

[Mark Gagnon]

Your wife was CIA.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay.

[Mark Gagnon]

So you are metaphorically and literally in bed with CIA in some way.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. You're married. You're married to the Agency.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay, we'll keep that one too then.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, so three.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Three of the four. Three of the four were subjected, but we'll keep all four. Now let's do the thought exercise of why you would defend that. I'm not in CIA.

[Akash Singh]

I have nothing.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You really have nothing?

[Akash Singh]

I have.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, you say you're not.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay. Have you. Do you have other CIA examples of people like me?

[Akash Singh]

I don't think so.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay, so there are no other examples out there. So I would be like a. One original.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And one. Only one success story.

[Akash Singh]

But it would make. And I honestly don't believe this, but the narrative seems to be out there and I want to help you at least address it.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, there's other people that claim they're former CIA, and it would make.

[Akash Singh]

Sense that in this YouTube landscape, this is the new entertainment landscape. This. You would be the first. Or there would be a first.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, there would be a first. But would the first also happen to also be someone that they planted?

[Akash Singh]

I mean, theoretically.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Theoretically. But you could also argue how many things has CIA done? Right. Like when you hear about CIA Argo, after they made a movie about it. Right. So. So, so most of what CIA does. Right. Nobody ever hears about, which is arc, which is an argument for why I would still be CIA. Right. But the, the, the second truth is most of what they do publicly, they do wrong. So if they were to try to plant somebody publicly, it would probably go terribly wrong. Right. How. How is they, an organization like that going to actually keep up with the pace of business? How are they going to keep up with the pace of media? How are they going to control every channel, every person who goes out there? Why is it not every video is a hit? Why is it only some videos are a hit?

[Akash Singh]

And when you can't control the YouTube algorithm, or. Nor would I expect the agency to control the YouTube algorithm, but having a smart, charismatic, handsome guy to go be their mouthpiece, enough videos will hit and penetrate that our job will get done, our message will get across. I just can't imagine. I can't imagine that you guys haven't thought of the same thing Andrew Tate thought of. Let's just have a bunch of accounts getting clips out of me and making us look good.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay? It's all fair.

[Akash Singh]

Now, again, I'm not. I don't think this. But as we talk this out, I. I doubt myself exactly. The thought exercise really led to me being unsure. Now, we're still going to have a great episode. And whether you represent the Agency or not, I think it's great because you can answer some questions that we have about larger issues. I think. And I would love to start whether you guys are okay with. I'd love to start with this one because we've asked a few people and never gotten a solid answer. I've listened to some stuff of yours. You seem to be reasonably pro Israel, which is fine. Our question that we ask people is, what does the United States government get out of their relationship with Israel?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So it's a great question, and I want to make sure that we understand something. So I am pragmatically pro Israel. Having Israel as an American ally is a very pragmatic, practical decision.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. It's kind of like a 401k. It's a good idea.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But you can still hate your 401k. You can still have it mismanaged. It can still be something where you're like, I wish there was a better alternative, but I have no other option because my company chose this for one. That's kind of the relationship that I think the United States has with Israel right now.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Israel is. If you. If you think of. If you think of when you were a kid and you, like, made the whole egg drop experiment in elementary school, you put an egg inside of something so that you can drop it from the roof or you drop it from the ceiling or drop it from the third floor, some people put it inside of a box, some people attach it to a parachute, but everybody puts the egg into something because the egg is what they Care about the thing on the outside is the thing they don't really care about. But the thing that's supposed to absorb the impact of the ground. That's what Israel is for the United States.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Israel is supposed to absorb the impact.

[Doug]

He might be Mossad. I heard you say on another pod that all Mossad agents are hot.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I'm getting a lot. I'm getting more compliments on this couch. We don't want to fuck you.

[Akash Singh]

I just want to let you guy out.

[Mark Gagnon]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I hope my wife is watching.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

CIA dude, you know what time it is?

[Akash Singh]

Okay, but. So they absorb the impact of potential adversaries in the Middle East.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct. They also give us a foothold on another side of the world that if we ever need to rapidly deploy, we just have to move people from here to there. Because all the weapons they have are already our weapons. There are. They're flying our jets, they're using our tanks, they're using our artillery.

[Akash Singh]

We still own them. Or we sold them.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We sold them, but they're buying American brand. So now all of a sudden, if we needed to launch an American front, and even if Israel didn't want to be actively involved in that front, we have a whole. We have a cachet sitting there waiting for us.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now, is this not the case with Saudi.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Not the case with Saudi. It is the case with Jordan. Right. Saudi Arabia is a. Is a very different beast than Israel because Saudi Arabia is independently wealthy, right? They have oil wealth, they have royalty, they have all. They don't need our money. Israel, their economy is heavily tied to our economy. So they do need us to sell. They do need us to buy from them. Saudi Arabia's and the United Arab Emirates.

[Doug]

He's calling Jews broke. That's crazy.

[Akash Singh]

That's great. Okay. But then here's my question. Just from I guess, a PR standpoint, there is, I think most of us would agree there's a genocide happening and the United States seemingly just kind of supports Israel in this thing. And that is a very bad look for us globally. So is that allyship worth it? And if that protection is enough? Well, I guess you can answer that and then I have a follow up.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, yeah. So yes, it's worth it because whether you want to admit it or not, we're going to forget about this genocide in the next 15 to 20 years because we've already forgot about the genocide that happened on Clinton's watch when the Hutus killed the Tutsis.

[Akash Singh]

Now, this is what I had this exact thought. There have been many Times, sadly, in Africa where the United States just kind of didn't acknowledge a genocide and the media landscape went with that and never talked about it and we didn't support it. We just kind of didn't do anything. What it seems to many of us, I'm. Now, I'm no geopolitical expert at all. I'm dumb with most of this stuff, but it seems like not only are we turning or kind of turning a blind eye, we are looking at it and being like, no, that's okay. And that is a very different thing. That's true. We support those guys. Nobody was saying we support the tootsies. Yeah, we support the tootsies. They are defending themselves. They have the right to defend. Nobody was saying that. We just kind of ignored it, it seems like. And I hate that this hope, I hope this doesn't get clipped up for some anti Semitism because this has nothing to do with Jewish people as a race or culture or whatever. This is about a government.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

What they seem to be doing is a genocide. And we're like, hey, they are allowed to do that.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I agree with you. There was. The international outcry was so much more significant in the 90s, whereas right now the international outcry is there. But that's not really what we're seeing or hearing here. Instead, what we're seeing here is, well, they have a right to defend themselves. And there's all the comparisons to 9 11. There's actually not a lot of objective comparison between 911 and what happened on October 7th. They're very, very different settings. Right. But we're still drawing all these comparisons as if we are making the argument that the mass killing of non. Non participant, non aggressors in Gaza, Palestinian women, children.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And civilians, non extremists. As if that's okay.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. And I think to that end, I don't know that we're going to forget about this. In 15, 20 years. I think there will be a stain that didn't necessarily exist with Houthis and Tutsus. And I think it happened in Sudan as well. I read a book that I already forgot. What is the. What it was called the book, but it's about a genocide. So that's happened. But this I think will leave a longer saying, do you not feel that way?

[Andrew Bustamante]

The reason I don't feel that way is because first of all, most Americans don't understand what a Palestinian is and.

[Akash Singh]

And someone getting killed in Palestine. And I mean probably a woman or child getting murdered in Palestine.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And here's what's fucked up. What's Palestine?

[Akash Singh]

Well, it is, it is the nation that will soon to be known as Israel.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But that's.

[Akash Singh]

It's like Prince.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But it doesn't exist. Right. And that's one of the things that makes it so hard for people to conceptualize. There is no technical Palestine.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

There's Israel and then there's other areas of Israel that are called other things. Gaza, west bank, there's no Palestine. Right. Even the United States, who has kind of quietly advocated for a two party, a two state solution. There is an Israel and there, there for sure is terrorism. We all know terrorism very well. Every American knows terrorism very well. So we understand terrorism, but we don't understand the difference between Hezbollah, Hamas. We don't understand.

[Akash Singh]

I don't.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, we don't understand what the IRGC is in Iran and what's the relationship between Iran. Like, what's a proxy.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then why are there even missiles coming from Yemen? People don't understand it.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And when people don't understand it, it makes it really easy to forget and favor something else that you do understand.

[Akash Singh]

So the United States is kind of making a calculated decision. And I'm not even necessarily judging this. This is kind of like a decision I have the luxury of not making. I gotta look out for my 330 or whatever million constituents. And if it is, you know, tens, twenties, hundreds of thousands of people over there dying, those aren't my constituents. I don't have to worry about that. If it benefits my. Is that kind of the ugly truth of what you're saying?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, there's two ugly truths. One is I have to feed my constituency and my constituency doesn't know, doesn't care, to a point where it's affecting the economy or my election, my reelection campaign. Right. That's part of it. But then the other part of it is, objectively speaking, if you measure what Israel's actions have been, it's all good for us. They have crippled Hezbollah, crippled Hamas. The Houthis are weak. Iran has been like their, their enrichment program has been damaged significantly. Their ability to leverage proxy conflict, not just against Israel, but anywhere else in, has been significantly reduced. I mean, Netanyahu's decisions, his actions, as sad as they are, and as many tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians that you can count, he's essentially taken three major adversaries to the United States and he's knocked them all back 10 to 15 years. So 10 to 15 years of increased security for 330 million cost. The price of 50,000 Palestinians and how many Americans are going to take action on that? That's the ugly truth.

[Mark Gagnon]

Could you also say that the conflict has exacerbated a potential hot war between the United States directly and Iran?

[Akash Singh]

Thank God you had a good point because he fucking checked me all the way back. Jesus Christ.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I'm one move away from check me.

[Akash Singh]

It's unbelievable what corner I'm in. Okay, go ahead.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I think what? Yes and no. We were never that close to a hot war with Iran. Iran doesn't really care that much about us. They care much more about what's happening in the Middle east. And we don't really care that much about Iran because Iran doesn't have much sphere of influence that impacts us. When. When Donald Trump flew stealth bombers into Iran to bomb their nuclear enrichment facility, I think he knew very well there was not going to be significant retribution coming back from Iran. If anything, there would be what happened? Some sort of response that allows us to test our weapons systems in full view of everybody and look really strong again. Right.

[Akash Singh]

Did he do real damage with that attack? Because I've heard. We've heard mixed things.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's mixed things. And this is part of what's the biggest challenge in the Trump administration, is that even the intelligence, like the dni, the Director of National Intelligence, and all the agencies that feed up to the dni, we don't know if they're independent or if they're being directed as to what they can or can't report to the President. Right. Because DIA came back and said, hey, our damage analysis is insignificant. And the DNI came out and was. And said, we knocked them back to the Stone Age. And so it's. It's inconsistent. Who's. Are the facts coming up so we can find them? Or are the facts being dictated? Is the truth being dictated down?

[Akash Singh]

Which of those entities has the greater chance of being propagandized by a president that wants to. To get a third term?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So the dni, because the dni. The DNI is the newest of all positions, didn't exist before 2003.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. And the DNI said that we didn't do much damage.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct? Correct. And then the DNI came back later on, was like, no, no, no.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We really did. That's Tulsa Gabbard.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, okay, okay, got it. Okay. Here's actually one question I did want to ask you about Israel and the allyship and all the good that it does. If that is true, why is. Why do we still hear so much about an apac Presence as a lobby. Why do we still. Why does APAC still exist? Why does Israel need AIPAC to do all of these things? From what I understand, as a guy who's not super political, they have a large influence on the government. But if we're already getting so much about out of Israel, why do we need that lobbyist?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So, I mean, why do they need. You're. You're definitely out of my depth on this one.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because when it comes to a lot of the political lobbies and what's involved in them and how they work, that's not foreign intelligence.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I can understand that's like domestic. I guess my question, as you're talking it all out, I'm thinking in my mind, I'm like, okay, that all makes sense. But then why would we need an AIPAC or why would Israel need an APEC to have, to have such influence here? And you know, Bernie Sanders has said, like, you go against them, they'll get you out of office. Why do they need that if they offer so much value?

[Doug]

Yeah, our elected politicians, they need a vacation to, you know, Israel.

[Akash Singh]

I mean, you know what? I guess I can understand that to a degree, but if they offer so much good, it feels like they wouldn't need such a strong, like. I'm trying to think England is an ally of ours, as far as I know that we have a great relationship with. There's no English lobby.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So this is a great point. So you, you're actually raising something that, that is really relevant here because. Or not not. It's both relevant and I know something about it. Israel doesn't trust the United States. Israel actively tries to send Mossad agents to penetrate the United States. They're actively recruiting spies inside the United States and our. In our nuclear programs and our weapons and military programs and our intelligence programs. Like Israel is actively trying to spy on the United States. So any. They don't trust us. They don't trust us to do what we say we're going to do. They don't trust us not to spy on them because I think they understand American pragmatism better than most Americans understand American pragmatism. Right. Israel is one of the few countries in the world that's surrounded on almost all sides by enemies. Not just like, I don't like you enemies, but existential threat enemies. People who want to wipe off. Wipe the Jewish state off the map.

[Akash Singh]

To act like, to give Israel credit, to act like there haven't been terrorist attacks, slash attempted terrorist attacks constantly is ridiculous.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is it fair to say they have a militaristic paranoia.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I would venture away from paranoia because it's demonstrable.

[Mark Gagnon]

But when it comes to dealing with the United States, as far as intelligence.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that would seem like paranoia.

[Mark Gagnon]

Like, is there demonstrable evidence the United States is withholding information from the Israeli government or Mossad?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So the United States has a full transparency agreement with four other countries. That's what makes what's known as the five eyes. So Canada, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States.

[Akash Singh]

Are they called the Five Eyes because CIA, MI6, the I, and the intelligence.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I actually don't know. And it's funny when you, when you look at it written out, it's the word I, E, Y, E. So, okay, I don't really know where it came from. But those are the only five countries that really agree to full transparency. And even then that full transparency has policy rigor around it. Israel's not part of that. So they already know that they're not part of an agreement that says we're going to share everything. So then they have to wonder, like, what are you going to share? What aren't you going to share? And when it comes to Israel, the thing they're the most interested about is not what is the United States collecting about Israel, it's what is the United States collecting about a threat to Israel that they're not telling Israel. So what did the United States collect about Hezbollah that they're not telling Israel? What did the United States collect about Iran that they're not telling Israel? And they want to shore up that gap.

[Akash Singh]

And that's why they're so paranoid. And they'll still have a lack of trust for us.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean, they have a lack of trust for Israel again. And I want to differentiate between Israel and Jews. Not the same.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, that's a super important thing to do.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But Israel, Israel's. It doesn't know who to trust. And it arguably doesn't trust anyone. It's a young country. It's almost like the relationships that it does have are all pragmatic, based on economy and military trading and shared borders or whatever else. It doesn't really have anyone who's ideologically aligned with the Jewish state because Israel does not have its differentiation of church and state. They are the Jewish state. It's the government is the religion, the religion is the government. So that's fundamentally different than here in the United States.

[Doug]

And so does America trust Israel?

[Andrew Bustamante]

No. At the government level, the United States does not trust Israel. Why? Because of all the same Reasons. We know they're trying to penetrate us. We know that they manipulate us. We know that they manipulate trade. We know that they, they have agreements and partnerships and they do all sorts of things with other countries that are beneficial to Israel but not beneficial to the United States. So there's this inherent distrust of these two allies that inherently need each other on opposite sides of the world.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is that a new phenomena or do you feel like this is, this has precedent in history?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It has precedent for sure. And it's the way that most relationships around the world actually do work. There's a famous quote that you learn at the Agency that actually comes from statesmanship and diplomacy that says there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.

[Akash Singh]

Ah, that's good.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So you have permanent interests.

