WEBVTT 00:00:28.580 --> 00:00:30.890 This episode is brought power and essential gear. 00:00:31.170 --> 00:00:33.990 Plus, their Prep Academy makes it easy to learn 00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.689 emergency skills with simple guides and quick 00:00:36.689 --> 00:00:39.490 tips anyone can follow. I've arranged an exclusive 00:00:39.490 --> 00:00:42.950 15 % discount for my listeners. Just go to prepstartsnow 00:00:42.950 --> 00:00:46.390 .com and use promo code zero signal at checkout 00:00:46.390 --> 00:00:49.070 or click the link in my show notes where the 00:00:49.070 --> 00:00:51.549 discount is applied automatically. Don't wait 00:00:51.549 --> 00:00:54.869 for the next crisis. Take action today. That's 00:00:54.869 --> 00:01:03.890 prepstartsnow .com promo code zero signal. You're 00:01:03.890 --> 00:01:06.829 tuned into Zero Signal, a show about what they 00:01:06.829 --> 00:01:09.230 won't say and what you're probably already thinking. 00:01:09.629 --> 00:01:13.430 No fluff, no filters, no bullshit. Let's crack 00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:22.340 it open. Tonight we're talking about the intersection 00:01:22.340 --> 00:01:24.859 of intelligence, security, and the systems that 00:01:24.859 --> 00:01:27.219 keep modern life running, critical infrastructure, 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:29.879 business continuity, and what happens when things 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:32.579 start to break under pressure. My guest, Casey 00:01:32.579 --> 00:01:34.900 Campbell, a veteran of the U .S. intelligence 00:01:34.900 --> 00:01:37.819 community and security and resiliency expert 00:01:37.819 --> 00:01:39.659 who's worked across government and the private 00:01:39.659 --> 00:01:41.620 sector. He's dealt with high stakes threats, 00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:44.719 complex geopolitical risk, and a kind of worst 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:47.879 case scenarios most of us never see. Casey, thanks 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:50.340 for being here today. Oh, my pleasure. Looking 00:01:50.340 --> 00:01:52.780 forward to this discussion. For our listeners 00:01:52.780 --> 00:01:55.480 who may not know your story, how did you first 00:01:55.480 --> 00:01:58.859 get into Intel and security and what path led 00:01:58.859 --> 00:02:01.000 you to work that you're doing today? Sure. From 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:03.280 a young age, I was interested in two things, 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:06.340 flying and intelligence, and maybe a tertiary 00:02:06.340 --> 00:02:09.020 one is security. And when you combine both flying 00:02:09.020 --> 00:02:11.199 and Intel, that kind of leads you to the Air 00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:13.520 Force. I did also want to be a shuttle pilot 00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:16.020 until pretty well into my Air Force career to 00:02:16.020 --> 00:02:18.979 be an astronaut. difficult as people might think, 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:20.599 because when the shuttle program was around, 00:02:20.759 --> 00:02:23.099 you had to basically only fighter pilots, therefore 00:02:23.099 --> 00:02:25.979 Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps people were 00:02:25.979 --> 00:02:28.599 eligible. All right. So that drastically narrows 00:02:28.599 --> 00:02:31.280 the field. But even with that, I was more drawn 00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:34.219 to Intel overall and gotten to the Air Force. 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:37.159 And from Intel school at the time, it was nine 00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:40.400 months, which was four Air Force officers. That 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:43.960 was the second longest behind pilot training 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:46.879 in terms of technical training to be an intelligence 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:49.280 officer. So I loved it. And I remember thinking, 00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:51.500 I can't believe I'm being paid to learn how to 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:53.360 steal secrets. And basically, that's one way 00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:56.400 to look at Intel. The government is paying you 00:02:56.400 --> 00:03:01.080 to legally steal secrets from adversaries and 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:03.400 so forth. And so I've always liked it, liked 00:03:03.400 --> 00:03:05.580 the process. And yeah, the rest is history. And 00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:08.080 I think that if I could ever pick my dream job 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:10.520 after watching James Bond and seeing all these 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:12.479 really cool CIA movies and stuff. That's what 00:03:12.479 --> 00:03:14.159 I always wanted to do. I never got the opportunity 00:03:14.159 --> 00:03:16.280 to do it. I was stuck on the beat working as 00:03:16.280 --> 00:03:19.159 a beat cop, but it sounds like just an amazing 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:22.280 and interesting career. Now you've held roles 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:24.800 where bad calls can have serious consequences. 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:27.560 How do you learn to make decisions under that 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:30.300 kind of pressure and what did you get wrong early 00:03:30.300 --> 00:03:34.539 on? Oh, wow. Tough question. When you get commissioned 00:03:34.539 --> 00:03:37.120 as an officer in any service, one thing you learn 00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:39.740 is that the main difference people think it's 00:03:39.740 --> 00:03:41.719 education, right? And the difference between 00:03:41.719 --> 00:03:44.659 officer and enlisted, it's not, I knew enlisted 00:03:44.659 --> 00:03:48.180 folks who had master's degrees and even doctorates. 00:03:48.259 --> 00:03:50.819 The big difference is the responsibility, right? 00:03:50.819 --> 00:03:53.759 Officers are ultimately responsible. So that 00:03:53.759 --> 00:03:56.800 can lead to some stress, some high pressure situations, 00:03:57.139 --> 00:03:59.879 especially when you do, one of my specialties 00:03:59.879 --> 00:04:02.460 was target intelligence and it could be very 00:04:02.460 --> 00:04:05.639 consequential. And so if you recommend the wrong 00:04:05.639 --> 00:04:08.080 targets or provide the wrong coordinates, you... 00:04:07.849 --> 00:04:10.129 you might, someone might bomb, a pilot might 00:04:10.129 --> 00:04:13.689 bomb a hospital or a school. And then that's 00:04:13.689 --> 00:04:16.189 on you, right? That's not what pilot policy is 00:04:16.189 --> 00:04:19.290 doing, is he or she is basing that decision on 00:04:19.290 --> 00:04:21.470 the coordinates and the information you gave 00:04:21.470 --> 00:04:25.139 him or her. And so that can lead to... some stressful 00:04:25.139 --> 00:04:27.980 situations and so it all comes down to professionalism 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:31.279 and leadership and mentoring your team and so 00:04:31.279 --> 00:04:35.220 forth. And yeah, in terms of mistakes, like many 00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:38.079 leaders, I've made mistakes in terms of leadership 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:40.529 and then you just learn to grow from them. What 00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:43.230 surprised you most working in intelligence? I 00:04:43.230 --> 00:04:45.589 know you said you always had a tertiary passion 00:04:45.589 --> 00:04:47.689 for it, but when you actually got in the chair, 00:04:47.990 --> 00:04:49.910 you're pulling this intelligence in. What was 00:04:49.910 --> 00:04:51.829 the thing that surprised you most about what 00:04:51.829 --> 00:04:53.850 you got yourself into versus what we all see 00:04:53.850 --> 00:04:56.790 on TV in the movies? Sure. Wow. A couple things. 