Camp Gagnon Podcast Summary

Episode: How Julian Dorey SURVIVED a CIA Torture Program
Host: Mark Gagnon
Guest: Julian Dorey
Release Date: November 11, 2025

Episode Overview

In this gripping and darkly comedic episode, Mark Gagnon welcomes friend and podcaster Julian Dorey to recount his harrowing participation in a simulated CIA-style enhanced interrogation. Julian allowed himself to be waterboarded, hooded, and stress-tested by former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante and a team of military specialists, all for a documentary experiment. The conversation dives deep into the psychology of torture, the process of “breaking” someone, ethical questions around enhanced interrogation, and the surprisingly strong bonds formed through shared suffering.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How Did This Happen? (02:17–08:11)

• The idea originated from a content brainstorm with documentarian Tommy G, inspired after the attempted Trump assassination. They wanted to simulate a military SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) school training where American POWs learn to survive enemy torture.
• Julian: “I’m just, like, walking through Hoboken... like, yeah, why not? Don’t think anything of it.” (11:02)
• Tommy G asked Julian to join partly due to nerves about “giving the keys to the kingdom” to a former CIA guy excited about the task.
• They pulled together a team including ex-CIA agent Andrew Bustamante and ex-Navy diver Trevor Fortner.

2. Setting the Scene: Preparation & Mind Games (14:30–26:33)

• Julian arrives in Milwaukee feeling sick from a gym bug, gets picked up in a nondescript van with “buckets and towels and masks” in the back—already unsettling.
• They rehearse the scenario, including a simulated abduction and interrogation in an “absolutely ominous” abandoned warehouse.
  • Julian: “You see an abandoned church pew, a chandelier that hasn’t had electricity since Vietnam, and a cross...” (24:41)
• The realism is ramped up by intentional psychological tricks: keeping the participants isolated and guessing with long meetings and ambiguous talk from the crew.
  • Julian: "After like 20 minutes, you’re like, what are they talking about back there? ...This is bad. Like, in my head, I was actually... I don’t know. You name the feeling, I probably had it." (28:20)
• Both begin to psych themselves out before anything starts.

3. The Simulated Abduction (31:28–38:46)

• Julian and Tommy are “kidnapped” on the street, physically subdued, hooded, and zip-tied.
• The reality of the situation sets in: “They slam your knees into the metal floor...That’s not a good first impression.” (33:07)
• The psychological tricks start early: “With a hood, you lose your sense of place—even if your feet aren’t tied, you feel like they are.” (38:44)

4. Interrogation Begins: Breaking Down the Mind (44:12–54:04)

• First round: stress positions, random slaps, unpredictable manhandling.
• Julian highlights the “helpless” feeling: “You don’t know what’s coming next. You are helpless the whole time.” (59:05)
• Notably, there are safe words (“cupcake” and “blueberry muffin”)—nothing like real torture scenarios, but egos and a sense of competition keep them from using them prematurely.
• Memorable Moment: The environment becomes deeply immersive—the sound of a freight train rattling through the building “like a horror movie.” (48:20)

5. Pushing Limits: Ice, Water, and the Science of Suffering (66:04–76:55)

• The interrogators use ice water, a fan, and soaked hoods to simulate extreme cold and waterboarding effects.
• Tommy is forced onto the ground, repeatedly doused, and left gasping: “His entire hood is soaked...Every breath you take, no matter or doesn’t matter, it comes back into your mouth and nose and it creates a sensation of you cannot breathe.” (71:01)
• The questions are trivial by design—“What’s 1 plus 2?”—but the point is to keep answering incorrectly to prolong the ordeal.
  • “The psychological trick: now you’re suffering, AND you’re inflicting suffering on your friend.” (72:42, Mark)