[Akash Singh]

I think that's a life lesson.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But people come and go based on whether or not they agree with your interests or not.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is there any evidence of different governments, globally speaking, that withhold intelligence information of a potential attack for some other interest?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So that's a, it's a yes and no answer, right? Generally speaking, imminent threat to life. Imminent threat to life means, means very pressing in terms of a timeline, 48 hours, 72 hours, that, that type of thing. Imminent threat to life, arguably even complete enemies should advise each other. Right. So if we in the United States find out that some extremist group in China is going to bomb a public event in Beijing will tell China. Right. It's just, it's, it's kind of a duty to warn is what we call it. And other countries agree the same thing for us. So there should be that for imminent threats, but for strategic threats, which are long term threats or tactical threats, it becomes more dicey. And now it becomes, well, if we tell them about this attack that could happen in three months, are we exposing our source? And if we're exposing our source, is it worth possibly losing the source to prevent that attack? Or is it better to wait until the attack is imminent and then warn them two days or three days in advance?

[Akash Singh]

I noticed you said the word should. Have you ever seen it not happen?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I've seen it happen a number of times, especially in even the takedown of Osama bin Laden. Right. Pakistan was an ally. We crossed Pakistani borders illegally to take out Osama bin Laden. We didn't warn the Pakistanis that there was going to be a violent attack on their, on their country until right before we cross the border.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right now this is, we're getting into conspiracy territory. Okay, you can punt on this if you want, but there is a theory that Mossad had some forewarning of the September 11 attacks and that they were in some way maybe knew about it and then didn't inform the United States. And I've seen it, like, pop up on Twitter.

[Akash Singh]

That is the kindest conspiracy theory I've heard about anything Israeli adjacent.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's like a Mormon conspiracy theory.

[Doug]

We heard about dancing Israelis over in Jersey celebrating that.

[Mark Gagnon]

People call it different things. But I'm curious, have you heard of this theory and do you think there's any validity to it?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think there's actually probability to it. And I say that because even in The United States, CIA and FBI both had information about the September 11 attacks before they happened. Now, whether or not Israel nefariously held that information back is a different story. Was it there and they just didn't see it? Was it there and they didn't validate it? Was it there and they communicated to the United States and said, hey, we're getting some strange warnings. Do you have anything about a pending attack in your country? Right. And the United States? They did, but it was on the cutting room floor and nobody was talking about it. So they may very well come back and been like, nope, you know what to talk about.

[Doug]

Wasn't there a huge lack of communication pre 911 between CIA and FBI and other information agencies?

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then post, they sort of opened that up better. Yeah. So that's exactly getting back to what the DNI is and why the DNI exists. Prior to 9 11, the United States was basically a bunch of intelligence community members who coordinated when they wanted to. And they all spoke different languages. Right. You speak military, you speak intel, you speak signals intelligence, or the people who listen in on phone calls. Right? Well, when you write a report, you use different terminology. When you write a report and when you have an asset, you didn't coordinate your asset with him. So it might be the same asset for all we know. Only yours is 24612. And yours is code named, you know, Hard Nipples, whatever, Falcon. Yeah. But nobody was talking to each other in the same language. So when the 911 Commission happened and in 2003, when Senate came in and said, we're changing, when really all of Congress came in and said, we're changing how we do intelligence business. We are appointing a DNI a Director of National Intelligence who's going to standardize in uniform and make everything more uniform.

[Akash Singh]

Are we less effective in a sense because of this?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I would say we're more effective. Okay, we're more effective, but we're Also fatter.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But we're fatter and we're. And we're more expensive.

[Akash Singh]

Okay?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right? It used to be that people could run kind of lean, be experimental. How about that? You always had plausible deniability. Now, like, how does the DNI have plausible deniability?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. All right, guys, we got to do some tour dates. September 11th, what a great day. Through the 13th. Dania Beach Improv. September 25th through 27th. I really wish Danny had thought that through, giving me September 11th, but it's there. Hey, come to the show. It's going to be explosive. September 25th through 27th, I'm at Hilarious in Cleveland. October 5th, I'm in Dubai. I don't know if there's even any tickets left. Go find out. October 16th through 18th, I'm in East Providence, Rhode Island. October 25th, 3rd through 25th, I'm in San Jose. All those dates and [e-mail] we also got a huge announcement coming and imminent announcement. This is coming right now. I remember I told y' all I invested in a chai shop like, a year, year and a half ago. They opened a second location. We're expanding. We're coming to Manhattan. West Village, 20 Christopher Street. It's called Fontes. They're still gonna have the masala chai. They got some banging ass Indian sandwiches. We're growing, baby. All good things.

[Doug]

Amazing, amazing.

[Akash Singh]

20 Christopher Street, Fontes. Love Y'.

[Andrew Bustamante]

All.

[Mark Gagnon]

Let's go. Quick announcement, announcement. By the way, so many people have come up to me after the show has been like, hey, dude, I can.

[Akash Singh]

I.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is there any way I can just get a photo? I don't want to suck your dick.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, I thought, okay, I can stop making the announcement. I can stop making the announcement if you want.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, no, it's great. And I think it kind of gets the people going, but there's.

[Akash Singh]

It does get the people going.

[Mark Gagnon]

So many people that have come up to me and just been like, hey, man, is there any way we could just do a photo and not do the thing? Like, like, devout.

[Akash Singh]

Like, can I be honest? No. No.

[Mark Gagnon]

Muslim dudes with their girls being like, hey, you got.

[Akash Singh]

That's. If the girl that's haram you sucking his dick.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Hello.

[Mark Gagnon]

I don't think that's true, but Nashville, Tennessee, Denver, Colorado, Hoboken, New Jersey. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan. I'll be at all these places.

[Akash Singh]

What are you doing in Philly?

[Mark Gagnon]

I think helium.

[Akash Singh]

Love that club.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I Think it's a one nighter?

[Akash Singh]

Hell yeah.

[Doug]

Y' all have my mom coming.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Wait, no, no, no, no, no, no. But you need to see.

[Akash Singh]

Hey, tell her to wear open toed shoes.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes. All due respect, all due respect.

[Akash Singh]

I want to be comfor.

[Mark Gagnon]

Do tricks on it one time. I'll see you guys in the channel.

[Doug]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

[Doug]

Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Mark Gagnon]

You made a comment in a different podcast where you said that Mossad operates today like the CIA operated in the late 50s, 60s.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, so? So the, the reference there is that CIA prior to 9, 11 CIA in the 60s and 70s was, did not suffer significant oversight.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

They had a small group of people that could take very high risk operations in order to accomplish whatever priorities the President set in place. That's essentially what the Mossad is now. Argo.

[Akash Singh]

Argo.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's what the. That's what Mossad is now. Mossad is a small group with almost no oversight that executes in any way that they need to. The direction of.

[Akash Singh]

We keep hearing they're like the most effective. I mean we meaning idiots like me. The most effective intelligence agency. Is that true? And is that why.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Doug]

So tell us about your colleagues.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I want to. I'm going to be particular about language. Right. Because effective. Effective has different meanings.

[Akash Singh]

They know the most, it seems.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I would argue that they don't.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So first of all, Israel and Mossad is very, very focused on just a handful of priorities, basically threats to the homeland.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Everything outside of that handful of priorities they don't care about. They're not a global superpower. The United States is a global superpower. We don't have a handful of priorities. We have dozens upon dozens of priorities. We have to know what's happening between two allies in Europe. We have to know what's happening about, you know, rice trade in Southeast Asia. We have to know whether or not there's going to be another coup in Africa. We care about all that shit. So we have to take our budget and our officers and know everything that's happening in the world.

[Akash Singh]

And Mossad just has to focus on threats to the homeland.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right.

[Akash Singh]

How did.

[Doug]

Question, how did they miss October 7th?

[Akash Singh]

Bang. So did they miss October 7th?

[Andrew Bustamante]

One of the places one of the ways where October 7th is. Is parallel to 9, 11 is that in. In hindsight, what people have collected is that there was reporting there was information that was communicated up the chain of command that was never acted upon to prevent the attack.

[Akash Singh]

But if it's a small group of people, it makes sense. In CIA, I keep. Not. I keep. You have a real thing against the word the. So I just keep saying CIA. I appreciate it. In CIA, it was a scattered budget, like you said. There's no real oversight. Mossad is a small group. So to address some conspiracy theories out there, how do they not communicate with each other within a small group that there's an issue, imminent threat, potentially to the homeland.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So there were three groups that are. That were involved, three Israeli organizations that were involved in the October 7th incident. Mossad, because Mossad's charged with collecting foreign intelligence against. That addresses threats against the homeland. So their job is they were the ones that should have known what Hamas was doing, who the Hamas leaders were, what the supplies were, timing, et cetera. Right. So that would have been Mossad, but the actual border itself was protected by the. By the Israeli military, not by Mossad. So anything about imminent attack, anything about locations, anything about security and defense, the IDF would have had to handle that. So Mossad would have had to communicate with the idf, and the IDF would have had to communicate with Mossad. And then you have internal security, which is handled by a group called Shin Beta. Shin Bet is basically like the FBI for Israel. Anything that happens inside the country, not on the border, not outside of the border, anything happens inside the country should be Shin Bet's purview. Okay, so you've got three organizations that would have had to all communicate almost seamlessly in a short period of time to prevent occultism.

[Akash Singh]

So you don't think there's any real validity to the idea that Netanyahu maybe allowed this to happen so he could stay in power?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think there's always a possibility, but the probability speaks to miscommunication, mishandling, and a poor series of which is.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I understand. That is the most logical and probable of all solutions. Okay, wait one thing.

[Doug]

But things going on in Gaza, since that's technically part of Israel, wouldn't that be Shin Bet's responsibility?

[Andrew Bustamante]

And this is why. It's a great question. And this is why things get really mixed up in Israel, because you have all these international players, some of which are trying to protect Palestinians, some of which are trying to protect Israel, all of which are trying to find peace. And then you have These areas that are kind of carved out, that are supposed to be like safe havens for the Palestinians, but they're not really safe havens because they're still managed by the Israelis. And then Israeli law shouldn't necessarily apply to Palestinians, but it does because they're on land that the world kind of views as Israel. So it gets really fucking complicated. Right. Who does have jurisdiction? Is it the Palestinian Authority? Palestinian Authority is kind of the recognized authority for the Palestinian people. Or is it Hamas? Hamas is the group that was voted into power by the Palestinian people over the Palestinian Authority. And then the United States. The world sees Hamas as a terrorist organization. Sort of. 12 countries in the world see Hamas as a terrorist organization.

[Akash Singh]

Really? I thought we all kind of saw Hamas as terrorists.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's Western.

[Akash Singh]

Why do others not see it as a terrorist organization?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Even the EU doesn't see them as. So it doesn't say them as a terrorist group.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. Is it just because they're liberal cucks or like, what is that? What is the. I'm serious. Why would they not.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because the definition of terrorism is really loose. It's defined by each country. And some countries see Hamas activities as terrorist activities. Some countries see Israel's activities as terrorist countries.

[Akash Singh]

In Iran, two things can be true.

[Andrew Bustamante]

In Iran, the United States is a terrorist organization.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is the Taliban recognized as a. Or not recognized as a terrorist organization by many countries?

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's what's funny is it's. It. The Taliban is seen as a terrorist organization almost universally.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, really?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Which is why it was so significant when George Bush. President Bush said, we will not negotiate with terrorists. And then there we were, sitting at the table with the Taliban.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right. Interesting.

[Doug]

Was Hamas a terrorist organization before October 7th?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, it was identified. It was identified as a terrorist organization in the United States for many, many years because it uses. It uses extremist activity to cause. To cause injury to civilians with the intent of changing policy. That's essentially the definition. The United States definition of terrorism. Even if you look up right now, is Hamas a terrorist organization or an insurgency? Because insurgency was another term that we invented in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you look up that term even on Google, the Google machine, the Google Al will be like, this is a very complicated topic because depending on your point of view, it is both an insurgency and a terrorist group.

[Mark Gagnon]

One person's terrorist, another person's freedom fighter, basically.

[Akash Singh]

Exactly.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

I have a question that might parlay us into our next topic.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. I have a Mossad question.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, we'll do that one.

[Akash Singh]

It's like Trump well, we start with Israel and now Mossad questions. And this is really more from Twitter than me. Why do they like kids so much?

[Andrew Bustamante]

You know, I was sitting there, and when you said, it's from Twitter. When you said, it's from Twitter, I was, like, curious.

[Akash Singh]

I was like, I'm not saying what's happening. I keep hearing this thing, and you're my. I know nothing. So you are the brain for this podcast. We're never gonna pretend to be smart people I keep reading about.

[Mark Gagnon]

I was gonna ask the same question in a different way. Do you want to. Do you want to try it a different way?

[Akash Singh]

Let's try your way.

[Mark Gagnon]

So there was a recent news story that went viral on Twitter. Why are they all pet nuts? There was a recent news story that there was an Israeli national that was in Nevada that was allegedly implicated in a child sex trafficking ring or an operation where he was trying to procure other people to have sex with children. Then he was arrested, detained in Nevada, and then deported and basically ostensibly extradited to Israel and then released by the Israeli government. People are looking at this as some sort of unfair deal the United States has with Israel, where some of the worst criminals that are attempting to offend our citizens are then getting released with impunity in their own nation.

[Doug]

And this isn't the first time that that has happened.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Ye, this is.

[Mark Gagnon]

Why does that happen?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I can tell you why. You're not going to like the answer why, but it happens, and it will continue to happen. So we don't know what we stumbled into. We had the Nevada police, we had local police who stumbled into something that had an international footprint. So it could have been a coordinated intelligence operation between the United States and Israel. And Nevada stepped into the middle of it, not realizing that both the U.S. federal government and the Israeli government understood what was happening. It could have been a situation where nobody in the United States had any idea what was happening, and Israel was just running a unilateral operation. But Israel is such a close ally, and the intel sharing that exists makes it so that we have an agreement where if an American citizen is arrested in Israel, they are immediately extradited. United States not held prisoner in Israel. And if an Israeli citizen is arrested in the United States, they're immediately extradited to Israel so that they're not held liable in the United States. That kind of agreement could exist. There's a number of different reasons why all of this could have played out the way it played out, but I will say that the optics are horrible because they're exactly what your conclusion is. Why would it be that somebody who is putting American children at risk, whatever their nationality is.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Why would they be allowed to go right back home again?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Why wouldn't they stand trial here where their criminal actions would have had damage? Why doesn't that person face. You know, face justice here in the country where they. Where they committed the crime?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. And then on a similar note, you have said on record that you think Jeffrey Epstein was most likely Mossad. So why do they like kids so much? I'm just, you know, that's Twitter, not me. Yeah. Okay, that one might have been me, but it was based on that. And then you have. I. You said Mossad. Jeffrey Epstein was most likely Mossad.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. So the Epstein thing is really interesting because I don't spend a lot of time digging into the topics that.

[Akash Singh]

I didn't care that much about it until the list disappeared. Now, this is crazy.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. So it's funny because I actually had a conversation with another intelligent friend of mine who had federal background, and we were talking about what could have happened here. How does this play out the way that it plays out? How does it work? Somebody who is accused of such heinous crimes, who's already in custody, and then who was part of a campaign promise. How does. How does it still get covered up? How does it still get redacted from. From public purview? And the. The theory that we kind of developed, the theory that he introduced to me that I think is the most sound theory, is that there's a good chance that Jeffrey Epstein may have been an FBI source. Not a CIA source, not a Mossad source. I mean, he may have been a Mossad source and a million other sources, but if he was an FBI, what's known as an FBI CI, Covert informant. If he was an FBI CI, he could have been in a position where he was safe from any charges. Instead, he was reporting to FBI the more egregious criminal activity of all the clients that he was supporting, the people whose bank accounts he was moving and building, the people whose abuses he was building, the foreigners who were coming to his parties. Like, he could have been a pretty incredible source of information. Not to CIA, because CIA doesn't work that way, but he could have worked with FBI and been given protection.