00:04:57.069 --> 00:04:59.990 One is a lot of it is just bean counting, right? 00:05:00.230 --> 00:05:02.850 It's sitting behind the desk and just doing work. 00:05:03.110 --> 00:05:07.680 And so. There's a lot of James Bond movies, Mission 00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:11.699 Impossible stuff, very little. Almost none of 00:05:11.699 --> 00:05:15.100 it is anything close to that. Because you have 00:05:15.100 --> 00:05:16.920 the different ints, what they call ints, different 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:20.750 types of intelligence. So only one part. of intelligence 00:05:20.750 --> 00:05:23.069 work is the case officer, the human intelligence 00:05:23.069 --> 00:05:26.350 part, right? And even then it's rarely ever as 00:05:26.350 --> 00:05:28.009 sexy as what you see in the James Bond movies. 00:05:28.110 --> 00:05:30.910 A lot of it is just sitting at a desk doing the 00:05:30.910 --> 00:05:34.930 work or interviewing people. And so even the 00:05:34.930 --> 00:05:37.250 James Bond types who are out, the case officers 00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:40.810 doing the hard work of building relationships 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:44.569 over weeks, months, years, that intelligence 00:05:44.569 --> 00:05:47.589 that they get, they're sending that back to the 00:05:47.589 --> 00:05:50.470 analyst and the analyst who are usually sitting 00:05:50.470 --> 00:05:52.050 behind the desk, they're doing that work. So 00:05:52.050 --> 00:05:54.509 that was one enlightening thing when I first 00:05:54.509 --> 00:05:57.449 got into a lot of it is like just a lot of bean 00:05:57.449 --> 00:06:00.430 counting. So in the military, it's all about 00:06:00.430 --> 00:06:02.990 a lot of the work is on what's called order of 00:06:02.990 --> 00:06:05.550 battle, right? if you might potentially go to 00:06:05.550 --> 00:06:09.009 war against a country, you need to know how many 00:06:09.009 --> 00:06:11.829 tanks they have at which location and how many 00:06:11.829 --> 00:06:15.689 aircraft, how many personnel they have in X division 00:06:15.689 --> 00:06:19.050 or X or Y regiment. And that's something that 00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:22.910 the military is very good at, very good, if it's 00:06:22.910 --> 00:06:25.209 prioritized high enough. And then that's what 00:06:25.209 --> 00:06:28.050 I mean by bean counting. It's tedious work, but 00:06:28.050 --> 00:06:31.589 it's very necessary. The military and intelligence 00:06:31.589 --> 00:06:33.550 community overall is very good at it. I think 00:06:33.550 --> 00:06:37.569 another thing that might surprise me is that, 00:06:37.569 --> 00:06:40.649 or that did surprise me is the level of responsibility 00:06:40.649 --> 00:06:43.970 that intelligence personnel have both at the 00:06:43.970 --> 00:06:46.329 enlisted level and officer level. For example, 00:06:46.410 --> 00:06:48.930 I had one assignment at the Pentagon and at Defense 00:06:48.930 --> 00:06:51.449 Intelligence Agency, and that was simultaneous, 00:06:51.550 --> 00:06:54.329 just the way that part of the military is structured. 00:06:54.930 --> 00:06:57.430 And it was interesting, people, you hear stories, 00:06:57.629 --> 00:07:01.420 if you're a captain or a major, you're making 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:03.939 coffees for the general, if you're in the Pentagon. 00:07:04.339 --> 00:07:07.019 And what I found, and this surprised me a few 00:07:07.019 --> 00:07:10.019 years into my career, is how much responsibilities 00:07:10.019 --> 00:07:12.920 that relatively junior folks in intelligence 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:16.240 have both within the, whether at the Pentagon 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.920 or elsewhere, because it's not the colonels or 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:21.740 the generals or the, if you're familiar with 00:07:21.740 --> 00:07:23.740 the government pay scale for civilians, the GS 00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:26.259 -15s, the senior executive service. Usually it's 00:07:26.259 --> 00:07:29.370 not those senior folks who are doing that. the 00:07:29.370 --> 00:07:32.050 bean counting, right? It's the people doing that 00:07:32.050 --> 00:07:35.430 analysis are relatively junior folks compared 00:07:35.430 --> 00:07:38.089 to the generals in the civilian senior executive 00:07:38.089 --> 00:07:39.910 service. In law enforcement, we have a saying, 00:07:40.110 --> 00:07:43.730 right? 98 % of the job is boredom and 2 % is 00:07:43.730 --> 00:07:46.069 sheer terror, right? There's no mix bag there. 00:07:46.110 --> 00:07:47.689 It's just a small percent that's going to jump 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.310 right out at you. How do you, it must be so much 00:07:50.310 --> 00:07:52.209 more compounded in your line of work, right? 00:07:52.209 --> 00:07:53.930 You're talking about if the target's wrong, it 00:07:53.930 --> 00:07:56.189 hits a hospital, it hits a civilian center. How 00:07:56.189 --> 00:07:58.110 do you deal with that stress, right? And making 00:07:58.110 --> 00:08:00.129 those... important decisions under pressure. 00:08:00.629 --> 00:08:03.250 Yeah, got to trust your team. You got to be competent, 00:08:03.410 --> 00:08:06.949 for one. Know your stuff. Know your team. Mentor 00:08:06.949 --> 00:08:10.569 your stuff. Mentor your team. Practice. So, you 00:08:10.569 --> 00:08:13.149 know, in the Air Operations Center, when we're 00:08:13.149 --> 00:08:15.389 deployed, we would practice time sets of targeting. 00:08:15.509 --> 00:08:18.610 This is where something pops up, whether it be, 00:08:18.610 --> 00:08:21.189 say, for example, in search of a terrorist and 00:08:21.189 --> 00:08:24.930 unexpected. And we would have to... work up the 00:08:24.930 --> 00:08:27.750 GPS coordinates, very quickly do collateral damage 00:08:27.750 --> 00:08:30.209 assessment. No other country in the world cares 00:08:30.209 --> 00:08:32.490 about collateral damage like the US and its closest 00:08:32.490 --> 00:08:35.289 allies, the Brits, the Aussies, Canadians as 00:08:35.289 --> 00:08:37.350 an example. And in addition to working up these 00:08:37.350 --> 00:08:40.129 GPS coordinates, which is maybe it's changed 00:08:40.129 --> 00:08:41.970 now, but when I was doing it, it wasn't just 00:08:41.970 --> 00:08:44.809 clicking on a building that's far more difficult. 00:08:44.970 --> 00:08:47.529 then it might seem you got to wear 3D glasses 00:08:47.529 --> 00:08:49.950 with the latest imagery and so forth. And so 00:08:49.950 --> 00:08:52.870 literally 3D glasses and also in addition to 00:08:52.870 --> 00:08:54.669 doing that, you got to do the collateral damage 00:08:54.669 --> 00:08:57.470 estimate, right? And so how many people you think 00:08:57.470 --> 00:09:00.470 might die or be injured and it differs whether 00:09:00.470 --> 00:09:02.990 it's day or night. And the military is very good 00:09:02.990 --> 00:09:06.570 at that. And so it would pretty accurate collateral 00:09:06.570 --> 00:09:08.929 damage estimates. And it's not a great term. 00:09:09.070 --> 00:09:11.690 It's almost too antiseptic, but it's very important 00:09:11.690 --> 00:09:14.809 to in our attempt to minimize. collateral damage. 