6. Julian’s Turn: From Ice Bath to Waterboarding (83:06–99:25)

• Julian is flipped onto a mat and subjected to ice, water, and a fan—as water pools beneath him, he experiences simulated drowning.
• Julian: “If I breathe, I’m drowning...All the ice tucked in...the fan is right on you...I had to hold my head up a quarter inch to breathe.” (85:31)
• Real panic sets in with the waterboarding simulation. The mask is soaked and tightened; water is poured over his face until, desperate for air, he gives up the answer.
  • “The more you fight, the harder you breathe—the more you demand, the more you want...guess what never changes? Your access.” (96:59, Andy/Andrew Bustamante)
• Julian describes giving the correct answer as “not dying for content.” (100:36)

7. Aftermath, Reflection & Ethics (102:16–134:10)

• Both guests experience “an insane rush”—adrenaline, competitiveness, and shared trauma.
• Julian: “11 out of 10 wouldn’t recommend, man. I’m retired.” (132:14)
• They discuss the real stakes: nothing can simulate what it means to have actual secrets worth dying for, or to experience threats to family.
  • “Everybody breaks. It’s just a matter of if you really have information, and you give it.” (124:32)
• Mark and Julian debate whether waterboarding is torture (“I would say waterboarding is a form of torture”—Julian, 111:53) and the utility—or lack thereof—of torture for reliable intelligence.
• Enhanced interrogation, they agree, is far more brutal and insidious than any simulation for content could be.

Notable Quotes and Moments

• Andrew Bustamante (in-character): “Gentlemen, you’re going to be in pain today. That pain is entirely up to you. It can stop at any time. All you have to do is answer the questions we give you and we’ll let you go.” (00:00)
• Julian Dorey: “You don’t know what’s coming next. You are helpless the whole time... Right now it’s fine, what’s in a minute?” (59:05)
• Mark Gagnon (on psychological tricks): “Hey, everything you do, someone else is now gonna suffer... Psychologically, it’s fucking with you.” (72:42)
• Julian (endurance mindset): “I cannot let Andy break me for clout. That can’t happen.” (30:00)
• On waterboarding:
  “It’s a rush... it’s not like, I’m not thinking, I can’t let Andy break me for clout. I’m actually in it... You don’t kill me, you’re gonna have to kill me on the next one.” (99:25)
• Aftermath, on ethics:
  “Everybody breaks. It’s a matter of if they really wanted to break someone... they just go really hard...some guys get this for weeks at a time... But everybody breaks.” (111:49)
• Conclusion:
  “Would you do it again?” — Mark
  “No, I’m good. 11 out of 10 wouldn’t recommend, man. I’m retired.” — Julian (132:14)

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------| | 02:17 | Intro to Julian & how the experiment came about | | 14:30 | Arriving in Milwaukee, the “van,” first red flags | | 24:41 | The abandoned warehouse, ominous setting | | 28:20 | Pre-interrogation psyche: “bad feeling builds” | | 31:28 | Simulated “abduction” of Julian | | 44:12 | First rounds of stress positions, slaps, mind games| | 59:05 | “Helplessness,” psychological effect of torture | | 66:04 | Water, ice, fan — physical and psychological | | 71:01 | Tommy’s hood soaked: simulated drowning | | 83:06 | Julian’s turn: “pulled down onto the mat” | | 96:59 | “The more you fight, the harder you breathe...” | | 100:36 | Waterboarding climax: “Washington D.C.—get it off!”| | 111:49 | “Everybody breaks” — real torture vs. simulation | | 124:32 | “If I really did have info, I feel like...I’d give it” | | 132:14 | Would Julian ever do it again? “No. Retired.” |

Tone & Style

• The conversation flows between dark, intense, and irreverent; dark humor offsets the grim reality.
• Mark maintains a lively, bantering tone, punctuating with jokes about “clout” and “not dying for content.”
• Julian’s storytelling is vivid, honest, and self-deprecating, mixing technical details of the ordeal with reflections on ethics and the limits of human resolve.

Final Thoughts

This unique episode is part cautionary tale, part gonzo journalism, and part philosophical rumination. Julian’s firsthand account provides both visceral detail and thoughtful reflection—highlighting just how terrifying and real the psychological effects of enhanced interrogation can be, even when you know you’re safe. Both host and guest ultimately agree: simulated or not, torture always leaves a mark, and the real thing is much worse than any “content” could hope to capture.