[Akash Singh]

You see how that sounds like you still work for CIA, right? Where you're like, that's FBI. You get how he's like, we wouldn't do such a thing.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We would, but we can't. We can't okay, we can't because the CIA can't work with an American citizen without going through the FBI to get there. It has to do with authorities.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, we would do all sorts of horrible shit.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, that's good. I'm glad you acknowledge that. Guys, we're going to take a break right now to read ad copy. Frankly, I haven't read before. Have you ever had a craving for that favorite panini you've loved so much? All you can think about is that perfectly toasted pressed sandwich, so you think about running out to get it. But have you already read this? Yeah, but it's too cold or you're too lazy, and so you deliver instead. In the entire time you're waiting for it, you are envisioning yourself and enjoying that melted cheese and warm meat in the comfort of your own home. But I love warm meat in the comfort of my own home.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now, so far, what company do you think this is for? If you had the gun to your head?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Guess.

[Akash Singh]

Panera Bread. Oh, plot twist. It never comes much like me when I'm having sex with a woman. Or a woman when she's having sex with me. Would have been much funnier, but I blame it on the fillings and numbness. Anyway, a client of Morgan and Morgan has recently been awarded nearly $1 million after jurors affirmed that her injuries from slipping on ice outside of a Panera Bread. I got that right. Were the company's fault.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What?

[Akash Singh]

I'm okay with blaming Panera Bread. That. That. Remember when Panera Bread slapped Yasha sue for that. That. That food turned to dog.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Panera Bread sucks dick. We're all on the same page, son. There was a time when it was. It was fire. You're in a suburb, you go to Panera Bread. You could pick two. Yeah, you could pick two. Both slapped.

[Mark Gagnon]

It is hospital food, right? And now it's like hospital food. I want to find a place where I can eat a cold sandwich, and.

[Akash Singh]

Thanks to Morgan and Morgan, they're at a million dollars. Hey, Morgan and Morgan, I would like to sue Panera Bread for sucking dick. Now, is that possible? Please.

[Mark Gagnon]

The bowls are still good. You know how they put broccoli? You know, like a bowl.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, you love a fucking bowl. This guy should put broccoli in a bowl, and he's in. That doesn't just taste good.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's just. It's made out of bread.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, the bowl is made out of bread.

[Mark Gagnon]

You never seen this?

[Akash Singh]

Anyway, if you ordered on doordash, you didn't get it? You could get a million dollars. Their client was working as a doordash driver. Oh, the driver. Hey, that guy got to get paid. Also slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk outside of Panera in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She broke her left el, which led to surgery and hardware being inserted into her arm. The original settlement offer was only $125,000. Panera Bread. You cheap fucks. You fucking cheap fucks. I knew you would do some shit like that. But thanks to Morgan and Morgan, Big dick coming through. They fought to get her the million dollar verdict she deserved. That's Morgan. And Morgan. She did not represent Panera Bread. No serving bullshit food, pretending it's a fucking. It's. So remember, they had lemonade that killed people. Yeah, I'm giving y' all great ideas. Morgan and Morgan, holler at your boy. And this is important to remember. I'll get to this later. But the fee is free unless you win. So just, you know, it's possible. Just throw out any frivolous lawsuit you want. Morgan and White is America's largest injury law firm for a reason. They have been fighting for the people for over 35 years. Hiring the wrong firm can be disastrous. You could let Panera Brent make an extra $875,000. But hiring the right firm could substantially increase your settlement. With Morgan and Morgan, it is easy to get started and their fee is free. Unless they win. Like I said, unless they win, their fee is free. Morgan and Morgan. I'm probably going to call you about suing Panera Bread twice more. Anyway, if you want to do the same thing, visit forthepeople.com flagrant or dial pound the law. That's £529 from your cell phone. Again, that is F o r the people.com flagrant. This is a paid advertisement, but not for Panera Bread. Motherfucker. What's up, noodle dick? I'm pointing at more Gagnon.

[Mark Gagnon]

Stop it.

[Akash Singh]

Hey, guys, I don't know if I've mentioned this in the other ad reads, but I got two fillings and my mouth is numb. Novocaine, Right this side. Right here. Soft. Soft. Mushy. Just sagging. You know what's not sagging? If you notice these blue lights. Your dick. When you take Bluechew. Hard as a rock, deliver that spectacular performance that you've probably been lacking in my dick game. One out of ten, I'll tell you that right now. But on Bluechill, two out of ten, that's a double improvement. So if you're a four, which Is most men. Now you an eight. Look at that. Less math. Hey, and if you listen to this podcast, you know Bluetooth been rocking with us since the beginning. Here's why we a Bluetooth. First of all, it's got the same active ingredients as those other drugs, but it's the true. It's the one we trust is chewable. That's way better than swallowing, you know what I mean? Two, don't swallow, gay. Save the swallowing for after Bluetooth. Actually, ladies, hey, listen, if you want your man to have better dick, Bluetooth. Bluetooth. Com. And we got a special deal for our listeners. As always, you get your first month of Bluetooth for free. If you use the promo code flagrant at checkout. All you gotta do is pay $5 for shipping. That's it. $5 to double your dick. Score. As always, shout outs to Bluetooth for supporting this podcast. Y' all are the goats. I heard somebody, I don't remember who, but they said that about Israel and Palestine. They're like, this is just war. It should. That's all. This is what it's been throughout history. This is war. This is politics. This is espionage. This is. We're going to allow some. We're going part of some horrendous things in the effort to preserve our power. Now, I guess my question would be, what could we get that's so valuable that the trade off makes it worth it? With Epstein, With Epstein and children getting molested and all these horrible things.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You're not going to like this answer.

[Akash Singh]

Either, but no, I don't have to like it. I just want to know what it could be.

[Andrew Bustamante]

X isn't going to like it either.

[Akash Singh]

Okay?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So you protect the CI, you protect a clandestine source of information at all costs. Because every future CI is watching what happens to today's CI. So as somebody as heinous as Epstein, right, accused of everything he's been accused of, if he's just one of, say, 30 massive FBI confidential informants who are out there, if we turn him over to the public, if we break our agreement with him, him, then everybody else is like, well, I'm not going to work with FBI. I'm not going to. I'm not going to rat anybody out. I'm not going to narc ever. Because even FBI won't got my. They won't cover my back, right? They won't put me in witness protection. They won't keep my secret.

[Doug]

If he's a confidential informant, no one else would know that he was working with you.

[Akash Singh]

That's A great point.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Except. Except that when the files are released.

[Doug]

The files will tell you when he gets jammed up.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Got it.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then think about that. If they try to keep those files hidden. This is what I think argue this is what I think is happening to jfk. I think JFK had some sort of connection in there that shows that he was in some way working with or colluding with some element of either our government or foreign government. And we just can't carve that part out because every time you release some files, those files say nothing. And then you hold other files back and they're like, what's in those files? So you can never get to the core of, of exoneration.

[Akash Singh]

Because I don't think it was just Lee Harvey acting alone in the jfk. You think they're.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think we don't. Well. Oh yeah. So I don't know. I don't even know that the assassination is what's being hidden in the JFK files. It could have been something tangential to the assassination. Right, and that's the same thing with Jeffrey Epstein. What, what we're all looking for is some kind of smoking gun that says he was working for Mossad or he was working for CIA. It all could be tangential. It all could be tangential. And the reason that it's classified is a tangential classification. Not to protect him in any way.

[Doug]

Wait, but what can be worse than protecting child? Like, it's like even if he was helping us out in so many ways, now we know that there are so many victims. Like shouldn't we go after the people who were also victimizing?

[Akash Singh]

I'm sorry to add to that point. Is there not. I'm not even saying this is a joke. Is there not like a carve out in a of CI's mind that's like, oh yeah, that guy, kids. So that's why he's out?

[Andrew Bustamante]

No, because it's so the, the answer. What's. What's worth it is the future confidential informants that we will get if we never out a confidential informant. That's the benefit. Okay? Not just this year, but next year and two years from now and ten years from now. Right? Because if we ever out a confidential informant, then every confidential is going to think twice about ever working.

[Mark Gagnon]

It is interesting because with this specific crime, it is so heinous that I don't think people can see past it. But like, I think like, you know, Whitey Bulger, like in Boston becomes a CEO or a CI and he's working as an informant with the FBI, and they let him do crime, murder people, sell drugs.

[Akash Singh]

These are things we can kind of wrap our mind around.

[Mark Gagnon]

And we kind of let it go. And they're like, oh, yeah, well, they were using him to get to all these guys, and they were able to get 100 of them. And they killed, you know, 10 other people. Who cares?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

And we kind of are like, all right, whatever. But with this crime is so heinous that we can't see through it. But I think in the mind of. Of, you know, intelligence people, CIA, FBI, they're just like, yeah, people are people. Numbers are data. Who gives a.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You guys just Gotti thing.

[Mark Gagnon]

But you guys all just did, like.

[Doug]

The John Gotti thing where they're interviewing.

[Andrew Bustamante]

John Gotti got caught. And they're like, what do you think about John Gotti getting caught?

[Doug]

And they're like, he did nothing wrong.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then they're like, what about the murders? And the people are just like, what murders?

[Mark Gagnon]

Like, they're just like, yeah.

[Akash Singh]

There's a degree, I think, in our mind, maybe it's society, maybe it's human nature, especially of children. There is no. There's no ability to reconcile that for.

[Mark Gagnon]

Most of us, the reason prisoners them up. You know what I mean?

[Akash Singh]

Like, yeah, absolutely. And I think part of a job that I don't envy in someone high up in the agency or FBI or whatever these places are, it's like, you can't afford to do that because I got to worry about 330 million people. And I'm not defending what they did. I do understand that is a part of their job, and that is a tough thing to do.

[Doug]

So. So there definitely are files. There's definitely stuff that was collected at his place that he was filming. They probably have proof that other people have fucked some kids. Let's say you don't want to expose that he was intelligent. But couldn't they at least use that information to start investigating some of the people that we know? Fuck some kids and then just try to, hey, get them on a private investigation, Warren CIs.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And yes, they can, and yes, they probably are. But when you start an investigation, you don't go public and say, we started this investigation. We're actually looking into so and so right now because of what we found.

[Doug]

It's taken a long time.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Investigations take a painfully long time to. To actually research, to build a case. To build a case that you have confidence when it goes to trial, you can build a jury that's not going to have a predisposed bias for the case.

[Akash Singh]

Give us a rough idea how long it could take to see justice for any of these people.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean, I think we'd be lucky if we saw, if we saw it in four or five years. I think realistically cases probably would take between seven and 14 years and then even.

[Akash Singh]

No, not the age of the victims. How long does it take to get this trial? Like these possibilities, it takes upwards of 14 years to get a prosecution.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It can.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Especially if you're looking for a federal prosecution. It's a long time.

[Mark Gagnon]

There's also the assumption that all the blackmail is sexual blackmail. Which, like, which, I mean Sagar kind of pointed that out to us and I think it's like a good distinction. Like some of it obviously is, but some of it is just a dinner that he has with, you know, a former head of state or with a very wealthy investor and just listening to the conversation. And so it's like, oh, there's blackmail of Bill Gates, there's blackmail of this person. It may be sexual, but it also could just be a conversation.

[Doug]

No, I know that, but the ones that were Diddy and some kids, get them the fuck out of here.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right.

[Doug]

Why would Trump run on releasing these files? If when he was in office and Epstein got locked up and they got all this information and he know this can't get out to the public, why would he run on releasing it?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because he's dishonest.

[Doug]

Point blank.

[Akash Singh]

All right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean Trump is. Trump is dishonest. I think we all understand Trump is a dishonest character.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean he told us that on the pod. He said, I am a mostly truthful person. Basically saying I lie sometimes.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. When it's strategically relevant, when it's beneficial to marketing, when it advances the cause, when it gets him what he needs in the long run, it's a short term sacrifice for a long term gain.

[Doug]

Like, so was it just a huge miscalculation? He thought people would not care after he gets elected, like if he know he couldn't.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, he did release. He, I think he thought, oh yeah, we're going to give him some red meat. We're going to put together all these influencers, we're going to give them these files and we're going to leak all the stuff and they're going to eat it up and we'll be good. I'll have done my job. And then no one ate it. And then he was like, ah, what.

[Akash Singh]

Do you think, Andrew?

[Andrew Bustamante]

You got to keep in mind that like Donald Trump was there from the beginning of all this with his first presidency. So none of this is new to him. It's almost like a boomerang that's coming back.

[Doug]

He was back there with Epstein, too.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. I mean, he was there for a long time. Yeah. But my. But what I'm saying is just when you put yourself into the shoes of the president and you calculate risk, this is his second term.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Like he shouldn't have. He shouldn't have a third term according to what we understand of precedent and our own. Our own internal laws. Right. So what does he have to lose? What does he have to lose? Pissing off everybody in his base? What's he had to lose? Is that base gonna vote liberal next cycle? No.

[Akash Singh]

I do think a lot more people, I think there was in the middle.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Are upset, but the middle is not the base. Ah, okay. Right. The base. The base is still intact for the next conservative president, the next conservative candidate. It. So if anybody. The people you can mess with the most is the base.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's a good point. Because Trump doesn't care about the part. Right. Like, he doesn't care about, like, Republicanism. I think he cares about, like, him getting elected.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

And so if he pisses off everyone, like, he doesn't care. He's like, I'm out. If he's out.

[Doug]

If he's out.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

What is the general view of all the agencies on Trump? Do they. What do they think of him as a president? Do they have some dirt on him? Do you think any foreign intelligence has some dirt on him? I've heard that theory that like. Like the reason he's so pro Israel or whatever is they have something on him. Russia might have something on him. Do you. How much do you believe in that? And then what is, like, the general agency view of him?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So it's. I. I can't speak for, obviously, all the members of the ic. Donald Trump is definitely a split decision for a lot of people, even within the CIA and the people that I talk to at CIA, he's still a split decision. There are some people who love the American first. Pro America. Let's get back to, like, hurrah, support the military, be strong again, give up on this diplomacy stuff. There are plenty of people who love that idea. They don't love Donald Trump. They love that idea. And then you have the other side of people who just seem to hate Donald Trump.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. We're like, oh, he's misogynistic and he's belittling and he sounds stupid when he talks. And Blow. And so you've got the people who love what he's doing, and you got the people who kind of hate the man. And I've seen that on both sides, even within CIA itself, which is supposed to be an apolitical organization. I think the real thing that you can look at to measure how much CIA likes or dislikes Donald Trump is the incredible lack or the incredible amount of resignations at CIA under the first Trump presidency. And then under the second Trump presidency, also, people don't want to work for him. He is the executive. That is a organization that works for the executive branch. And I think Donald Trump, of all people, is like, if you don't like working for me, get the fuck out. Right. Give me space to bring somebody else in. Right. But unlike we've ever seen in history, when the first Trump presidency resulted in a massive exodus of CIA officers, I.

[Akash Singh]

Was unaware of this.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So CIA had an attrition rate historically of about 1, 1.3%, which means that every year, 1.3% of its. Of its clandestine cadre would leave its ranks. The majority of that 1.3% would come back in the following Monday as a contractor working for a contracting firm. Firm. So they didn't really lose anybody. Right, Right. Very, very few people CIA. And then what happened is in 2014. 2014 was when I left CIA, there were more people willing to leave. There were more people willing to resign.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

If you like that word better.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then in 2016, like, the floodgates opened, really, we, CIA went from losing, on average, one clandestine officer per month. Yeah, that's what they were losing prior to Donald Trump to 30 clandestiners per month in 2016. Wow. They had a huge. And these are not. These aren't analysts or finance people or logisticians or fake passport people. These are actual people who collect intelligence.

[Akash Singh]

Has it affected the strength of the agency long term?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Absolutely. Now, now that is, like, universally understood across every agency officer I've talked to, current, former, and even still inside. But they all think the agency's weak. The agency's weak. The intelligence it collects is weak. The access it has is weak. It's heavily reliant on foreign partners to give the intelligence that it collects. It's struggling. It's struggling. And it's not because of the officers, the men and women at CIA. It's because of the resources and the structure and the administration and the massive swings left and right that we've seen in the executive.