00:09:15.389 --> 00:09:17.070 And so you're doing all that and you got to do 00:09:17.070 --> 00:09:19.210 that within minutes. And by the way, I make a 00:09:19.210 --> 00:09:21.269 recommendation on not only the type of weapon, 00:09:21.389 --> 00:09:23.250 but the few settings for each weapon, right? 00:09:23.610 --> 00:09:26.169 In terms of air to ground bombs. And so a lot 00:09:26.169 --> 00:09:29.230 of stress, just a few minutes to do all that. 00:09:29.450 --> 00:09:31.870 and not screw it up. And so you got to really 00:09:31.870 --> 00:09:34.669 trust your team and practice and be competent. 00:09:34.750 --> 00:09:37.370 Yeah, so a little odd question here. So my brother 00:09:37.370 --> 00:09:39.909 and I in the show, it seems like AI comes up 00:09:39.909 --> 00:09:42.429 a lot. In your experience, or do you think in 00:09:42.429 --> 00:09:44.350 the future, do you think intelligence agencies 00:09:44.350 --> 00:09:47.009 will rely on AI a lot to gather data or have 00:09:47.009 --> 00:09:49.769 you in the past? Where does that kind of play 00:09:49.769 --> 00:09:52.570 into all of it? When I was in, we didn't use 00:09:52.570 --> 00:09:54.960 it at all at the various levels where I work, 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:59.919 but based on public comments, speeches by senior 00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:03.679 intel folks, I know it's being used now. And 00:10:03.679 --> 00:10:08.179 it's necessary to aid in intelligence, intelligence 00:10:08.179 --> 00:10:11.100 collection, and a certain level of analysis. 00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:14.899 It will never ever, in my opinion, replace the 00:10:14.899 --> 00:10:16.769 human element. Right. There are just some things 00:10:16.769 --> 00:10:19.389 you can't do with AI and there are certain ways 00:10:19.389 --> 00:10:22.110 of thinking context and so forth. So I don't 00:10:22.110 --> 00:10:25.009 think we'll ever get to a point where AI will 00:10:25.009 --> 00:10:29.769 completely replace all aspects of, or even individual 00:10:29.769 --> 00:10:33.509 steps of the intelligence cycle collection plan 00:10:33.509 --> 00:10:36.210 and collection and, and so forth. Overall. Yeah. 00:10:36.309 --> 00:10:38.929 Bomb line. It's a great tool, facilitates a lot, 00:10:38.929 --> 00:10:42.850 but I think we, a lot of folks are overconfident 00:10:42.850 --> 00:10:47.240 in what AI can bring to. In my work, Casey, it's 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:49.679 a great force multiplier, right? But we always 00:10:49.679 --> 00:10:51.720 intercede with human in the loop in order to 00:10:51.720 --> 00:10:53.480 make those informed decisions because they are 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:55.820 game -changing decisions. Do you really think 00:10:55.820 --> 00:10:58.480 that AI should be playing a role within that 00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:01.600 space? Are those stakes just too high that you 00:11:01.600 --> 00:11:04.639 don't want a machine or a bot to make those determinations 00:11:04.639 --> 00:11:07.279 for you? Or do you feel it's safe to have it 00:11:07.279 --> 00:11:08.779 as a force multiplier? I'm sure a lot of this 00:11:08.779 --> 00:11:11.220 has been helped with the Doge initiatives that 00:11:11.220 --> 00:11:12.840 are currently going on in the Trump administration. 00:11:12.940 --> 00:11:14.740 But do you think it's helpful? and is something 00:11:14.740 --> 00:11:17.820 we should be using, or do you think it's a detractor 00:11:17.820 --> 00:11:20.379 and slowing you down? It can and should definitely 00:11:20.379 --> 00:11:23.639 be used as a force multiplier or aid, but in 00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:26.299 terms of, say, one example, lethal decisions, 00:11:26.539 --> 00:11:30.639 right? It would almost be criminal to rely on 00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:33.600 AI to make life and death situations. I just 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:36.750 don't see that, at least in... in many cases, 00:11:36.809 --> 00:11:39.529 if not most cases, but there is nothing wrong. 00:11:39.690 --> 00:11:41.870 We'd be remiss if we didn't use it to help cue 00:11:41.870 --> 00:11:44.210 other collection, point us to the right direction 00:11:44.210 --> 00:11:46.549 on some things. There's some things you don't 00:11:46.549 --> 00:11:49.230 really need a human in the loop for, and it just 00:11:49.230 --> 00:11:52.529 has to be done in the right way. And one example 00:11:52.529 --> 00:11:56.309 I like to use to show limits of AI. I know there 00:11:56.309 --> 00:11:59.210 are different levels of AI. I think in one of 00:11:59.210 --> 00:12:00.929 your podcasts, you talked about the different 00:12:00.929 --> 00:12:03.850 levels of AI, but I remember applying for one 00:12:03.850 --> 00:12:07.539 job once and up to my resume and for some reason 00:12:07.539 --> 00:12:11.000 this and I don't know if it was AI just an algorithm 00:12:11.000 --> 00:12:14.360 or a language learning model but This thing basically 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:18.379 said, yeah, at one point I worked in the Ukraine 00:12:18.379 --> 00:12:25.980 Ministry of Defense. Absolutely nothing in my 00:12:25.980 --> 00:12:29.200 background or on my resume says Ukraine. Nothing 00:12:29.200 --> 00:12:33.360 at all. I've never worked a Ukraine issue when 00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:35.840 I was serving in government. So I have no idea 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:38.519 where that came from. But that shows the limitations 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:42.870 of AI. Yeah, it's great to use. It's great to 00:12:42.870 --> 00:12:45.509 use, but we need to have some level of realism 00:12:45.509 --> 00:12:48.470 and what we can do with it and also have human 00:12:48.470 --> 00:12:50.730 in the loop at the right spots. Yeah. So I know 00:12:50.730 --> 00:12:53.269 you do a lot of forecasting. So how about we 00:12:53.269 --> 00:12:55.370 take this time to talk about the end of 2025? 00:12:55.649 --> 00:12:57.789 And I think you said you forecasted out to the 00:12:57.789 --> 00:13:01.730 spring of 26. Yeah. So one of the things I'm 00:13:01.730 --> 00:13:06.799 watching for the rest of 25 is the health of 00:13:06.799 --> 00:13:08.899 some senior folks and not so senior folks. I 00:13:08.899 --> 00:13:11.679 call it my department of gerontocracy. And yeah, 00:13:11.799 --> 00:13:15.600 so we got a lot of older folks in various. countries 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:18.279 at the senior level. So number one on my list 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:21.519 is Donald Trump. And this will make some folks 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:24.500 uncomfortable, but this is based on one, just 00:13:24.500 --> 00:13:27.779 having been a consumer of what I call biographic 00:13:27.779 --> 00:13:30.559 intel. It's not one of the official ints. It's 00:13:30.559 --> 00:13:32.299 one of the things you look at if we're looking 00:13:32.299 --> 00:13:36.019 at a country, say, Davidania or Jayatania, right? 