[Doug]

Guys, take me out. I'm available.

[Akash Singh]

That's True. He will fail his weed test. That's our fault. Yeah. So I guess I'm also thinking just a 30x increase in turnover, you're not gonna be able to train up people as fast as you're losing them.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct.

[Akash Singh]

So that would have long term effects. And then I guess to bring it in, to not make it just Trump, when Biden comes in and things seem to go pretty far left, that will be the swing you're talking about. And then Trump comes back in and they go even further. Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct. And. And when you're making a career in government service, first of all, you make a career in government service hoping that you won't have to deal with politics. Most of the people that go into health and Human services, you know, tsa, you name it, any federal office, they don't really. They're not politically motivated people. They're there because they're looking for a.

[Akash Singh]

Stable tsa, don't seem that steady job. They don't seem to want to be there. They don't seem to enjoy much of an anything. I don't think being alive is really motivating to them.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So. But in all honesty, like, that's, that's the kind of person that gets a federal job. That's the kind of person that lives in a government job.

[Doug]

Entire career randomly checked a lot more times.

[Akash Singh]

The way I look, I might be a TSA agent soon. I keep putting on weight like this. God damn. Okay, I had a question for you. Oh. How does this affect America's safety long term?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes. We're not safe long term. What the. Oh, yeah, we're. We're in. I mean, I'm sorry if this is new news to you. X would have told you this too. We're. We've got like 10 to 15 years of horrible American existence ahead of us. It's not going to be a fun place to be. We have to fix the shit that we've broken.

[Akash Singh]

How long has this been breaking?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's been breaking since the Obama administration.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So. So Barack Obama came in and he was, was the first truly populist president who abused the executive power system to hijack policy when he, when his party controlled the Congress.

[Akash Singh]

Damn. Not.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Oh, he was the first one to do it. I don't think he did it maliciously. I think he was trying to do what he believed was right. That the party also told him, barack, this is the time to do it. Like, you need to do what's right. Right. So I think there was a lot of pressure and I think he was still a statesman and I think he was still, you know, a professional politician. But the precedent that he set was a precedent that made it easier for every following president to abuse it.

[Doug]

Oh, gotcha.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So the most executive orders ever written at up until that period of time, Barack Obama, the most covert action ever executed, like, meaning the president executed killings abroad with nobody's permission. Barack Obama. Right. That these were the things that were happening during his administration to build hope for the future of America.

[Akash Singh]

To what end? What do you have an idea or can you talk about like what they were trying to get done? What were the Democratic interests at the time?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Well, I mean, politically there's definitely smarter people to talk about it. But when it came to national security, what Barack Obama was trying to do is he was trying to combat the terrorist threat, the long lasting terrorist threat, which is a transnational threat that's based in ideology that is really centered on an abuse of information. So if you can kill enough queen bees, then the hive is useless. So that's what he was trying to do. He was trying to knock out major players, just like Netanyahu was doing in Israel. Right. He's trying to knock out these major players and then hopefully have all of Al Qaeda kind of collapse in and of itself. Especially because we had been in a war for a decade already. That was not necessarily a popular war.

[Akash Singh]

And I, I understand the idea, like on its, on his face, it makes.

[Andrew Bustamante]

A lot of sense and that's. And then domestically, he was trying to build up a policy that was so powerful that the next incumbent president couldn't unravel it. Right. With Obamacare.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

In the effort to do what was well intentioned. The result was Donald Trump could come in and be like, hey guys, I'm going to sign a bunch of executive orders. I'm going to use my right as the executive to control CIA and do whatever I want to do. I'm going to play brinksmanship over here. I'm going to do things my way now. And it's okay because the president before me did the same thing. And then Biden came in and was like, well, now I'm going to sign as many executive orders as I want to design. And I want to use the CIA for whatever. I want to use the CIA for it. So it's like, how much do you.

[Mark Gagnon]

Think 9, 11 in the search for Osama influenced Obama's desire to just sort of non congressionally attack and try to hunt people down?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think the first actually led to the second. So I think he had had so much success eradicating leaders along the way that when Osama bin Laden was identified and the location was known, he was like, let's do this. Like, we're gonna piss a bunch of people off. But it's the right thing to do.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And for America, the Pakistanis, it pissed off the Pakistanis. It pissed off almost every American outlet.

[Akash Singh]

My Indian is showing going, but if you're harboring the guy, you're our ally. You're harboring the guy who blew. Who had the greatest terrorist attack on our soil ever. What right do you have to be mad that we killed this guy?

[Andrew Bustamante]

What? Why would you say that the Pakistani authorities would change their rights at all depending on what America thinks, would change.

[Akash Singh]

Their rights at all.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Why would they change their perspective at all based on what America thinks?

[Akash Singh]

Well, you were harboring known terrorists to.

[Andrew Bustamante]

America, not that it's Pakistan. What do they care? He's not killing Pakistanis.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, but he also wasn't a Pakistani citizen. He was a Saudi Arabian citizen. So he's not one of yours.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And if he's. If they're one of our allies, wouldn't.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You be like, hey, yeah, are they really one of our allies? Because they're going to ask the same thing. Is America really our ally or is America India's ally?

[Akash Singh]

America at the time, I think was Pakistan's ally. But I'm also basing that on you saying they were allies.

[Andrew Bustamante]

They are. So. So the. The Israeli Pakistan America thing is just completely tits up. Who's friends with who? Like Pakistan and India are not friends.

[Akash Singh]

No.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But America is somehow allies with both. Right. The United States gives weapons to both. It gives aid to both, it gives training to both. Pakistan actually uses terrorist tactics in its fight against India.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, believe me, I hear a lot about it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But we still support Pakistan. Do we identify them as a terrorist organization? Oh, see what I'm saying? It's up, man. The way the world actually works. Not the way that, like you see on Reading Rainbow or whatever the. You watch on TV, like when you. When you watch your YouTube at night, the way you think the world works is not the way it actually works. It works in a far more carnal, practical way.

[Akash Singh]

Do you ever watch a movie, a spy movie, and be like, that's an accurate description. What's the most accurate spy movie slash TV show you've ever seen?

[Andrew Bustamante]

The American is the most accurate. And even then, you have to kind of focus it into probably the first four episodes of the first season. After that, it's all whiz Bang.

[Doug]

And what was I shown at Showtime?

[Akash Singh]

Slow Horses is one that I. Oh, Homeland. Slow Horses on Apple tv.

[Andrew Bustamante]

No, no, like Homeland is off. Slow Horses. Slow Horses. The concept is sound. There really are offices. We call it the office of Brooklyn Toys at CIA where you send your alcoholics and you send your burnouts and you send your, your serial adulterers and you send your people who discovered that cocaine could help them write better reports. Like you can't send them back on the street.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And you can't send them out in the field and you can't fire them because then you've got this bucket of secrets that's tied up in this person who's. So you give them a job.

[Doug]

The top agent in one of those.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, I'm a slew. Of course, baby.

[Akash Singh]

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[Doug]

The strategy of going after the queen bees to try to dismantle an organization. Does that work?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So there were mixed success. We have found that one of two things usually happens if you attack a queen bee, either before or the head of a terrorist cell. If you attack the head of the cell before, they're able to create a succession plan and. Or if they are in control of the cell and they don't trust their people. People. If you kill that person, the cell melts down because they have no leadership, they have no organization, they have no plan. But if you're dealing with somebody who has a succession plan, or if you're dealing with somebody who does kind of have relationships with the people that they command you, you run the risk of killing the person who's actually the most moderate. And then the next person to rise up is worse.

[Doug]

Because it's like, I feel like Israel did a great job targeting a lot of the Hamas leaders, but they seem to still be doing their thing over there. I actually don't know.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We don't get accurate information. But Israel did a phenomenal job in the way that they targeted their leadership, because they hit all the leaders at once or the majority of leaders at once. So now it's like, you have no logistics and you have no communications and you have no military leadership, and you have no civilian core connection to the government. We've killed nine people. There's only three left. And those three are in hiding. What the fuck are you going to do? And then succession plans start to kick in, but it's not like the succession plans were ever serious because there was never an imminent threat to the leadership. So. And then they did the same thing with Hezbollah, and then they did. And then they tried to do the same thing with Iran.

[Doug]

So why is Hamas still such a threat?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't think Hamas is the threat that they claim it is. I think now Netanyahu is trying to deliver a campaign promise essentially where he's like, I'm going to rid us of Hamas. We also, again, again, to reiterate the whole, like, Israel. Israel's like the shitty 401k, right? Israel is like the shitty 401k. We don't like it, but we still have it, right? Which means we have Netanyahu. Netanyahu's on trial for corruption charges in Israel. He knows that as soon as this whole thing ends, a civilian trial begins. And he knows that half his population doesn't agree with him or more. And he knows that there's zero percent of the international community that's going to come to his side. So he has one hope. Cause as much damage to enough Israeli enemies as possible so that when the civilian courts look at him, they're like, you did some really important stuff for us and for our children for the future. So we're either going to waive the sentencing or lessen the sentencing or let you live out your days retired and whatever, or we'll let you go to the United States and live in New York.

[Akash Singh]

It is a bold risk, and I don't know that it's a risk that's. I think it's kind of a selfish risk, because I think he's doing a lot more damage internationally for Israel and for Jews internationally. I think they're facing a lot more scrutiny because of this one guy's actions.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And I don't. I don't disagree with you. And I think there's plenty of voices out there that would say the same thing. Yeah, that's when you have to think about the calculus. If you're Netanyahu, what is your calculus? First and foremost, survive, protect yourself.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, no, I get it. It's reckless. But I do understand where it comes from. Okay. I'm gonna let you choose your own adventure. You're promoting your book. Book Shadow Sill. Great book.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Thank you. Did you actually read it?

[Akash Singh]

What was your favorite part? The. The. The summary I read on chat.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I really like the COVID The COVID was killer.

[Akash Singh]

No, the summary I read was riveting. I really wish I had read the actual book. And I will, I will, I will. I read a lot of books halfway through.

[Mark Gagnon]

When will you read?

[Akash Singh]

You will be one of those.

[Mark Gagnon]

What date will you have read it?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's all right.

[Akash Singh]

I have to read a. A Jack Reacher novel and then I'll read about Real Spice. All right, so you can talk about the book, but I also know having done just like, promo for a comedy special, you go talk about it ad nauseam and you're like, all right, buddy, yeah, I'm done with this. So we can talk about the book, and then I could ask you some. Some other questions that we have about what's going on in the world as you with as our expert. Or we can talk about this and then get to the book and close with the book. What would you prefer? Oh, we also have a lightning round of questions, but that'll be quick.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Let's. Let's put off the book. Let's go with your questions first.

[Akash Singh]

Sick of talking about it. I knew it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I actually really appreciate that you know how this works. Yeah. Because a lot of people don't understand how it works. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

And you're answering the same questions and it's like, guys, read the book or read a four page summary on ChatGPT.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Or don't read the book, but at least go order the book.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So that I get points for it.

[Akash Singh]

Dude, it looks very cool. Oh, here's a question actually, before we get into the book. So my understanding of this book from ChatGPT and Mark is you basically, this is a CIA mission. You are allowed to talk about it. You could have said every country, every name, everything. But you made a deal with CIA to say, hey, you guys can help me with this book and I can protect these names or I can do this on my own without your help and it's going to get a lot more publicity and I'm going to get on national bestseller list. Whatever. What would you rather do?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Close.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, that's.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Mark. Mark. GPT was a little bit inaccurate. So. So. So my wife and I were very committed when we were. Because this is our operational memoir.

[Akash Singh]

It's Our Life.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. This was our operational memoir from.

[Akash Singh]

I really wish I had taken it more seriously and read the book.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's all good, man. It's all good. It's all good. From just like a hand, like 12 years ago.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Not long ago. And the men and women who operated with us are still in the field, many of them still doing the same operations. So it was never on the table for her and I. It was never on the table to talk about the people.

[Akash Singh]

People. Okay?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So all the characters, quote, unquote, characters that you read, they're. They're modeled off the real people. Right. There really was a guy named James. There really was. Or there really was a guy who was named James in the book. There really was a girl who was named Tasha in the book. She really did have a cute child who was named Monty in the book. All right? So the. Everything's real, but we didn't want to give the real people because the country where this took place is for sure going to know. Know that we're talking about them.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because they have my face, they have my file, they have my records, they have my travel details. They know me.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And they know that if I wrote this book, it's about them and they're going to be pissed.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Well, what I didn't want to do and what my wife didn't want to do, we didn't want to give them enough information to reverse engineer and find the other people. So we told CIA, we're not going to talk about the people. CIA actually came in and was like, oh, no, you're allowed to talk about the people. You just use the first name of their. The true first name and their last first initial. And we were like, that's a policy thing. That's a stupid operational rule. So we're not going to touch the people at all, but we are going to talk about where it really took place. And in 2021, when we told them we were, we, we wanted to do this, they gave us approval. But by 2022, when we finished the manuscript, the whole world had changed. Right. Multiple global events happened in 2022. I'm sure you can wrap your minds around it. And it changed the landscape of geopolitical pressures against the United States. And then they came in and they said, that book that you wrote is classified from beginning to end. It'll never see the light of day. And that's when we kind of had this back and forth for many years, trying to find a way to get it published, trying to find a way to get CIA to accept that. That there wasn't anything in the book that was going to harm national security. It's not going to look good geopolitically, but it's not going to get anybody killed.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And they just kept fighting with us and fighting with us. So then in 2024, my wife really decided to escalate things and she brought on an attorney and she said, we think that we have a legal case to sue CIA. And the attorney reviewed and said, yeah, you guys have. You have a First Amendment right case that you would win if you sued CIA and took them to court.

[Akash Singh]

Ain't it nice when your wife is combative with somebody else? Yes. It's my favorite. It's my favorite. It's my favorite. Yeah. I think our wives would get along or hate each other violently. Either way, it'd be fun for us because we'd be out of it. But when they decide to fight someone else, I'm like, oh, this is what. Watch.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Game over.

[Akash Singh]

It's watching Picasso fight paint. Watching my wife argue with someone else. It's like.

[Mark Gagnon]

And you see them making mist, and you're like, ah. You don't know what you just did.

[Akash Singh]

No. Yeah. With that from them.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

My wife don't misstep. She catches it, though.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, but if the other person you just exposed, you're. That's what.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, so I. Okay. Mark kind of. He made you look cool. You like, you really played hardball.

[Andrew Bustamante]

With me.

[Akash Singh]

He kind of did.

[Andrew Bustamante]

He wants to me.

[Mark Gagnon]

But hold on one sec. I gave them a very honest depiction of what we discussed. Okay. And then he butchered it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You want to.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, that part is that part.

[Akash Singh]

Honestly, what did I get wrong, Al?

[Andrew Bustamante]

From what Mark told us, I don't know.

[Akash Singh]

He wasn't listening.

[Mark Gagnon]

I was going to be the central unintelligence.

[Akash Singh]

Jesus Christ. Okay, so I'm glad we got that out of the way because then my first thought was, you would have made way more money if you didn't work with CIA. Why would you do that? But then you kind. You wanted to protect your people in the field, so that makes sense. So guys who think he's still an agent. That's why he did. Did that. Because that was. I was trying to give you that as well. Really let you defend yourself.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I keep. I keep racking up points. My whole ACH exercise did not work out. No, dude, I'm kind of screwed.

[Akash Singh]

I thought ach is how you send money. Okay.

[Doug]

You weren't worried about the CIA killing you for your wife going and threatening legal action against him, so.

[Andrew Bustamante]

No, they've killed a lot more for less. Well. Well, two things. So first, I'm. The modern day CIA has a lot of. I would say they can't kill an American citizen, but I'm sure there's always an exception. I don't feel like we used to.