00:13:36.100 --> 00:13:38.779 The president of one of these countries, you 00:13:38.779 --> 00:13:40.500 would, you look for certain signals, certain 00:13:40.500 --> 00:13:43.799 indicators. Are they, or is that? president's 00:13:43.799 --> 00:13:47.419 team obfuscated certain things or has he or she 00:13:47.419 --> 00:13:49.759 gone missing for a while. And so you look at 00:13:49.759 --> 00:13:52.379 all these things and other indicators that in 00:13:52.379 --> 00:13:55.080 some cases is very obvious, but because of certain 00:13:55.080 --> 00:13:57.940 of cognitive biases, we try to not think about 00:13:57.940 --> 00:14:00.779 it or overlook it. A lot of times we, this happens 00:14:00.779 --> 00:14:03.500 to interanalysts who you would ignore the obvious, 00:14:03.500 --> 00:14:07.039 right? And the same things I saw that happened 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:09.720 with Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, I'm seeing 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:12.860 it with Trump and his team, right? The obfuscations, 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:17.539 the bizarre explanation for things. And for example, 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:21.159 the no one mentioned, no one in the White House 00:14:21.159 --> 00:14:24.700 mentioned the MRI that he took. It was, we only 00:14:24.700 --> 00:14:26.879 know about that because Trump mentioned in what 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:28.440 appeared to be a little bit of bragging about 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:31.139 his cognitive abilities. He mentioned, oh, I 00:14:31.139 --> 00:14:34.299 took an MRI test and folks in the press and public 00:14:34.299 --> 00:14:37.259 analysts were like, wait, what? And then the 00:14:37.259 --> 00:14:39.539 explanation a few days later when he was asked 00:14:39.539 --> 00:14:42.539 what it was about, the explanation was very bizarre 00:14:42.539 --> 00:14:44.559 that he didn't know what it was. It wasn't for 00:14:44.559 --> 00:14:46.820 his head. So it's just weird that he didn't know 00:14:46.820 --> 00:14:49.440 what it was for. And by the way, it's not normal. 00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:52.340 MRIs are not. normally used for preventative 00:14:52.340 --> 00:14:55.620 measure and for patients. And for all these reasons, 00:14:55.860 --> 00:14:58.980 other indicators, I don't think Trump will be 00:14:58.980 --> 00:15:03.299 in office for days after next few weeks or months. 00:15:03.740 --> 00:15:08.470 I think that... his excellent medical care that 00:15:08.470 --> 00:15:11.570 he receives, just like with as all the presidents 00:15:11.570 --> 00:15:14.450 to Joe Biden and all the presidents before him. 00:15:14.750 --> 00:15:17.309 I think that's one reason he's doing relatively 00:15:17.309 --> 00:15:19.769 well, but I don't see him sticking around for 00:15:19.769 --> 00:15:22.149 long in office. I don't know. I don't think he's 00:15:22.149 --> 00:15:25.230 going to die in the next few months, but I'm... 00:15:25.120 --> 00:15:27.480 pretty confident that he will have to resign 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:30.320 or the 25th amendment will be invoked in the 00:15:30.320 --> 00:15:33.659 next few months at the most. I'm also for the 00:15:33.659 --> 00:15:37.120 rest of 2025, leaving in 2026, I'm also looking 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:39.039 at members of Congress. This is the third oldest 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:42.860 Congress in right now. That might change a little 00:15:42.860 --> 00:15:45.139 come January, but right now it's the third oldest 00:15:45.139 --> 00:15:49.950 Congress in the history of the US. Quite a few, 00:15:50.269 --> 00:15:52.529 over the last several years, members of Congress 00:15:52.529 --> 00:15:54.850 die while in their office, while they're in office. 00:15:55.230 --> 00:15:59.289 A couple were basically taken dementia medication, 00:15:59.809 --> 00:16:02.870 and one was officially serving while she was 00:16:02.870 --> 00:16:05.740 in a... in a healthcare facility for dementia. 00:16:05.879 --> 00:16:07.980 I'm looking at members of Congress. It wouldn't 00:16:07.980 --> 00:16:10.860 surprise me sometime this month or next year 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:14.299 that a member of Congress dies in office, like 00:16:14.299 --> 00:16:17.519 what has occurred in the past. And I should mention 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:20.620 that for both Trump, the president, and members 00:16:20.620 --> 00:16:23.440 of Congress, that yields potentially continuity 00:16:23.440 --> 00:16:25.740 of government issues. At least at the presidential 00:16:25.740 --> 00:16:28.360 level in Congress, that with a thin, and I don't 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:31.879 get into politics, but it does result in potential 00:16:31.879 --> 00:16:35.820 issues with the minority majority split in Congress, 00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:38.840 right? So it does have, it might have implications, 00:16:38.919 --> 00:16:40.519 especially on the House side. And by the way, 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.500 just to go back to Trump, I think there are some 00:16:42.500 --> 00:16:44.980 mental and physical issues there, mental issues 00:16:44.980 --> 00:16:48.539 caused by some physical ailments. So it just... 00:16:48.490 --> 00:16:50.629 speech patterns and so forth. Again, this is 00:16:50.629 --> 00:16:52.549 stuff that we'd look at if we're looking at another 00:16:52.549 --> 00:16:55.450 country. I'm looking at Putin also, but I don't 00:16:55.450 --> 00:16:57.289 think that's a near term thing. Putin is rumored 00:16:57.289 --> 00:16:59.990 to have cancer. He's rumored to have body doubles, 00:17:00.110 --> 00:17:04.029 as many as eight is what I've heard. A lot of 00:17:04.029 --> 00:17:06.430 people think, I don't have a strong opinion on 00:17:06.430 --> 00:17:08.589 this, but a lot of people think the person who 00:17:08.589 --> 00:17:12.769 showed up in Alaska is not the real Putin. There's 00:17:12.769 --> 00:17:15.670 one thing that did throw me off was his mannerism. 00:17:16.600 --> 00:17:18.559 mannerisms when he was sitting down with Donald 00:17:18.559 --> 00:17:23.240 Trump on that stage. Either he drank a lot of 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:27.519 coffee or it was not Putin, but just the mannerisms, 00:17:27.640 --> 00:17:30.779 the joking around, that was not like Putin at 00:17:30.779 --> 00:17:34.960 all. So that caused me to raise an eyebrow. And 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:37.339 there have been statements by the Biden's White 00:17:37.339 --> 00:17:42.140 House. Then Senator Rubio, who pretty much implied 00:17:42.140 --> 00:17:44.180 that, yeah, there are some health issues with 00:17:44.180 --> 00:17:48.039 Putin. So when Senator, who has access to classified 00:17:48.039 --> 00:17:52.220 information, and White House implies health problems 00:17:52.220 --> 00:17:54.019 with a foreign leader, I take that seriously. 00:17:54.460 --> 00:17:57.480 And finally, with the president, Bayh of Cameroon, 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:00.220 oldest person, the oldest head of state, I think 00:18:00.220 --> 00:18:03.500 right now I'll be, he's on my watch list for, 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:08.400 if not 2025, 2026. 2025, I'm looking at Russia, 00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:11.519 Ukraine. I have no idea how that's going to go 00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:14.079 because all depends on how much support the U 00:18:14.079 --> 00:18:17.940 .S. provides and how much support the EU is able 00:18:17.940 --> 00:18:21.180 to pick up if the U .S. support material intelligence 00:18:21.180 --> 00:18:23.700 support drops, right? And North has given me 00:18:23.700 --> 00:18:26.779 the bet with a family member whether Russia or 00:18:26.779 --> 00:18:31.339 Ukraine will prevail. our bets were low. Because 00:18:31.339 --> 00:18:33.700 it's just another family member was like, really, 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:35.920 you're betting only $10? Yeah, I have no idea 00:18:35.920 --> 00:18:38.819 how that's going to go because it's, my fear 00:18:38.819 --> 00:18:41.680 is Ukraine, it'll be hard for Ukraine to prevail 00:18:41.680 --> 00:18:46.160 if, assuming there's no peace, peace treaty or 00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:48.480 permanent ceasefire. I think it'd be hard for 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:52.099 Ukraine to prevail if US support just dried up 00:18:52.099 --> 00:18:54.259 overnight. And that's something that I think 00:18:54.259 --> 00:18:56.359 the entire world is watching, especially for 00:18:56.359 --> 00:18:58.240 over the next few years. Yeah. To get back to 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:00.279 Trump a little bit, it's a two -part question, 00:19:00.279 --> 00:19:02.740 right? So we're talking about the cognitive decline 00:19:02.740 --> 00:19:05.839 of Trump and what are the associated risks with 00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:07.839 that, right? Obviously you're talking about invoking 00:19:07.839 --> 00:19:10.079 the 25th amendment. If I remember my law, I should 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:11.680 know it better, but I think that's when the vice 00:19:11.680 --> 00:19:13.859 president steps in and takes over power for him. 00:19:14.180 --> 00:19:16.400 But generally before those handoffs occur, you 00:19:16.400 --> 00:19:19.259 usually seem risk associated with it. There's 00:19:19.259 --> 00:19:21.500 a lot of people, I'm in this camp and you're 00:19:21.500 --> 00:19:23.099 the expert, so you can probably correct me if 00:19:23.099 --> 00:19:24.710 I'm wrong. I'm wrong, but like we're very close 00:19:24.710 --> 00:19:27.250 to World War Three. How close is it, right? With 00:19:27.250 --> 00:19:29.869 that cognitive decline and making incorrect decisions 00:19:29.869 --> 00:19:32.990 could lead us further or nudge us further towards 00:19:32.990 --> 00:19:36.369 World War Three. With cognitive decline, impulsiveness 00:19:36.369 --> 00:19:39.849 increases right now. Trump, as with some leaders, 00:19:39.970 --> 00:19:42.490 is impulsive. I think much more so with Trump. 00:19:42.529 --> 00:19:45.589 That will just increase. So there is a risk there. 00:19:45.589 --> 00:19:48.390 And if anything, that might be why that's part 00:19:48.390 --> 00:19:52.589 of my analysis or reason for my analysis that. 00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:56.200 the 25th will be invoked is that I see a concern 00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:58.700 of the impulsiveness that comes with that cognitive 00:19:58.700 --> 00:20:01.859 decline. And I realize this conversation will 00:20:01.859 --> 00:20:04.900 make some people very uncomfortable, but I'm 00:20:04.900 --> 00:20:07.740 just looking at it from a geopolitical risk standpoint, 00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:11.140 trying to be unbiased as possible that there 00:20:11.140 --> 00:20:14.140 is a risk now. I don't necessarily think World 00:20:14.140 --> 00:20:18.059 War III would be any closer to that. because 00:20:18.059 --> 00:20:21.900 of these cognitive issues, but I think we could 00:20:21.900 --> 00:20:24.619 safely say that it could be safe to have a concern. 00:20:24.839 --> 00:20:26.319 It would be honest if I don't have a concern 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:30.079 that the impulsiveness could lead to decisions 00:20:30.079 --> 00:20:32.500 that someone else in that office, another person 00:20:32.500 --> 00:20:34.839 would not make. And I'm trying to be careful 00:20:34.839 --> 00:20:37.579 in not getting into politics, but yeah, when 00:20:37.579 --> 00:20:40.759 you combine the cognitive decline with the fact 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:42.700 that the person in that office is basically the 00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:44.319 most powerful person in the world, the leader 00:20:44.319 --> 00:20:47.740 of the free world. has access to all kinds of 00:20:47.740 --> 00:20:50.180 those most dangerous weapons that the world knows. 00:20:50.299 --> 00:20:52.579 There is a concern there. When you're looking 00:20:52.579 --> 00:20:56.079 at the military deployment to Venezuela and what 00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:59.339 could happen, Russia, Ukraine, yeah, there is 00:20:59.339 --> 00:21:02.180 a concern there. So anything else in your end 00:21:02.180 --> 00:21:07.140 of 2025, mid -2026 forecast, pandemics, potential 00:21:07.140 --> 00:21:10.019 viruses, anything else that you're forecasting? 00:21:10.599 --> 00:21:13.039 Yeah, definitely infectious diseases. I'm watching 00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:16.250 that. closely. Three of them flew, measles, whooping 00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:19.269 cough, and so flew. Right now in the US, it's 00:21:19.269 --> 00:21:22.369 somewhat stable, although in LA and Colorado, 00:21:22.849 --> 00:21:26.400 those CDC, the week before. November, I'm sorry, 00:21:26.500 --> 00:21:30.160 the week before Thanksgiving, CDC listed Louisiana 00:21:30.160 --> 00:21:33.819 and I think I said LA, Louisiana and Colorado 00:21:33.819 --> 00:21:39.160 as high. And there is a, my concern is in December, 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:43.220 but where in the U .S. flu season peaks or well 00:21:43.220 --> 00:21:45.920 starts to rise and then it usually peaks January, 00:21:45.980 --> 00:21:48.819 February, and then a second peak in March. And 00:21:48.819 --> 00:21:53.930 last year, 280... kids died of a flu, although 00:21:53.930 --> 00:21:57.170 about half of them had coexistent conditions. 00:21:57.789 --> 00:22:00.769 Almost all of them did not have vaccinations, 00:22:01.130 --> 00:22:04.549 right? And so these were maybe preventable deaths. 00:22:05.210 --> 00:22:08.009 And note that so far that we know of based on 00:22:08.009 --> 00:22:10.829 CEC data for this year yet. But as we get into, 00:22:10.869 --> 00:22:12.829 as we finish out December, go on to January or 00:22:12.829 --> 00:22:15.670 February, the pediatric deaths from flu, which 00:22:15.670 --> 00:22:18.250 again are usually preventable is what I'm watching. 00:22:18.430 --> 00:22:21.470 And also in terms of flu, there's flu and there's 00:22:21.470 --> 00:22:24.390 bird flu, right? And one thing that the medical 00:22:24.390 --> 00:22:27.289 experts are fearing is that there's someone could 00:22:27.289 --> 00:22:30.529 get infected with both bird flu and seasonal 00:22:30.529 --> 00:22:33.569 flu. And then that leads to a new strain of what's 00:22:33.569 --> 00:22:35.910 called resortment that can lead to an epidemic. 00:22:35.980 --> 00:22:39.079 even pandemics. That's something to watch for. 00:22:39.140 --> 00:22:41.460 And by the way, UK, Japan, Hong Kong already 00:22:41.460 --> 00:22:44.700 see an early start. to flu season. So, that's 00:22:44.700 --> 00:22:47.099 kind of a concern in addition to a new variant 00:22:47.099 --> 00:22:50.660 of H3N2 of the flu. Now, in terms of measles, 00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:53.299 we're not doing well. This is a disease that 00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:55.220 should be eradicated everywhere in the world, 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:58.319 but because of vaccine hesitancy, it's not. And 00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:00.400 this year, we're seeing the most measles cases 00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:04.359 in 30 years, right? Not good. So, as of a couple 00:23:04.359 --> 00:23:08.640 days ago, CDC listed over 1 ,800 confirmed measles 00:23:08.640 --> 00:23:12.099 cases in the 43 states. And so, specifically, 00:23:12.109 --> 00:23:15.769 the highest cases were in Texas, over 800 Arizona, 00:23:16.150 --> 00:23:18.990 about 150, and then followed by Utah, New Mexico, 00:23:19.009 --> 00:23:21.930 Kansas, South Carolina. And so we're seeing lots 00:23:21.930 --> 00:23:25.230 of measles cases there. And when I look at that 00:23:25.230 --> 00:23:29.210 and I combine that with the measles vaccine coverage 00:23:29.210 --> 00:23:31.970 for kindergartners, right? Those kids are very 00:23:31.970 --> 00:23:34.569 vulnerable and basically you want the vaccine. 