[Mark Gagnon]

Be a country, bro.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't think that working on the book was going to meet that criteria. And then two, one of the nice things about being a pro CIA, very public Internet figure is it would make Internet headlines if I suddenly disappeared and people were like, the CIA kill Andrew Bustamante. And then they'd have to answer that point.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah.

[Doug]

It's almost as public as making a president disappear and covering that up easily.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You know, But I'm sure they pre 9 11. That was pre 911. It was easier back then. I think he's still in. There's a very nice museum on the first floor that we'll go visit together.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's a threat, by the way.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What the is happening?

[Akash Singh]

Right?

[Mark Gagnon]

You're going to go see the first floor real quick.

[Akash Singh]

Don't even worry about it. Yeah, we'll shove you out the window, dude. Okay. Okay. So Trump and Putin. I don't know. This is probably coming out in a couple weeks, but Trump and Putin just met yesterday, I believe. Right?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Friday.

[Akash Singh]

Trump and Putin and Zelensky. Friday. Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Putin and Zelensky or. Yes, it hasn't happened yet.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's August 22nd.

[Akash Singh]

That's August 22nd. Yeah. See, I told you. I don't know. Okay, but in terms of Ukraine and Russia, where does this whole thing go? How does this war ultimately end? What's going on?

[Mark Gagnon]

What do you think of the summit? Also, broadly speaking, like.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, yes, it's. I mean, these are all great questions. The, the outcome of Russia, Ukraine really hasn't changed that much since, like, the first time I started talking about it in 2022. Russia is going to keep the territory that it took. It's not going to give that territory up. It also, it. There's a. There's a multitude of reasons why it wants the Donbas region, from resources to industrial investments that it made when it was the ussr to the, the blood that. That stains the battlefields, to the fact that it needs a Russian victory. Like, there's all sorts of reasons why it's not going to give up the Donbas. And Putin understands statesmanship more than Zelensky. So Zelensky promised his people not only would he get back all of the original Ukraine, but he would get back all of the pre1996 Ukraine. So it was an impossible promise. So no matter how this thing ends, if any piece of land remains in Russian territory, Zelensky loses, according to Putin. So he's. He. That's all. He just wants that.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

He wants that because he needs to rebuild an economy that's been built on a war machine for the last three years. Then he knows that he needs to have something to kind of offset. We're not going to be fighting a war. So how are we going to float the economy? Oh, it's going to be great if we're building infrastructure and basically resettling this new part of Russia.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, okay. So it's not just for, like, PR or whatever. It's. We need to rebuild this. And that's going to. To pump our economy.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct. That's going to hold us up. That's how we got through World War II, too. Our economy blew up in World War II because we were creating weapons of destruction. But then we won. The only reason we didn't go into a massive recession is because now all of a sudden, we could go into the lands that we conquered and build them up, too. Put them in debt, force them to use our labor. Right.

[Akash Singh]

Who do we do that with?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Who do we do that with? Yeah, Germany, Japan, Britain, Poland, France.

[Akash Singh]

Really?

[Andrew Bustamante]

All of them?

[Akash Singh]

Is this common knowledge?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Well, I don't. I don't know if it's common knowledge, but if you. If you look at history critically, you'll see it's all there. We just never got taught that in school.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. What we got taught is because World War I, we were so hard on Germany, they went into a depression, and that's what allowed Hitler to take power. And some people on X are very upset that he lost. But then that's. And then we were much nicer at the end of World War II when we made sure that it would never happen again.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So you've heard the saying that history is written by the.

[Akash Singh]

The, the victors. Yeah. Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We wrote that history. Japan's culture was completely different prior to the end of World War II. Everything we know about Japanese culture now is from American abuses of the Japanese. The reason they're workaholics, the reason they smoke to stay awake and, and drink to go to sleep. The reason that they.

[Mark Gagnon]

Sexual repression.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then they shame themselves and they shame their children if they don't get a good enough to. All of that is American.

[Akash Singh]

What are the abuses like? I'm not even. I'm not even making a joke. What. Can you give me an example of, like, how you do that?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So when we were rebuilding Japan, we basically indentured Japanese to rebuild their own country at our pace, according to our direction and our demands.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So they didn't get to rebuild the way that they wanted to. They didn't get to rebuild buildings according to their architecture. They. They built what we wanted them to build. And a big chunk of what they built was American. Invested money in buildings, infrastructure, and. And manufacturing base.

[Mark Gagnon]

But they got baseball, so to get.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It with the bed. Yeah. Hey, there you go.

[Doug]

If they only knew Americans are fat and lazy, they wouldn't work.

[Akash Singh]

So this podcast goes to Japan.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, but then you look at the Japanese economy now, and you're like, well, in a way, their rebuilding efforts were successful.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

And that's the argument economically.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's the counter argument for sure. Right. You look at Europe. Who are Europe's two strongest economies? Europe, Germany and France.

[Akash Singh]

France and uk Pre Brexit would have been uk Right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We built. We built all three of those countries on forced debt, on loans, on the outsourcing of American manufacturing. And. And they became the first markets that we. That we spread to when we started creating new products and financial products. And there's even telecommunication products.

[Mark Gagnon]

A version of this kind of story in, like, Central America with, like, Nicaragua and like, the United States sort of working with, with different leaders, potential dictators, and deposing them, setting up our government systems, getting them into debt in some capacity, giving them our funding to then support all those issues.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So who is the fastest growing economy in the world? I'm sure you guys know this, even if all you do is follow X Fast growing economy in the world. China. China.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

How did China grow so quickly? Yeah, man, the same way that we grew after World War II to this is Belton Road. When we, when we stuck our heads so deep in the Middle east for 20 years that all we were doing was checking under every rock for terrorists. We were the only ones fighting that fight. The whole time that we were doing that. China was pulling from our World War II playbook. And they were. They were working with despots. They were creating leases and loans with third world countries that knew they couldn't pay them back, exporting Chinese workers, exporting Chinese technology, Chinese telecommunications that was being stolen from the United States and then remade in the Chinese brand. Like that's how they built their economy in 20 years. We looked away, they were small, we looked back, they were huge. Right? And that's how they did it. So the world still works the same way. The reason the United States sees China as such a threat has nothing to do with Taiwan. It has nothing to do with Chinese bombing America. It's because China has literally copied our playbook and They've got a 20 year head start in the last 25 years on how to do it. Right. We created a. We just as another example, the United States became really, really wealthy when we devised telecommunications and financial products. Because now these are not tangible products. Right? This, this is something where you can service 100,000 people from a single satellite and you can charge all of them, them 200amonth. Right? Like that's scalable wealth. That's not building a widget or creating a can of tuna. Right? China did the same thing. They were like, oh, look at how America's growing by creating financial and telecommunications. So let's spy on the United States, steal their industrial secrets, create those things here in China, tweak them a little bit and then sell them cheaper to the same markets, to South America, to Africa, to Europe. And then let's also borrow from America this idea of switching cost. Do you guys all have Apple? Does anybody have something other than Apple?

[Akash Singh]

Apple.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Even if you don't like Apple, you'll probably never get off of Apple because it's too difficult to get off of Apple.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Well, what do you think Huawei did? It's too difficult to get off of Huawei. So we're going to build this internal switching cost where no one's going to get off of our technology, because to get off of our technology means it hurts. There's a data transfer that's complicated. You're going to lose data for sure. And whatever you're getting on is going to be more expensive. So do you really want to get on an American system or do you want to stay on a Chinese system? Do you want an American electrical vehicle or a Chinese ev?

[Akash Singh]

Not even a question.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Do you want an American telecommunication. Do you want American cell phone or a Chinese cell phone?

[Akash Singh]

I'm not even saying this is a joke. When I saw the Chinese evs, I was like, we're cooked, we're done. We're number two now. And I don't know if that's remotely intelligent, but that is truly how I felt.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So that's, that is China. China is not innovative. And they've never claimed to be, but they steal and they promote and they drive and they play the long game game. And that's the problem. That's the problem. And that's why economists continue to predict that China will be at parity or near parity with the United States by 2030. Because you can't fight a war over telecommunications. You can't fight a war over medical devices. You can't invade that country because they stole your code for building a battery for a car. It doesn't, it doesn't work.

[Akash Singh]

Is there any chance we can catch up, slash, re, establish our lead?

[Andrew Bustamante]

There's always, always the opportunities.

[Akash Singh]

What do you see? How do you see that happening?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I, I don't know how, or else I would say how. But what I do trust is American innovation. And I do trust American entrepreneurial spirit. And those are things that we have that have gotten us out of worse situations in the past.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, so we have been in worse situations in the past.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Let's say the Great Depression was pretty shitty.

[Akash Singh]

Let's say 50 years.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So 50 years takes us back to 75.

[Akash Singh]

Maybe even we could go World War II if we want. I guess Soviet Union maybe was worse than this at some point.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And actually it's a great point because the only reason we won the Cold War is because the Soviet Union imploded. We didn't know it was going to implode, but it imploded.

[Akash Singh]

And you see that potential with China.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean, that's also the potential here too, but yes. So there's, there's always room for something unexpected to happen, but when it Comes to what we can do like inside the United States. You have so many people who are small business owners. You have so many people who are are who are engineering their own future. You guys are all engineering your own future. Do any of you come from a family wealthier than you?

[Akash Singh]

No.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Nope. That's crazy. They can't. It's hard to do that in China.

[Akash Singh]

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[Doug]

Not to sound like unpatriotic, but why is it such a bad thing if China becomes number one?

[Akash Singh]

No, that's a good question. It's not patriotic, but it is a good question.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I see, I see a lot of things, and I'll let you decide whether or not they're good or bad. You have a child, Any other children?

[Akash Singh]

No.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What Eng. What language is your child going to learn?

[Mark Gagnon]

English.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What other language is she going to learn?

[Mark Gagnon]

Learn likely Spanish.

[Andrew Bustamante]

If. Inshallah. Inshallah. If China is a superpower by 20, 35 years from now, guess what? Your daughter's gonna, your son is gonna.

[Mark Gagnon]

Have to speak likely Mandarin.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You don't get a choice anymore. You, your child has to speak more than one language.

[Akash Singh]

That is the biggest complaint about Americans is most of us only know one language. What's wrong with us knowing two?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So when one country gets wealthy, tired.

[Akash Singh]

Of these Europeans bragging about speaking all.

[Andrew Bustamante]

These stupid languages, when one country gets wealthier, the wealth that. It's not like. I know the United States prints money, but generally speaking, wealth is limited. So if one country is getting wealthier, what's happening to the wealthy country? It's getting poor.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So that's also part of the parody, potentially.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. So now you've got what, what we experience in our day to day life. We don't have to have. Not everybody has to have a gun. Not everybody has to have, you know, have to worry about being robbed in. Own a grocery store. Not everybody. Everybody can own a car. Like you have all these luxuries that we don't even realize those start to go away as another country steals the wealth, burns the wealth that you otherwise would have had. Right. Our roads get worse, Their roads get better. Our rate of accidents happening on construction sites goes up, theirs goes down. Right. That's the kind of thing that comes with wealth. And you have to learn their language too. Because if it's five, seven, if it's five or seven years from now and China's is approaching parity with the United States in terms of gdp, your comedy skits are going to have to happen in Chinese too.

[Akash Singh]

I'm not even saying this is a joke again. I think AI will be to the point where we all can understand and speak any language without even learning.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And hopefully that's the case. Because who might win the AI race?

[Akash Singh]

I don't, I don't think it's a mic. I think it's a who is winning.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Very clearly right now. So that's just kind of. These are the questions that you have to be asking yourself, right? Do you, do you want to save your money in US dollars or in renminbi? Do you think everybody else in the world wants to be using US dollars or renminbi? Because as other people move to renminbi, your US dollars actually get worth less in your pocket every day until you switch to renminbi. And now all of a sudden you're an American with a savings account in a Chinese bank.

[Akash Singh]

Everything you're saying that could be happening is happening.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's absolutely happening.

[Akash Singh]

Roads are getting worse, Americans are getting poorer. We cannot afford to live as much much. China seems to be doing better.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Wealthy people are sending their wealth abroad. They don't trust the US market to protect their wealth, they're buying houses abroad.

[Akash Singh]

Bitcoin is a form of that. It might not be a country you're trusting more, but you're not trusting the American dollar as much as you're trusting bitcoin. And bitcoin is at an all time high and the dollar is lower than I've seen in a while.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

So, yeah, all these things that you're saying and this, I'm, I can be very fatalistic and pessimistic, but they seem to be happening and it does concern me. And I. Andrew always said this. America is not going to be a superpower forever. When China takes over, you're going to miss the American superpower. And I'm not, He's like, I'm not defending everything they've done by any stretch. I just think a Chinese superpower would be far less sympathetic, far more we need to do things our way than even whatever we think of America. Which is a thing that to me.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is frightening now is. I'm curious because, like, I think there's a fatalistic view where it's like, oh, China's going to become the monopolar, you know, global power and they're going to destroy America. It seems like the reality would be like, oh, we would just become Spain in the 1700s or we would become France. Like in the, you know, late 1800, we become England, you know what I mean? Like, there would be these empires that take over the entire world that are colonial and they're able to get resources and riches from everywhere. They have these fierce militaries and then they are no longer imperial, they're no longer the monopolar power. So is it possible that America would just also have that happen in some capacity?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Capacity.

[Akash Singh]

Quality of life. People seem happier there in England now than they do theoretically.

[Doug]

I wouldn't mind a siesta every once in a while.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I think the, the, the way to answer your question is that I agree that that would be what it looks like in the short term because China moves slowly. Right. So we're reaching parity slowly over the course of 30 or 50 years, which is pretty slow if you think about it. Right. The United States basically rose to superpower ness in like seven years. Yeah, they're, China's doing it, taking the 35 year route, right. To get, to get to near parity. After they reach that parity, they're going to tip. It's going to tip. And because the systems and processes that they're using are going to continue to work and the systems and processes that we don't have to compete with that will continue to not work. Well then after the parity switches and after China is in control of government policy and China is in control of military spending and China is in control of whatever else because, because we are just trying to do whatever they do just to keep up with them when their intelligence services have utterly penetrated all of ours. Now all of a sudden you have to worry about the Chinese government SOE model, the state owned enterprise model. That's why they don't have entrepreneurism. Because the, as soon as somebody has a good idea, the government steps in, takes it and then says you can still make a bunch of money but it's going to be a government owned business. They're going to start doing that here in the United States too. Do they're going to start finding anybody with a good idea and they're going to come in and be like we can buy you for like 12x what you're worth and everybody's going to go take that deal. And now they're going to control innovation and they're not going to have to steal it from us, they're going to have it themselves. And then that parody just gets wider and wider. Right. They're going, they have the opportunity to unravel the United States because they have spent so much time learning about our flaws and we sit around defending our flaws laws. There's, I don't think it has to be fatalistic, but when you look at the probability curve, that's a fat part of the curve that there's going to be this flow and if we don't find some way to counterbalance it, it's going to get nasty. So there's still a counterbalance. We could still go to war we could still do the thing that doesn't make sense because enough people are afraid of China. Right. And that. That's. That is a very real possibility.

[Akash Singh]

That makes sense.

[Mark Gagnon]

Or isolationist legislation that basically says you can't sell your. Your company to China.

[Andrew Bustamante]

China.

[Mark Gagnon]

Like, would that be something that would just prevent that, that Delta?

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's what Trump's trying to do with some of his policy now with the tariffs and with, with, you know, trying to bring manufacturing back on shore. It just. It's not going to work because we're not built for it. We're not. It might be great to say we're not going to do business with these Chinese firms that need our chips, but then who's going to buy the chips? It just doesn't.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, the tariffs are one thing, but to just say, like, oh, if you're trying to sell your company, you cannot sell it to China specifically.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Basically, China's going to go through a cutout. That's. I mean, that's right. That's what they did with. They basically own the Panama Canal by going through cutouts and having shell companies that are owned by the Bahamas.