00:23:34.829 --> 00:23:38.769 rate, vaccination rates of I think 95, 96 percent, 00:23:38.869 --> 00:23:41.569 and you have quite a few states where it's less 00:23:41.569 --> 00:23:45.400 than 90 percent. And as a risk manager, risk 00:23:45.400 --> 00:23:48.119 guy, I'm looking at those states that have a 00:23:48.119 --> 00:23:50.839 very low vaccination rate. And whooping cough, 00:23:50.900 --> 00:23:53.220 that's an issue right now in Kentucky. And in 00:23:53.220 --> 00:23:56.039 fact, I think we had a third person die in Kentucky, 00:23:56.119 --> 00:23:58.380 third child died in Kentucky a few weeks ago. 00:23:58.539 --> 00:24:01.240 And so those are three infectious diseases I'm 00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:03.859 very concerned about for rest of December and 00:24:03.859 --> 00:24:06.200 into next year. How about COVID? What's your 00:24:06.200 --> 00:24:08.880 outlook on COVID and coming into the winter season? 00:24:09.099 --> 00:24:12.920 It doesn't concern me too much yet. because based 00:24:12.920 --> 00:24:15.619 on the data that we have from CDC, it doesn't 00:24:15.619 --> 00:24:18.440 look to be an issue right now, but that can change. 00:24:18.759 --> 00:24:21.000 There's some delay reported because of the US 00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:23.940 government shutdown, but right now, surprisingly, 00:24:24.440 --> 00:24:26.559 it's not an issue, but that could change. And 00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:30.119 by the way, once the data, everyone travel, a 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:32.359 lot of people travel for Thanksgiving. And so 00:24:32.359 --> 00:24:37.119 the next week or two, we'll see what all that 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:40.339 traveling over Thanksgiving, how that affected 00:24:40.339 --> 00:24:44.240 COVID. and other diseases like the flu and measles. 00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:46.420 So as we're talking about your forecast, I know 00:24:46.420 --> 00:24:50.019 I think back in 2022, you forecasted, maybe I 00:24:50.019 --> 00:24:52.859 got the year wrong, but back in 2022, you forecasted 00:24:52.859 --> 00:24:55.920 a potential political assassination. And obviously 00:24:55.920 --> 00:24:57.799 we all know what happened with Donald Trump. 00:24:57.819 --> 00:25:00.220 Maybe it's 2024. I got my dates all messed up. 00:25:00.299 --> 00:25:02.079 It's been a long day. Yeah. So yeah, I think 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:05.380 it was 2022. I did my forecast. I forecasted 00:25:05.380 --> 00:25:06.660 that there would be an assassination attempt 00:25:06.660 --> 00:25:09.519 against a nationally elected figure. And it turns 00:25:09.519 --> 00:25:11.680 out that a couple of years later, there was, 00:25:11.740 --> 00:25:13.799 of course, the Butler assassination attempt. 00:25:13.769 --> 00:25:15.910 against Trump and Butler on the campaign train. 00:25:16.009 --> 00:25:17.890 And then there's another, I guess it's technically 00:25:17.890 --> 00:25:19.809 an attempt, but no shots were fired, but the 00:25:19.809 --> 00:25:22.549 guy hiding in the woods at his golf course. And 00:25:22.549 --> 00:25:24.789 yeah, and I should mention that, and this is 00:25:24.789 --> 00:25:27.509 the same with the other forecast, for example, 00:25:27.589 --> 00:25:30.390 the Trump health issue and members of Congress. 00:25:30.950 --> 00:25:33.529 Intel isn't prediction, right? Intelligence is 00:25:33.529 --> 00:25:36.369 not prediction work, it's forecast. So it's provided 00:25:36.369 --> 00:25:39.869 in a list of possibilities, right? And so some 00:25:39.869 --> 00:25:42.569 of these things might turn out to never occur, 00:25:42.589 --> 00:25:45.069 that would be great. But yeah, the reason why 00:25:45.069 --> 00:25:47.930 I made that forecast was a few things. We're 00:25:47.930 --> 00:25:51.130 the most polarized that we have been since the 00:25:51.130 --> 00:25:53.970 1800s, right, in the U .S. and in some other 00:25:53.970 --> 00:25:58.430 countries too. And also, social media has a lot 00:25:58.430 --> 00:26:00.869 to play. So there's some research that says that 00:26:00.869 --> 00:26:04.769 the more people online, the more radicalized 00:26:04.769 --> 00:26:07.769 they get in the real world. And so you have a 00:26:07.769 --> 00:26:09.849 few variables that make the perfect storm that 00:26:09.849 --> 00:26:12.329 can lead to political violence. So unfortunately, 00:26:12.200 --> 00:26:15.799 in my forecast was right on the money even if 00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:18.460 it took a couple years. I see that continuing 00:26:18.460 --> 00:26:21.640 to be a problem actually for 2020. Some people 00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:23.519 listening may be like, those are really big events 00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:25.259 and they're not going to happen to me. And if 00:26:25.259 --> 00:26:26.619 it do happen, it's not going to really matter. 00:26:27.059 --> 00:26:28.900 A lot of young fathers, and I'm a young father 00:26:28.900 --> 00:26:30.980 myself, listen to this show. What would you tell 00:26:30.980 --> 00:26:34.160 them to prepare for in the next month or perhaps 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:36.059 first part of the year? What to be in tune for, 00:26:36.119 --> 00:26:38.700 what to watch for so that you can keep your family 00:26:38.700 --> 00:26:41.490 safe and protected in the coming months? Yeah, 00:26:41.490 --> 00:26:43.970 sure. It's important to live your lives. And 00:26:43.970 --> 00:26:47.009 so there's a, I forgot his name, but there's 00:26:47.009 --> 00:26:48.750 a retired lieutenant colonel, I think his name 00:26:48.750 --> 00:26:51.690 was Cooper, and he had the different, it's almost 00:26:51.690 --> 00:26:54.589 like a stoplight system, right? Where if you're 00:26:54.589 --> 00:26:56.769 in the safety of your residence, you know, you're 00:26:56.769 --> 00:26:58.970 at green level, right? There's no need to be 00:26:58.970 --> 00:27:01.170 concerned about, of course it's different if 00:27:01.170 --> 00:27:04.210 you're in an unfortunate situation like domestic 00:27:04.210 --> 00:27:06.950 intimate partner violence, right? But outside 00:27:06.950 --> 00:27:10.049 of that, if you're in a safe place like your 00:27:10.049 --> 00:27:12.670 residence, It's dependent on a few things. You 00:27:12.670 --> 00:27:14.650 could be a green level. At the other extreme 00:27:14.650 --> 00:27:17.250 is red, where something has happened. You hear 00:27:17.250 --> 00:27:19.069 gunshots and you're pretty sure they're not, 00:27:19.529 --> 00:27:21.450 say a political event, and you're pretty sure 00:27:21.450 --> 00:27:25.849 they're not balloons or firecrackers or car backfiring. 00:27:26.009 --> 00:27:28.450 By the way, a car usually doesn't backfire more 00:27:28.450 --> 00:27:31.029 than once, right? In any given, in a short period 00:27:31.029 --> 00:27:33.970 of time. Then you're at red, right? And in between, 00:27:34.250 --> 00:27:36.730 so in many situations out in public, political 00:27:36.730 --> 00:27:39.920 rally. shopping, holiday shopping. You might 00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:44.180 want to be at, at yellow where you're, you're 00:27:44.180 --> 00:27:46.339 not stretching yourself out because no one could 00:27:46.339 --> 00:27:50.000 stay for more than a few minutes at yellow, at 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:52.720 orange, right, or red. You want to stay at that 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:55.660 yellow level where you're alert and aware. You 00:27:55.660 --> 00:27:58.099 go into a restaurant, you instinctively where 00:27:58.099 --> 00:28:00.599 you look forward the exit is, right? And that's 00:28:00.599 --> 00:28:02.500 it. Then you enjoy your meal and not worry about 00:28:02.500 --> 00:28:05.799 too much. Overall, you have kids, nieces, nephews. 00:28:06.140 --> 00:28:08.779 other family members, you want to encourage people 00:28:08.779 --> 00:28:11.680 to just live their lives. but at the appropriate 00:28:11.680 --> 00:28:14.200 time or when you see indicators, don't be in 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:17.640 denial and go to that next level of alertness 00:28:17.640 --> 00:28:20.900 and be prepared to act. Thank you. That's really 00:28:20.900 --> 00:28:22.859 helpful. I think a lot about it when I take my 00:28:22.859 --> 00:28:25.420 kids out to like the Christmas markets or movie 00:28:25.420 --> 00:28:27.519 theaters or what have you, because I always in 00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:29.480 the back of my mind, we see a lot of that domestic 00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:31.319 terrorism that's going on in the United States 00:28:31.319 --> 00:28:33.900 now. And so those are always my fear. So I always 00:28:33.900 --> 00:28:36.039 like to take that father's lens, right? Because 00:28:36.039 --> 00:28:37.799 I have young children, my brother has children 00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:40.599 as well, and it's just good to be prepared. But 00:28:40.599 --> 00:28:43.839 turning the page now, right, back towards Trump, 00:28:44.200 --> 00:28:46.420 you've obviously followed Iran very closely. 00:28:46.759 --> 00:28:49.279 What are your thoughts on Trump's claim to have 00:28:49.279 --> 00:28:52.960 obliterated Iran's nuclear program? It's, I see 00:28:52.960 --> 00:28:55.480 politicians and pundits make this mistake all 00:28:55.480 --> 00:28:57.759 the time. There's a difference between destroying 00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:01.059 or eliminating or obliterating the program versus 00:29:01.059 --> 00:29:04.539 facilities. The US military and several countries 00:29:04.539 --> 00:29:07.319 in the world, Israel, some of the most powerful 00:29:07.319 --> 00:29:10.079 militaries can easily destroy. many facilities, 00:29:10.359 --> 00:29:12.640 even some underground bunkers, not all, but some 00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:15.700 underground bunkers if they're not too deep or 00:29:15.700 --> 00:29:18.319 too fortified. That's easy, but destroying a 00:29:18.319 --> 00:29:20.720 program is almost always impossible. It's always 00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:23.700 impossible until unless you launch a full -scale 00:29:23.700 --> 00:29:26.759 innovation. Why is that? A program consists of 00:29:26.759 --> 00:29:29.019 many things and people tend to focus on just 00:29:29.019 --> 00:29:31.859 the facilities, right? There's a lot of hype 00:29:31.859 --> 00:29:34.630 around, especially in the news media about the 00:29:34.630 --> 00:29:38.289 bunkers, Iran's bunkers, and even like North 00:29:38.289 --> 00:29:41.029 Korean bunkers. But a program, that's only one 00:29:41.029 --> 00:29:43.930 of many aspects of a program, any kind of W and 00:29:43.930 --> 00:29:47.269 D programs, nuclear program. And so you have 00:29:47.269 --> 00:29:50.150 the scientists, you've got the researchers, you've 00:29:50.150 --> 00:29:53.109 got the electronic files, you have the hard files, 00:29:53.230 --> 00:29:55.730 right? And so for example, the importance of 00:29:55.730 --> 00:29:58.509 these files, there's a famous case where Israel 00:29:58.509 --> 00:30:01.809 admitted to basically in one of the stunning 00:30:01.809 --> 00:30:05.000 Intel success where they went into Iran and I 00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:08.359 guess the Mossad and stole a bunch of nuclear 00:30:08.359 --> 00:30:10.680 files, right? Which is just a stunning Intel 00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:14.039 success. That shows you the importance of files 00:30:14.039 --> 00:30:16.980 when you're doing any kind of research. It was 00:30:16.980 --> 00:30:18.579 during the Manhattan Project in the U .S. and 00:30:18.579 --> 00:30:20.619 is for anyone trying to start a nuclear program. 00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:23.480 You got electronic systems, right? I'm sorry, 00:30:23.740 --> 00:30:25.619 electronic files. You could now, you could go 00:30:25.619 --> 00:30:29.039 on the web and purchase. hard drive or solid 00:30:29.039 --> 00:30:31.740 state drive that contains terabytes of data. 00:30:31.819 --> 00:30:34.599 That's the size of one or two phones, right? 00:30:34.759 --> 00:30:37.539 Smartphones. A program can't be destroyed if 00:30:37.539 --> 00:30:40.480 even one or two of those solid state drives or 00:30:40.480 --> 00:30:42.039 hard drives exists somewhere in the country. 00:30:42.420 --> 00:30:44.890 Good luck finding that. when you can hide it 00:30:44.890 --> 00:30:49.230 in anyone's pocket, a garage, a table, a car 00:30:49.230 --> 00:30:54.849 driving away from Tehran. And this is why it's 00:30:54.849 --> 00:30:57.109 almost impossible to destroy a program. And so 00:30:57.109 --> 00:30:59.930 that's why I remember a few years ago, former 00:30:59.930 --> 00:31:03.589 Secretary of Defense Gates had mentioned a couple 00:31:03.589 --> 00:31:06.769 of times in public, once in front of congressional 00:31:06.769 --> 00:31:09.130 testimony, that the most the U .S. could set 00:31:09.130 --> 00:31:11.230 back Iran is two or three years with a strike 00:31:11.230 --> 00:31:14.410 on nuclear facilities. And that's And when you 00:31:14.410 --> 00:31:17.329 say purchasing of like the solid state drives 00:31:17.329 --> 00:31:19.130 or essentially the information, right? Are we 00:31:19.130 --> 00:31:21.329 talking about nuclear program information of 00:31:21.329 --> 00:31:23.450 how to like how they created the nucleus? Is 00:31:23.450 --> 00:31:26.809 that a risk? Yeah, just design information. There 00:31:26.809 --> 00:31:28.630 are basically two overall types of weapons. You 00:31:28.630 --> 00:31:30.410 got implosion type weapons, and then you got 00:31:30.410 --> 00:31:33.390 the gun type weapon, right? And an implosion 00:31:33.390 --> 00:31:36.019 type. nuclear weapon, you got the uranium pit 00:31:36.019 --> 00:31:38.319 and you got the explosives that go around it 00:31:38.319 --> 00:31:42.180 to condense the uranium pit to make that critical 00:31:42.180 --> 00:31:45.079 mass, right? The fissionable critical mass. So 00:31:45.079 --> 00:31:47.500 that's a lot of design work and in a lot of research. 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:50.500 Yeah, a scientist could keep that in his or her 00:31:50.500 --> 00:31:53.779 head, but to do that coordination and facilitate 00:31:53.779 --> 00:31:56.240 that collaboration coordination, yeah, you need 00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:59.819 to store this information in somewhere. And so 00:31:59.819 --> 00:32:02.339 that information is going to be either stored 00:32:02.339 --> 00:32:06.000 on print in hard files, printed files, or drawings, 00:32:06.380 --> 00:32:08.920 whatever, or on some kind of electronic system. 