[Akash Singh]

That was my first thought.

[Doug]

Why are we the only superpower that is worried about China?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Superpower.

[Doug]

Well, why. Why doesn't Russia care that, like, China is just, like, blowing by them?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because the whole world hates us. Yeah, they have a lot. Everybody in the world hates the United States.

[Doug]

Okay?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Even the people who claim to love. Love us, hate us. Right? Because. But, but we're convenient. We're a convenient benefactor. We're a convenient market for sailing, selling goods. We're a convenient source of protection so that you don't have to spend money on your military because the United States is spending money on their military. Like, we're a convenient solution to a lot of countries, but they don't like our ideology. They don't like that we're all fat. They don't like.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean, just a head shot.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't know.

[Akash Singh]

It's like what they did to jfk, remember? Like.

[Andrew Bustamante]

They'Re good.

[Doug]

I mean, wait, but I doubt.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I don't. Putin.

[Doug]

I doubt Putin would be okay with Russians having to speak Chinese in 10 years.

[Andrew Bustamante]

He would be okay with America getting destroyed. Right?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, my enemy is my friend.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's like how America's cool with the Stalin.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You know what I mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

We're like, yeah, the Stalin were boys because we both hate Hitler. And then after that, it's like, we'll figure that out later.

[Andrew Bustamante]

We're cool with Israel because Israel Hates our to run. Right, that's, that's the. And that's the. There are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. So those, that's the ebb and flow. Almost like, like anybody who's ever held a bowl of water, right? It just moves back and forth. That's when the United States is in power. We've got the big, the big arc of water on our side, but then eventually it's going to go to the other side.

[Akash Singh]

And then they will hate China in 20 years or 30 years or whatever. But right now, they hate America and anybody that can take us out as a threat.

[Doug]

So you said, and sorry to bring us back, you said with Russia, they are taking areas, so then they can like, kind of bump up their economy and like, build this area up. So is that your theory or this is just understood?

[Andrew Bustamante]

No, that's. So I would say that's among intelligence watchers. Okay. Like, we, we have been watching how this is playing out. We see where it's going. There was a period where the intelligence attitude was that Russia was going to continue across the southern coast, go into Moldova, do the same kind of activity in Transnistria, and then build like a wall along the Black Sea. Well, then the United States and Europe got really involved in the counterattack and Russia had to refocus its, its moves. So intelligence is tough because, you know, people think intelligence is when you know the facts. That's not what intelligence is. Intelligence is specifically about answering the thing you don't know, and you answer it with probabilities. If, if you knew, it would be a fact, it wouldn't be intel.

[Doug]

Got it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. So nobody knows exactly how it's going to happen or what's going to happen next or how it's going to play out. We're all guessing at probabilities based off of the indicators that we see in the situation.

[Doug]

So it's like if we allow or not allow, but if they end up keeping the land that they have right now, isn't that just like telling them, hey, this is okay. You can just keep doing this?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct.

[Doug]

So shouldn't we not, like, shouldn't Trump not let them keep it?

[Andrew Bustamante]

If Trump cares about whether or not Russia feels like they can take former Soviet Union satellite states in Europe. Right. Arguably. What, and Trump has it right on NATO here, because he is correct. That doesn't threaten us. It threatens Europe. Okay? And if you're, if Europe wants to protect itself against Russia, all it has to do is buy more weapons from us US and buy more training from Us and we've been giving you weapons and giving you training, and we've even been putting our troops in Europe to help you without charging you. And as a result of that, NATO's been able to not spend more than 3 or 4% of their national GDP, of each country's GDP on the military for many, many years, even though they agreed to spend 5 or 6% on GDP. Right. So now Trump's coming in, he's like, you guys, if you want to be safe against Russia, spend more money.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, I think we'll still be there. Poland's, like, the only exception.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. Because Poland has a real ax to grind with Russia.

[Mark Gagnon]

Right. And also, like a geographical sort of disadvantage, it seems.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Like proximity. Exactly. So that's. That's really what's happening down there. And. And if. If the Ukraine territory thing is, is resolved, it also kind of undermines Zelenskyy's hopes of remaining there as a leader because he couldn't fulfill the promise. Maybe he's going to get credit for bringing peace, but for sure he's going to be a target. Target of Russian services that are now that much closer to Kiev all the time, which gives Russia the opportunity to make a whole propaganda issue out of Zelensky.

[Akash Singh]

It is a really discouraging thing when you think about how many people are just throwing thousands of lives at them, staying in power, or whatever selfish interest they have. It's like a really crazy.

[Mark Gagnon]

It is just kind of the case, though. Like, this is just humans.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I guess.

[Doug]

You just still up?

[Mark Gagnon]

No, it is.

[Akash Singh]

But, like, you think you're so far past. Game of Thrones is obviously fictitious time and place, but we understood that kind of thing to be in hundreds of years in the past. It is today, and it's never going to stop. Probably to your point, until robots take over. But it's just a crazy thing.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, it's still funny. It's still funny. If there's one thing I've learned. Hanging out with comedians.

[Akash Singh]

No, it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You know, it's like you guys find the humor in all of it.

[Akash Singh]

We tried to. And X helps. Here's a. Here's a question I have. Why don't we just. China right now, but we got it. I. I've had this thought before.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Question.

[Akash Singh]

If they're coming up so hard, but their military is not our military. Let's go them up.

[Doug]

Sleeper cells all over America.

[Akash Singh]

Maybe he believes this and there could be validity to it. We laughed at it at first, but he believes every Chinatown is a sleeper cell. Cell in America.

[Andrew Bustamante]

The thing is, in the world most. So sleeper cells, we've. We have found in the intelligence community that sleeper cells are largely ineffective because when you take somebody out of a hole place and you put them in the United States.

[Akash Singh]

Have you been to China down there? WTF excluded kind of a place.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But, but like America gets in your veins, right? Like clean water out of your faucet gets in your veins and, and you know, constant access to like cheap Kit Kats gets in your veins. Like, you get used to this.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And this is not what it's like anywhere else.

[Akash Singh]

Believe me, I know about the Kit Kats, dude. But yeah. So to me, this seems like so many wars are just propaganda. Why wouldn't there be? I'm not advocating for, but I am curious why it hasn't happened. A propaganda war against China. It seems like all politicians don't speak that unfavorably about China. Biden was, you know, I think spoke of them as an ally, like Trump, a little bit harsh with them and not really. Why wouldn't there be a propaganda war against his rising power that is an imminent threat. Let's just act now.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's, it's a, it's a complicated issue because one of the things that's always been neat about conflict in the past is that the aggressor was not our. We were not engaged in any kind of economic significance.

[Doug]

We buy everything.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. China, Chinese and the United States markets are like terribly entwined and they need us. They need us. We need them. What they need from us is for us to keep spending money. What we need from them is for them to keep producing. If we rip that apart, both countries are going to be in like a, like a leaky bucket. We're not going to have a market that, that where demand is getting met and then they're not going to have an audience to sell their stuff to. And that's when that happens. It's kind of going to necessitate conflict. Maybe not with each other, but with countries nearby.

[Mark Gagnon]

There's also something to say that I've seen like different pro Chinese, like Reddit accounts or even like subreddits or Twitter pages that would suggest that we are being fed anti Chinese propaganda, which again, I don't know if this is the case. I'm like, I'm just seeing stuff, but it'll be like, just tell us what your mind actually doesn't touch this one. But like, if, like the idea of like social comment credit scores, I've heard people be like, that's not real.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then totally real.

[Mark Gagnon]

And then people here like, it is real. And then people over there like, it's not really real, or like. Like sweatshops, things like that. Like all the negative things we hear about China, there will be people online that are like, that is just not real.

[Andrew Bustamante]

If Chinatown is a hole, just think about what China must be. Right?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, my God.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I have yet to see anything anti Chinese that isn't true. I have yet to see it. Maybe it's out there.

[Akash Singh]

Have you been to China?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I've been to China.

[Mark Gagnon]

Let's get some propaganda. Let's get some racist pictures and just be like, what do you think of this?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Please find something. Find a Chinese person eating a little white baby or something so I can at least say that that's not true.

[Akash Singh]

I'm with this. Yeah. Can you find some of the pro China stuff, if possible, Mark? Maybe you can help them out. But I want to see what they're saying.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Mark, GPT.

[Mark Gagnon]

If you go to the Sino subreddit, Sino, I don't know what to make. I look at it and I'm like, what is Sino?

[Akash Singh]

The Chinese?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Sino is the. Is the term that you use when you talk about.

[Mark Gagnon]

They pronounce a Sino. It's a. It's a linguistic barrier.

[Akash Singh]

What is Sino?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Sino is. Is the term that means Chinese. Whenever you're connecting, like, a Chinese element with a other, another foreign element, it becomes Sino. Sino Thai relations.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. Instead of US China relations or Thai China relations patients.

[Mark Gagnon]

So they'll just post, like, memes and different things. I don't know who these people are, where this is coming from, but it'll just be interesting where it's like, yeah, this guy being like, yo, we can protest when the police murders. We're allowed to protest. And China's like, your police murder you.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Your police murder you.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. And you're like, oh, that doesn't happen in China. I have a hard time believing that.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That happens all over Western.

[Mark Gagnon]

Of course, I assume that these governments do bad things.

[Akash Singh]

Square was.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Never happens with a tank, bro. What are we talking about?

[Mark Gagnon]

But again, this is. This is just. This existence exists, and I find it interesting. I don't know what it means.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. I think these are just crazy people, man.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Like, I'm also looking at the handles. The handles are interesting handles.

[Akash Singh]

I haven't found a lot of people on a subreddit that I don't think are crazy.

[Mark Gagnon]

The question is, are these people those.

[Akash Singh]

Handles or are they boss? So this is Another thing you talk about a lot. A lot of this is probably bots and propaganda and just, like, disruption.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I wonder where it's coming from.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that was another one. Like, they're. They're talking about the Uyghur genocide. And if you go through this whole subreddit, they'll be like, oh, there was no Uyghur genocide.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Uyghurs are very real.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, that's what I assume.

[Akash Singh]

I've met a Uyghur. He wants to. He's DM'd us. He's a fan of the pod, been in my shows, and he's like, it's. It's horrible what's happening there, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

So you hear these things, but then there's people saying, that's actually completely not true. So you're like, all right, well, what is actually.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So now let's fast forward to what happens when we have parody. Right now, we don't even have parody, and Mark's confused by what's real and what's not real.

[Akash Singh]

You suck up, bro.

[Andrew Bustamante]

No, no, no. I think. I think he's. I don't think he's. I don't think he's an example of who's confused. I think he's representing a subset of population that is genuinely confused. As we continue to reach parody, that is going to just go even further and have even more reach.

[Mark Gagnon]

You're going to buy one electric car and be like, dude, these Chinese girls are sick.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So they can buy me right now.

[Mark Gagnon]

They didn't do nothing wrong.

[Andrew Bustamante]

They can buy me, right?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, no, they're Chinese. Their electric vehicles are better.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

They're also horrible government, and we should them up right now while we have a chance.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I think that's.

[Doug]

Guys, Akash.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Vote, Vote Akash.

[Akash Singh]

What's up?

[Andrew Bustamante]

The. The challenge here is you can almost see on. If you look at the United. If you look at the world like a game board, like a board game, you can actually start to feel why China hasn't taken Taiwan. Because if China takes Taiwan and the US Gets involved, all of a sudden, we are so close to a war between the United States and China, and. And Xi Jinping must know. Know that where he's dominant is only in China.

[Akash Singh]

This guy's good, huh?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right?

[Akash Singh]

I wish we had a leader like this guy. He seems like he.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Did you see his aura in the propaganda photo?

[Akash Singh]

In terms of playing chess? This guy is good. Oh, gosh.

[Mark Gagnon]

He's a dictator. He's like, bro, this guy's fine. Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Do nothing. Win that's awesome.

[Akash Singh]

I'm just saying he's a geopolitical maneuver.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Sure.

[Akash Singh]

He knows what he's doing. In that sense, he's very good. We have. We have someone who isn't maneuvering quite as deftly is all I'm saying. So is that the biggest threat to the US Because I want to ask you, what's the biggest threat?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's China. When it comes to all things American, all things everyday life, it's China. China. Our economy crashes without them. They're the biggest military threat that they're penetrating us across intelligence services. Military services. They steal our industrial secrets, they copy our stuff. They actively plot with our allies and with our enemies against us. And that's not my opinion. That's documented in the DNI's annual report of geopolitical threats.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is there something to be said for America's geographic location? I mean, we have water on both sides. We have generally hospitable neighbors. China doesn't seem to have like, that many bases set up militaristically near us. Like, obviously there's intelligence operations. And not to say that China doesn't have their own slew of issues as far as, like, population, innovation, natural resources, et cetera. In our defense, we have certain things that are moving for us where even if all things stay equal, we still have advantages.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Oh, yeah. I'm not saying we don't have advantages. We do absolutely have advantages. And one of the big advantages is the fact that we are, are a country that's unified from coast to coast and that our northern and southern and southern allies are so heavily entrenched with our everything that they're not going to turn against us. Right. So that's a huge benefit for us. China doesn't have that. It's got neighbors that'll turn it in an instant.

[Akash Singh]

It's got coastlines, tents. I think that's there's massive opportunity for America. I'm not even just saying that as an Indian. And I think that might be why they are close with, with India and Pakistan, maybe. Yeah, theoretically. Is like, these both could be useful against China. Why don't we just be cool with both of them?

[Doug]

With Trump going like all wild with tariffs, does that fuck up our relationship with our neighbors up in south and everywhere else?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean, it causes a lot of issues, for sure. You got to keep in mind that the tariffs are not being used for what we think they're being used for, or unless maybe it's common knowledge what they're actually being used for.

[Akash Singh]

What are they being used for the.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Tariffs are not there so that we can start making 200% more dollars from trade with China or 75% more dollars from trade with the EU. That's not what they're there for. They're a negotiating tool. They are an artificial pressure to get countries to cave to our other policies in exchange for us reducing tariffs. Right. There's no friction between us. So I'm just going to put friction between us. And then I'm going to tell you, if you agree with me that tennis is for gay people, then I'm going to end this friction between us.

[Mark Gagnon]

That hurts. But that'd be a tough agreement because he loves 10 tennis.

[Akash Singh]

I'm gay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But that's, that's all the tariffs are. The tariffs were walls that were put up so that we could have a debate where otherwise there was no debate. And then we get to use this artificial tool and reduce the debate, increase the required collaboration. It basically gave Trump a negotiating tool that wasn't previously there. It's an. It's a common tool in business. Anytime you increase your price. Right. If a coffee shop increases its prices or a restaurant increases its prices, that's all arbitrary. It can choose. When it does that, it will lose some custom. It will keep other customers, but it also has. Every new customer doesn't know that it was ever changed. And as a result of that, we are, in fact making 100% more money from our trade with Europe because previously the tariff was 7%, now it's 15%. So we got Europe to cave on our demands internationally, and they're still paying us more money.

[Akash Singh]

So this is a good thing Trump did. And I'm not happy with a lot of things he's done, but you've got to give him credit. That seems like a good thing, right?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean, sure, Trump, Trump does deserve quite a lot of credit for the things that he does right. And he does a number of things right. The problem is we don't say some.

[Akash Singh]

Of those would be great because we're getting a lot of heat.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But I can also see it could turn. Yeah.

[Doug]

Like, it's like Mexico would be like, yo, you're going to really strong arm us like that. Hey, China, what's up? We're their neighbors. We can let you in. We can give you information. Like, that's. I put, that puts that as at harm. And I don't think that's worse. Worth it to make a little bit more money.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So then. And now you, now you have to start really seeing the problem with our process of Leadership. Because any president that comes into the power in the United States is only thinking four years. Yeah, you can make a change, make a wave and have it benefit the economy in four years. And then it's the next guy's problem. So by the time Mexico creates a backdoor agreement with China and starts to have that conversation where, hey, we'll let you in and if you'll just help us trade, that doesn't happen for maybe eight or 12 years. So then by the time three presidents have passed, it's that president's problem to deal with the mistake that this president.

[Akash Singh]

Made for short term gain.

[Andrew Bustamante]

When you have a Xi Jinping, he's been in power I think 16 years now. When you have Netanyahu, Netanyahu's only been out of power, I think six years in the last 12 or 16. Yeah, right.

[Mark Gagnon]

I wonder if the nature of geopolitics is just sped up too much. Like, I wonder if four years. Yeah, like four years in the late 1700s is a long time because things go so slow.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Whereas four years now it's like, oh, it's nothing, it's a blink. And so maybe you get eight years, but even then you gotta try for it.

[Akash Singh]

I always thought that the idea that you can just keep running for re election, you're just gonna win to win re election, not actually fix anything. You should just get one turn term, 60 years, eight years, whatever it is, and then you're done. And that's what it is.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's close to what our forefathers wanted. Our forefathers wanted so that there, there were no professional politicians. You had to be successful in business. And then people would see your success in business and they would say, I want you to lead us. And then you would take, you would become a public servant, give up your salary in your business, get paid some meager wage to serve the people, to bring all of your skill set and knowledge from the business marketplace into the economy of the country, build it up for eight years, and then you would return back.

[Akash Singh]

So if you really want to make America great again, get the out of.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Office, all of you, that's, I mean, that is the message for Congress, without a doubt.

[Akash Singh]

Congress, Senate, all that. Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because if we can, if we could fix Congress, the President would have no place to hide. But right now we have an entrenched Congress of a bunch of old or, or, or backstabbing who just want to be Congress people for as long as possible.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So they give all their responsibility to the executive so that when something goes Wrong. They can be like, oh, it's the president's fault. But now the president ends up having all the powers of the executive office and the legislature. That's not how we were built to work.

[Akash Singh]

So you, you know, you seem a little down on America and I don't blame you.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I love my country.

[Akash Singh]

No, I'm not even saying that you. Are you still thinking about moving?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Oh, yeah, yeah. We have a plan. We have a plan. We'll be out in spring of 27. 20, 27.

[Akash Singh]

So I can't ask you where it's going because you're going to change your appearance and all this stuff and I.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Mean, I'm not going to change it that rad. Well, I'll change it radically, but I'm not going to like get a nose job or anything.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, but we won't be able to identify. If I saw you walking, would I be like, there's Andy or would I not know?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Probably not.

[Mark Gagnon]

Are you changing your ethnicity?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I'm gonna self identify as Caucasian.

[Mark Gagnon]

Dude, you're doing full white face. That'd be sick, dude.

[Akash Singh]

Doug, I'm looking at you right now. If you buzz this down, you look like you could be in. What's that Liam Neeson movie, Taken. He could be one of the bad guys in Taken. Albanian or something. You look Albanian or Eastern European or something.

[Doug]

So happy. You're cutting his hair.

[Mark Gagnon]

Cut your hair because it is my hair.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I know he wants the best.

[Doug]

The industry and you got it right now. So he's so happy.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Mark's got better here.

[Doug]

He's going to ask it for.

[Mark Gagnon]

Ask it? Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

You want a lock? I'll send you a lock.

[Mark Gagnon]

You're going to donate it? I might just get it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yours is way better.

[Doug]

Cuz I can tell even from here it's clean.

[Andrew Bustamante]

This you can see the oil and grease for.

[Mark Gagnon]

For white. For a full blooded white. Mine is solid.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. This guy for a white. That's true. He's donating his hair for cancer victims. What are you doing with your hair?

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm not going to donate my hair to cancer victims. That would be dumb.

[Akash Singh]

Why?

[Mark Gagnon]

Because it's a hard look to pull off first off, okay. Like it's my hair. Like it's not. Like it's hard. I'm not. I'm barely pulling it off. You know what I mean? I think the last thing a kid with cancer wants is to have.

[Akash Singh]

So you're saying a little girl with cancer would rather be bald than have.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah, 100. They give her my hair and they'd be like, ew, this smells. I'm okay. You know, like, I'll stick with the cancer.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So before. Before you donate your hair, they have a very rigorous process for how you have to wash it. So you would be giving them clean hair. Okay. All right. And then after you give them your clean hair hair, they will do whatever they need to do to turn it into a wig. If it doesn't become like this, if.

[Mark Gagnon]

My hair is dreaded, can they take it?

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's a good question. There's got to be somebody somewhere who takes.

[Mark Gagnon]

You give it to a kid, it's like, yo, big up everything. Everything. That'd be crazy, dude.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, we got. Well, I got. I still have a lightning on. But before that.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Before you do that. What? I know you're not gonna say where you're gonna go.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, that's what I wanted to know, but I didn't.

[Andrew Bustamante]

If you're going to go somewhere, if you were advising someone else to leave.

[Akash Singh]

It was a couple countries.

[Mark Gagnon]

You go to India.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. So where would you tell them to go? I've got a number of. There are a number of countries that are on our. On our list, and I'm. I'm scoping all of them out actively.

[Akash Singh]

You haven't chosen one yet?

[Andrew Bustamante]

No. Oh. So we've. We've. We're pretty close to choosing 100%.

[Akash Singh]

Give us a list.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. Spain.

[Doug]

So Portugal.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Spain, Portugal. Where else? Oh, France. You're right. More. Most of the time you talk. You're right.

[Doug]

It's just the places I would go.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Al has been there, and he's like, I like it here. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

I was just thinking of famous actresses.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So Costa Rica.

[Doug]

Oh, Costa Rica.

[Andrew Bustamante]

New Zealand. Aruba. You want to go to Aruba? It's, you know, I mean, it's a nice place, but.

[Mark Gagnon]

But I was like, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I'm giving up my spots.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. Costa Rica, Spain, Portugal.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yep. So Georgia in the caucuses. Armenia, Croatia.

[Doug]

Too many.

[Akash Singh]

You said New Zealand. Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yep. These are all very nice areas.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's just grabbing white countries, like.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That'S. That's essential. That's our short list. And I mean, for the last year and for the next year and a half, we continue to kind of go scope out each of these countries, travel with our kids, see them firsthand, and decide if.

[Akash Singh]

What are your parameters? What are you looking for?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So keep in mind that when you're an American and you leave the United States, you're still an American wherever you go, which means your money's still In American banks, it's still US Dollars. You are still carrying an American passport when wherever you live, anybody who meets you there looks at you as American. So one of our biggest parameters is it has to be a place that's pro American.

[Akash Singh]

Ah, okay. Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It has to be pro American. And if it's pro American, then it's very unlikely that it's going to switch allegiances anytime, quote, quickly. Right. So now if you're like, if we're in Paraguay, Paraguay may become pro China and the United States in two years.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So we don't want to run that risk. Right. Mexico is going to be pretty pro American for a long time.

[Doug]

Maybe.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, George is a little tricky for that reason.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Right. Well, Georgia's. Georgia's hates Russia. Yeah, of course.

[Mark Gagnon]

But you get a little rolling occupation.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Going on if there's a rolling occupation. And Armenia is the same way, and so is Azerbaijan. Baijan. But so one of the big things is it has to be pro American. The second thing is we want a place that has a stable economy and a stable government on its own. That's actually quite difficult in Europe right now because in the last two years, you've had all three of the major European governments, like, liquidate their parliament. France dissolved its parliament, had a whole revote. Germany dissolved its parliament, had a whole revote. Like this is Star wars style, where the prime minister voted no confidence, and then, boom, everybody was gone and everybody had to get reelected.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Andrew Bustamante]

What we should do here.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, no, that's true. That it sounded horrible and then it sounded awesome. Actually, once you said it, New Zealand seems like a great.

[Andrew Bustamante]

New Zealand's a great place. It's so far from everything. It's expensive and it's very westernized. But, I mean, no one's going to mess with New Zealand for a long time. China's going to. With Australia. And Australia kind of becomes the. The box around the edge egg for New Zealand.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. Ah, okay.

[Mark Gagnon]

Is there an issue being former CIA going to a different country and trying to get a visa or be a permanent resident?

[Andrew Bustamante]

When people know. When people. When you're an Internet. When you're the CIA guy with the hair, there's a problem because everywhere you go, people are like, oh, I saw you on Tick Tock, Aren't you CIA? You don't put CIA in your visa requirements. Right. You don't. You don't put your work history in your visa requirements. You just put your last three years worth of paychecks or whatever. Whatever. So that's a big part of why? Like, I don't. I don't want to be the Internet's.

[Akash Singh]

That's actually your best argument for how you're not CIA is you're going to have to give them whatever country you go to your paychecks for the last three years. And if any of them were CIA, you would be known as CIA in your next country.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I mean, when you're undercover at CIA, you don't get paid by CIA idiots.

[Akash Singh]

You're right. I have no. I'm a fatty idiot. I'm just a fat idiot.

[Doug]

How hard is it to get fake passports? Because, like, Epstein had a bunch of them, or I don't know if they were fake, but he had multiple passwords.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes. It's shockingly easy, actually, to get fake documentation. It's harder to get really good backstopped fake documentation.

[Doug]

But even ones that scan.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Oh, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Because, I mean, what happens is there's no international database for everybody. So what's really happening in the machine when I. When you go to the uk. The uk. I love going to the UK because it's so easy to go into the UK and it's somehow so hard to come back to the United States. You go through the whole double thing where you scan your passport, you scan your airplane ticket. You, like, you stand in that little. The. The glass door front and back. And that was the second scan.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

All it's doing is making sure that your documentation matches what you reported your documentation would say.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, it doesn't make sure your document, your passport, is authentic. It just makes. Makes sure your picture sure matches what you just scanned.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct.

[Doug]

Get the fuck out of here.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And then whatever the authentication code is inside the chip, inside your passport, that's what it's checking against, because that's the current method of showing that it's a valid passport. So all that could be fraudulent and you can still walk through. As long as it matches itself.

[Mark Gagnon]

The chip could be real and then the passport's fake. Or like, any version of this.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct.

[Mark Gagnon]

So they steal a passport, make a fake one, put the new chip in.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And it's really just a matter of putting a new picture on an old passport. Passport. Right. You could be. You could be Dennis. Dennis. Dennis the Menace, for all we care. Right. As long as. As long as the. The passport chip and the passport barcode match. Door 1. Door 2. Welcome to the UK.

[Doug]

How come I. I got, like, denied from Global Entry twice? Because I, like, got locked up in Sweden. Why are they talking to America if.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because that's something Different. You're going for global access, which is. It's a shortcut way through security. Security. So you have to. You put in an application on day one, and then you wait a period of time before you come in for an interview. That's. They're doing a background check on you with like, everybody has never been a problem.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. The EU thing is 10 seconds.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

This is.

[Mark Gagnon]

This is very interesting.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's not that. It's not that different than when you give your driver's license to a. To a officer. Yeah. An officer of law or even a. What's it called? A bouncer. They just look at it and they kind of look for that little shiny part. Yeah, it looks like it's really real.

[Akash Singh]

That's pretty much all you look like the picture. Okay, you're good. That's a great. Yeah, it's a great metaphor, actually. Okay, so Shadow Cell. Awesome book. So good. Riveting. What is the coolest. If you had to sell it to people in 30 seconds. And now that I'm putting you on it, we're not ending anytime soon, but I want to make sure we get this out. What. How would you help tell people about this? Like, what's. What's the thing? Why should everyone buy it, really?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I actually learned this from Mark GP Okay. Three years ago, everything in that book was classified.

[Akash Singh]

Three years ago.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Three years ago, I have an email from CIA saying everything in this book is classified.

[Akash Singh]

And now it's not.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Now it's publicly available on the bookshelf.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's a classified document. It's literally a classified document.

[Andrew Bustamante]

According to CIA, According to an email from three years ago, that's what it was. So this is the most contemporary, most modern, most accurate spy novel ever written.

[Akash Singh]

That's awesome.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Everything everybody else has written, they wrote 25 years after it happened. 30 years after it happened. This isn't the Cold War. This isn't the war on terror.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, it's a great.

[Andrew Bustamante]

The largest adversaries in the world to the United States right now and how espionage is carried out and how the war that we all know is happening but we can't see on the. On the TV screen. It's because it's happening in the spy world.

[Akash Singh]

That's awesome.

[Doug]

And so was it just the fact that you threatened to sue is why they changed their mind on letting you release it?

[Akash Singh]

Because you would have won.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, because we would have won.

[Doug]

That's the only thing.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, that's the only thing. Because there's two things that there's two reasons that the CIA's Publication Review Board, there's two reasons that it forces all authors to go through. First is to make sure that classified documents don't get revealed to the public. The second is to make sure that if something is going to be shared with the public, that CIA is able to maneuver in a way that protects itself or dampens the public interest in the document.

[Doug]

So just basically make them look good.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So if we sued on First Amendment rights and then they lost the lawsuit, that's very public news, and that makes them look very, very bad. So they already knew they weren't going to win that. So the next best thing to dampen the impact of the document is to just let it go live. Okay.

[Doug]

And why are you allowed to talk about the work that you did?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So the big reason is because of the First Amendment right that we have as American citizens. In this book, book, it's. It's a story of how my wife and I were called in to carry out a new type of operation. We're called in to build a new type of operation because our, our largest adversaries were becoming more capable than we ever thought possible. Like we were talking about, we were focused on a war on terror for 20 years. All of our adversaries were developing new technologies, new capabilities because they weren't, they weren't spending any money on a global war on terror. Right. North Korea advanced. They became nuclear capable. Iran advanced. Russia advanced. China advanced. Advanced. Turkey advanced. Everybody advanced. But we were fighting this war. So as a result of that, the modus operandi that the United States CIA traditionally used wasn't working anymore. So they needed a new way of doing operations. So they called my wife and I in and they were like, hey, you two are very different. My wife is super capable. It sounds like your wife is as well. Very capable, very smart, very hardworking. I'm a total shit show show. But together we make some. We usually have some pretty decent ideas. So they put us out in the field to build new operations. What they didn't tell us is that there was a mole at CIA, a mole that has never been publicly acknowledged until the release of this book.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Andrew Bustamante]

And that mole, they couldn't find. So they needed to bait the mole so that the mole would make a mistake.

[Akash Singh]

Wow. So you were bait.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So they used us and possibly, possibly other people, possibly other people as bait as well, to get the mole to make a mistake.

[Akash Singh]

You're not bitter about this? You're still pro CIA?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because if I was director of CIA.

[Akash Singh]

You have done the Same thing.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's, that's what you sign up for. That's what you swear to when you raise your hand. Right. All enemies, foreign and domestic.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But that's why the book can be released. Otherwise it would still be considered a classified document.

[Doug]

But I don't get why they would put their agents in harm to find the mole. Like why?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Why? So you, when you think like the government, first of all, you always have a backlog of new agents coming in. Okay? Right. So you always have, let's just say it's 200 people that are going to come in every new year. And then you always have people who are leaving because they're retiring. So losing one or two to prevent a mole from spoiling the intelligence.

[Mark Gagnon]

Ah, remember the trolley problem that we played?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Isn't a problem problem. And, and I think CIA also diversified its investment because I think we were just one couple, one pair of operators that were sent out. They could have sent out five others not knowing which of the five would actually get the moles attention. We don't know that part. That's just what we started theorizing after we found out that we were bait too. So it makes sense. This is a very standard, this is exactly how firing squads used to work. Right. They would put seven people in a line, they put one prisoner on the pole and you never knew whether you were carrying the weapon, the actual bullet, or whether you were carrying an empty charge. So that when you shot at the villain and shot at the criminal and they died, you didn't carry the guilt of killing them.

[Akash Singh]

Got it.

[Doug]

How long were you CIA before they put you on this particular mission?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It was, I was a second tour officer. So we count our time at CIA in terms of tours. A first tour officer is a brand new officer. They've really just finished training, training and they're on their first operational tour. They're independent enough, but they're still getting guidance from senior leaders. Second tour officers are kind of like second gear in a car. It's where you make the most progress the fastest. So you're still young enough that you probably don't have kids, you may not be married and you're hungry to go make a change and you're still super ideologically radicalized. So it's really easy to send a second tour officer out there to do something stupid or something dangerous or something high impact. Your third tour is usually where if you were successful in your second tour, they start bringing you back to train you and advance you because you might be future leadership if you were a shit show in your second tour. Then you're. Now you're just cleaning up, like, all the nastiest operations around the world for the rest of your career, right? Oh, you up. So now you're the one that has to talk to child to pedophiles, terrorists, drug dealers. Like you don't get a second chance, right?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

My wife and I were in our second tour when we were both pulled in for this operation.

[Mark Gagnon]

Now, is pulling both of you in a malicious act in and of itself?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't think so, because my wife, the. The book will. Will detail the difference between us operationally. My wife was what's known as a targeter, and I was a operations officer. So a targeter's job is to find human intelligence targets, study them, research them, build profiles, dossiers, and then communicate that to an operational counterpart. Part I was basically a mission planner. So my job was to take dossiers from her as well as intelligence tools from across the network and build new cases. And then you would have case officers and technical officers and analysts and interpreters who would kind of make the operations all happen. So that was. Putting the two of us together was an efficiency. Operationally, it was two different skill sets. We were actually undercover. We were actually married. Married and clandestine. So our covers matched, our backgrounds matched. We really did actually have sex. We didn't have to pretend it so that it made the COVID story really, really strong. She's probably still pretending it, but I'm trying to have some real sex.

[Mark Gagnon]

She's faking it this whole time.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Damn it.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's interesting.

[Akash Singh]

What's it like being hunted?

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's. It is. We. It's scary, but it's. If you talk to military people, you'll hear them say that at some point, training kicks in. Like, if you jump. Yeah. If you jump from an airplane, like, it's scary, but then eventually, like, you pull a parachute.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's the same way whenever you realize that you are actively being surveilled, you in the. The book details when I was identified and surveilled in a hostile country. You feel good, and then you see, like, oh, there might be somebody behind me, and then there might actually be somebody behind me. And then you're like, holy, there are people behind me. And then you're like, well, like, what did I do wrong? Because in undercover, they all just look alike.

[Akash Singh]

Because if you say, yes, I know what country you were in.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Pakistan.

[Doug]

So I'm still. I'm sorry. Still a little. I know this first amendment Right. You're allowed to say whatever you you want, but the mission is still classified. So even though you're not like giving up names and you're not like saying where this took place, like you're still talking about a classified mission, a classified.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Mission that like, is this public record?

[Doug]

Can I look somewhere up and find this mission?

[Andrew Bustamante]

No. I mean, here is where you can find it.

[Doug]

Yeah. So outside of there. So it's like, why are you allowed to talk about classified missions? Just because you're no longer CIA.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So. Yeah, so it's because I saw that. I saw that, I saw that. Because missions are classified based off of what content is shared. Specifically. What makes something classified in the human intelligence world is called sources and methods. The sources of intelligence and the methodology used to collect the intelligence, that's what makes it classified. Everything else is not classified. Right. I drank a Diet Coke on my mission. Not classified. I went up three flights of stairs and I met with the targets. Mom, that's not, that's not classified. Right. What's classified is what intelligence the target gave you and who the target is and exactly how they transfer the information to you. That's what's classified. So when we created the book, what we were able to do is we were able to obfuscate those details, but still tell the whole story.

[Akash Singh]

You don't think there's any way they can backtrack it to your, your agents or anything like that?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah, that's. That. That was the one thing that my wife and I were absolutely hell bent on is this cannot be reverse engineer able. Right. So as an example, we have a, we have a case that we detail in there about how we approached a, a hostile foreign target who was the CEO of a military industrial complex company supporting our, the adversary. That is a real person, that's a real case that actually happened. But you don't know whether that's. Is that military industrial complex? Does he make tanks? Tanks? Does he make satellites? Does he make gunpowder? You don't know. So that means the adversary doesn't know either. All the adversary knows is that at this unnamed time in this unnamed city, a CEO associated with the military started giving secrets to the CIA. Good luck finding that out. Even better. One of the tools that we have at CIA that we learned from kgb, we love it when our adversaries spend time and money trying to reverse engineer something that we already know.

[Akash Singh]

If it's a country like, I'm not saying it is China, but if it was a country like China, isn't there fear that they could just kill everyone that's a CEO at any milit. Like from what I hear about China, that's not something they wouldn't do. And then you still compromise your source. Now, I'm assuming these are conversations you have with your wife, like just talking about how much.

[Doug]

How great of a leader they are.

[Andrew Bustamante]

A guy like that, the United States might benefit if China does kill all their CEOs because of the release of our book. So I'll keep that in mind because I'll take credit for that.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, okay, but.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But no, my. My point is, yes, there are. When you are a foreign asset, you put yourself at risk. Just like Jeffrey Epstein. If he was an asset to the FBI, he put himself at risk. And who was the gangster that you're talking about? Whitey Bulger. You put yourself at risk. As soon as you become an informant against what you believe in, you put yourself in at risk. That's not who we're concerned about. Like what we're concerned with is American citizens.

[Akash Singh]

Okay?

[Andrew Bustamante]

And not all deaths are equal, unfortunately, in my point of view. And a foreign death does not equal an American death. Right.

[Mark Gagnon]

Okay, random question. How does CIA deal with stolen valor? Like, is there a way that someone, not me exactly, but maybe me could just write a book and be like, hey, I was in the CIA and here's some crazy that happened.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So they don't. They don't really deal deal with it. Which is. Which is a huge kind of point in the ach for why I'm not CIA. Unless you've submitted a verification request, unless you've submitted an employment verification to CIA, you have no way of verifying that I'm actually CIA. One newspaper once actually tried to verify my employment record and they waited so long for CIA to respond and CIA never actually responded. So then they publish the news story anyways. And inside the news story they actually say document out loud. We tried to verify his employment and we could not verify. Verify it. So there are people out there who don't think I'm real at all. They just think that I'm making all this stuff up all the time, that I'm just a giant con man. Oh, but CIA turns out you're not seeing. So Stolen Valor's. They love it. They. They don't love it. It's a benefit to them because it's a distraction from the real officers that are out there.

[Akash Singh]

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No care about. Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct spooks. We see each other. We know when you're real. We know when you're Not. We know when you say that you were CIA, but you were really military, seconded to CIA for one operation. We know when you say you were CIA, but you were actually a contractor working on a contract with CIA.

[Akash Singh]

How do you know?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Because we know what terminology we use. We know the training, we know the internal vernacular. We also know how the system works. One or two questions between two actual CIA officers will. Will yield a lot of whether or not you understand what the other person's talking about or not.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. How many do. Are you allowed to say how many tours you did?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I was a five tour officer before I left. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Wow. So you, I mean, they had big plans for you.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. And that was one of the things that made it hard to leave. One of the things that made it hard to leave was this was our second tour. And after this tour and the success of this tour, which you can. Which you'll read about in the book.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

After the success of this tour, I was brought back to essentially teach. Teach how we did this worldwide to all the other CIA officers. And then I started teaching. And then in that process, I got escalated to take on covert operations. And then in covert operations, that was really when. When my career started to match, my wife's career, she was rock star the whole time. When our career started to match, they pulled us apart. Ah. Because you can't have two people kind of on the same trajectory. It's just like in a company, like there's nepotism missions or whatever else. They pulled us apart. And then in our fifth tour, we had our child. And when we had our child, we were like, what the fuck? Like, yeah, your career is great, my career is great. Neither of us gets to be with our kid. Like, what are we doing here?

[Mark Gagnon]

You said an interesting thing to me recently where you said, like, CIA officers will typically do like under 10 years or like over 20 years.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Can you explain why that discrepancy exists?

[Andrew Bustamante]

So CIA is still a government agency. It's still an organization like the military or Department of Homeland Security or ir, irs. So you don't make a lot of money. You, you come on board, you're making $45,000 a year, and then by the time you retire, maybe you're making $120,000 a year.

[Mark Gagnon]

I was looking on ChatGPT as like a high ranking CIA officer. Even like super high, like super advanced. You might make like 200, 250,000 a year.

[Andrew Bustamante]

That's super high. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

And these are like some of the, like, these are very smart people that are working here.

[Andrew Bustamante]

There might be one or.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, there might be easier to buy you guys or for the enemy to buy you guys.

[Andrew Bustamante]

100% makes it. That's one of the biggest vulnerabilities of a CIO CIA officer. This, the mole that we hunted or the mole that was hunting us in this book was one of those CIA officers who was a very successful high ranking multi tour officer who had no money.

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean Robert Hansen, like infamously like ultra shames. He's in life in prison for like it was like 5 mil or 6 mil or something like that.

[Andrew Bustamante]

It's kind of crazy.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I mean that's 100 times what I'm making or whatever. I'll do it.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. Okay, one second.

[Doug]

You don't think the book maybe discourages future aspiring CIA agents from joining?

[Andrew Bustamante]

I think this book is going to encourage future CIA agents because if you are a good fit for the CIA, you're going to understand why they did what they did. If you're a bad fit to work for CIA, you're going to look at this and be outraged in some way, shape or form. CIA already is. They're, they're going to filter out the people who understand that mission comes first. And all this book is, is an example of mission comes first. Okay. When mission didn't come first, we resigned and we left because we wanted to be parents first and we wanted to be a married couple first and we wanted to start a business.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. And I don't think anybody who wants to be in, in CIA would be like, oh, their life was in danger. I'm not in anymore. I think they know your life is in danger.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

So yeah, you know what I mean?

[Andrew Bustamante]

To answer, to get back to Mark's question just real quick, you'll find that there's a lot of federal workers in general. General. Who stay in less than 10 years or go all the way to retirement, which is over 20 years because up until that 10 year point you haven't invested half of your time into one career. So you can try it on for three or four years. Does it work? Do you like it? You're still young enough to change everything. You're still young. You probably not married, you probably don't have kids, you probably don't even have a house. At less than 10 years it's easy to reset life.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But at 12 years years, well, I might as well just stick out another eight and get the pension. And then at 20 years they offer you some sweet deal to keep you in for another two or Three years and you're like, I'll just. Three more years.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, right.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I have one of my favorite people in the world, and if he's watching you're. One of my favorite people in the world is my cousin in law. He's the man who married my cousin. He was a Naval Academy graduate. He was a competitive cyclist. He was always ways super fit, like super focused, super hardworking, super successful guy. But he became an officer in the Navy and they assigned him to submarines. And now he's 19 years almost at retirement. And he carries way too much weight. His weight is such a problem. It's a. It's a health issue. It's a health issue. It's an erectile issue. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

No, you're one of the few things I got going for me. You've been great.

[Mark Gagnon]

Great for a submarine dude.

[Akash Singh]

That'd be awesome. Got a hard dick that no one wants to.

[Mark Gagnon]

Hard dick I can't see anymore.

[Doug]

Is it hard for you to leave with your. What's it called?

[Akash Singh]

Wife. Alex Wife. I know you don't know a lot.

[Doug]

About those wife like clearances, so.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Wasn't Trump trying to do away with that? So.

[Andrew Bustamante]

So I left before Trump took office. And you're correct. Correct. And I agree with Donald Trump in this as well. When I left CIA in 2014, I kept my TSSCI, my top secret special compartment information. I kept my TSSCI for another two years because policy was that your security clearance times out. So after two years it drops by half. So after the third year it drops all the way. So I was a top secret clearance for two years even though I wasn't in government. And then I was still a secret clearance for another year after that. That with no reason to have a secret clearance. There is no reason for that. That's not helping national security to let people have that level of clearance. I could have left CIA on Monday and been hired into Northrop Grumman on Wednesday and assigned to a super sensitive case with NASA on Thursday because of my clearance carrying over. That's maybe that doesn't sound crazy. A year and a half after I left CIA, I could have been hired by Northrop Grumman and walked into a NASA operation where. Where I immediately had TSSCI clearance. What was I doing in that year and a half? Who was I talking to? What friends was I making? It's a massive security. So Donald Trump, when he came into office, he was like, we're getting rid of these carryover clearances. If you're not actively in national security. Your clearance is gone.

[Mark Gagnon]

Which CIA probably hated that. Or at least the officers there because they're like, I'm able to make a crazy bag when I leave because I'm able to use my clearance to get a private security contract or an arms contract somewhere else.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Correct. And that's a big part of our retirement retirement plan. When you are a FBI officer, a CIA officer, an NSA officer, you understand that most likely, like there's a pyramid of growth, you are most likely going to end up somewhere in the bottom of the top third, because that's where there's the most space. And you're going to make $120,000 a year, $140,000 a year to live in Washington, D.C. one of the. Well, one of the. Plus a pension, one of the most expensive, whatever zip codes in the region. When you retire, you're only going to take 60% of what you're earning. You don't retire at your actual salary. So then how do you maintain your lifestyle? And how do you pay for the kids that are in college and how do you pay for your health issues that you guaranteed you have because you up your body in service? They, they're like, I'm going to go work for Khaki. I'm going to go work for ManTech and make $260,000 a year easy duty. And all I'm doing is connecting dots and making sure that mantech gets the most current tech contract in CIA and Khaki gets the most recent satellite contract. Like, that's, that's their job and that's a up job.

[Doug]

Right. Now. Can you go back to being an agent or continue being an agent?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Technically, yes. I could go back to being an officer. We call ourselves officers at CIA, so we could go back to being an officer. It would take some. It take a polygraph. It would take a security check. It would take some. An invitation of some sort. So it could happen. Happen. It most likely will not happen because CIA really doesn't want officers to have this kind of public footprint. That's what they. They really don't know how to handle an officer with this kind of public footprint.

[Doug]

Throwing us off the set.

[Andrew Bustamante]

But.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. You ready? Yes or no questions.

[Andrew Bustamante]

This is Lightning Round.

[Akash Singh]

Lightning Round.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Okay.

[Akash Singh]

Is Diddy a fed?

[Andrew Bustamante]

No.

[Akash Singh]

Do aliens exist?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes.

[Akash Singh]

Is us still the number one superpower?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes.

[Akash Singh]

Is democracy at risk?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yes.

[Akash Singh]

Is Trump on the Epstein list? Oh, yes, for fucking kids.

[Andrew Bustamante]

I don't know. But he's got to be on the list somewhere.

[Doug]

Oh, you scratch his nose, I Don't.

[Akash Singh]

I don't know. Right nostril, right nostrils.

[Andrew Bustamante]

If I had to guess, I would say, no, he's not going to be on there for kids.

[Akash Singh]

That clip won't go viral. Are there Russian assets in the US Government?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Yeah. Yes.

[Akash Singh]

Is there any truth?

[Andrew Bustamante]

Is that actually a hard question? Do people think there might not be in the government? Yeah. I would hope to not. Yeah, that. Guys. So here's a rule of thumb. Here's the rule of thumb from CIA. Here's the rule of thumb from CIA. Every government agency is penetrated by five foreign spies. Damn rule of thumb. So don't ever trust that any of them are safe.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Assume that every single one of them has been penetrated by at least five. Five. And then hunt for those five, and you may find the 10 or 15 others that you never thought of. But that's what motivates us to keep the hunt going. That's why we. Every organization has an internal counterintelligence group that hunts spies in its own organization because they're there and they're. They're. If they're professional, you'll never know they're there unless you actively try to hunt them down.

[Doug]

Aoc, definitely.

[Mark Gagnon]

You just heard Penetrated by five.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Exactly. Like a Bonnie Blue video.

[Mark Gagnon]

You're like, oh, that sounds awesome. Oh, that sounds so cool. Oh, that's so funny.

[Akash Singh]

Thank you so much, man. This is awesome. Thank you, man.

[Andrew Bustamante]

Thanks, yo.

[Mark Gagnon]

Thank you so much.