00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:12.500 And by the way, one other thing too, and the 00:32:12.500 --> 00:32:16.119 Iranians admitted to this reportedly, is that 00:32:16.119 --> 00:32:20.700 they move a lot of their enriched uranium outside 00:32:20.700 --> 00:32:23.160 of the three facilities, underground facilities, 00:32:23.200 --> 00:32:26.089 that the US bombed. right? And to secret locations, 00:32:26.170 --> 00:32:28.849 and that's always been a problem with WMD programs. 00:32:29.210 --> 00:32:32.269 You don't know about the programs, the facilities 00:32:32.269 --> 00:32:34.730 that you don't know about, right? And so that's 00:32:34.730 --> 00:32:37.650 another reason why it's hard to obliterate or 00:32:37.650 --> 00:32:40.109 destroy or eliminate a WMD program to include 00:32:40.109 --> 00:32:42.130 nuclear programs. There might be sites that you 00:32:42.130 --> 00:32:44.430 don't know about, which is where you can keep 00:32:44.619 --> 00:32:48.299 things like enriched uranium or files and various 00:32:48.299 --> 00:32:51.039 components, like say a nuclear warhead, right? 00:32:51.220 --> 00:32:53.200 A nuclear warhead is not that big. You can keep 00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:56.700 that in any garage. And when you hear things, 00:32:57.920 --> 00:33:00.759 certain verbs, descriptions that are absolutists 00:33:00.759 --> 00:33:04.890 obliterate. destroy, eliminate. It's almost impossible 00:33:04.890 --> 00:33:07.029 for any military in the world to do those. So 00:33:07.029 --> 00:33:09.829 that's one tip to all the pundits and politicians 00:33:09.829 --> 00:33:12.529 out there. So things like when you hear terms 00:33:12.529 --> 00:33:15.430 like destroy Hamas or destroy Hezbollah. good 00:33:15.430 --> 00:33:18.109 luck with that because that means you are killing, 00:33:18.589 --> 00:33:22.329 you'd have to kill pretty much every single Hamas 00:33:22.329 --> 00:33:25.109 or Hezbollah person. It's easy to degrade these 00:33:25.109 --> 00:33:27.390 groups, but when you're talking about obliterating 00:33:27.390 --> 00:33:30.170 or eliminating, yeah, that's whether it's a terrorist 00:33:30.170 --> 00:33:33.069 group or a WND program, much more difficult. 00:33:33.650 --> 00:33:35.710 When we were talking in our pre -show, you said 00:33:35.710 --> 00:33:38.349 you'd worked in the Mideast in North Korea, those 00:33:38.349 --> 00:33:41.289 regions for intelligence. What concerns you? 00:33:41.470 --> 00:33:45.569 most about Iran? Is it the WMDs or is it the 00:33:45.569 --> 00:33:48.490 financing of terrorism and the offshoot terrorist 00:33:48.490 --> 00:33:51.690 groups that are proxies for them? The Iranian 00:33:51.690 --> 00:33:54.609 proxies and their terrorist reach, that concerns 00:33:54.609 --> 00:33:58.630 me far more than any nuclear program. As late 00:33:58.630 --> 00:34:01.450 as early this year, the U .S. intelligence community 00:34:01.450 --> 00:34:03.670 concluded that the U .S. was not pursuing nuclear. 00:34:03.819 --> 00:34:07.319 a nuclear weapons program. I assume that's possibly 00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:09.280 changed now because of that US strike, which 00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:13.219 is a US and Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities. 00:34:13.900 --> 00:34:16.380 But up to earlier this year, that was not the 00:34:16.380 --> 00:34:19.960 case. It's always been the proxies that concern 00:34:19.960 --> 00:34:22.820 me most. So I'll give you one example. Hezbollah 00:34:22.820 --> 00:34:26.480 is as large as funded by Iran according to, I 00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:28.400 think it was a State Department document. During 00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:30.699 the first Trump administration mentioned that 00:34:30.699 --> 00:34:34.519 at one point, Iran provided over $700 million 00:34:34.519 --> 00:34:38.280 in one year to Hezbollah. Hezbollah is really 00:34:38.280 --> 00:34:39.739 one of the only terrorist groups in the world 00:34:39.739 --> 00:34:42.440 that scare me. Al -Qaeda has never scared, even 00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:44.980 after 9 -11, Al -Qaeda didn't really scare me 00:34:44.980 --> 00:34:47.840 that much. Believe it or not, it was always Hezbollah. 00:34:47.940 --> 00:34:49.760 And those of us who've worked terrorism issue, 00:34:50.239 --> 00:34:53.860 it's always been Hezbollah that has scared us. 00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:57.030 And so you look at the US, over a hundred Hezbollah 00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:00.460 Hezbollah -related folks have been arrested in 00:35:00.460 --> 00:35:03.380 the U .S. over the last, yeah, over the last 00:35:03.380 --> 00:35:07.219 couple, few decades. And I assume Hezbollah is 00:35:07.219 --> 00:35:09.559 here in the U .S. and Hezbollah just needs to 00:35:09.559 --> 00:35:13.079 flip a switch to activate them. And also Iran 00:35:13.079 --> 00:35:16.780 has shown a tendency to try to do things in the 00:35:16.780 --> 00:35:20.690 U .S. forecast back in 2002 was Iran will continue 00:35:20.690 --> 00:35:23.829 to avenge the death of General Soleimani, who 00:35:23.829 --> 00:35:27.389 was one of its most senior military generals, 00:35:27.570 --> 00:35:30.389 the head of the Quds Force in Iran, which is 00:35:30.389 --> 00:35:32.650 basically, for those not familiar with it, is 00:35:32.650 --> 00:35:35.269 basically if you were to take the CIA... Joint 00:35:35.269 --> 00:35:37.849 Special Operations Command, Defense Intelligence 00:35:37.849 --> 00:35:40.989 Agency, put them all into one, that's the cuts 00:35:40.989 --> 00:35:44.969 force. And so the cuts force is arguably indirectly 00:35:44.969 --> 00:35:48.489 responsible for more deaths than al -Qaeda, more 00:35:48.489 --> 00:35:51.210 American blood spilled than al -Qaeda, at least 00:35:51.210 --> 00:35:54.550 prior to 9 -11. And that's another reason why... 00:35:54.320 --> 00:35:57.719 Iran's reach with its proxies has always concerned 00:35:57.719 --> 00:36:00.079 me more. Obviously we've dropped some massive 00:36:00.079 --> 00:36:02.539 bombs on their facilities. Israel's been at war 00:36:02.539 --> 00:36:04.699 with them for quite a bit now, bombing their 00:36:04.699 --> 00:36:07.960 facilities, attacking the Hezbollah offshoots. 00:36:08.139 --> 00:36:10.320 Has anything changed? Has our risk landscape 00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:11.980 changed? Is there still a risk to the United 00:36:11.980 --> 00:36:14.519 States and Israel based upon the actions that 00:36:14.519 --> 00:36:17.099 are occurring in region or do we just delay the 00:36:17.099 --> 00:36:18.940 inevitable? Like we'll be talking about the same 00:36:18.940 --> 00:36:20.880 thing in a couple of years. All the above. And 00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:23.320 so I think things are relatively stable now. 00:36:23.860 --> 00:36:27.099 But again, because if you believe Bob Gates, 00:36:27.500 --> 00:36:30.239 former Secretary of Defense Gates, and this was 00:36:30.239 --> 00:36:33.519 supposedly Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusion 00:36:33.519 --> 00:36:36.579 after the US followed up the Israeli strikes 00:36:36.579 --> 00:36:39.280 with the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, 00:36:39.679 --> 00:36:42.159 we only set the program back a few months, right? 00:36:42.219 --> 00:36:46.679 And yeah, so at some point, either Israel and 00:36:46.679 --> 00:36:50.000 the US will either have to re -attack or just 00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:52.619 accept that. we only set the program back a few 00:36:52.619 --> 00:36:55.159 months or maybe two or three years. But the situation 00:36:55.159 --> 00:36:57.440 is very stable now. I shouldn't say very stable. 00:36:57.739 --> 00:37:00.820 It's somewhat relatively stable. My concern is 00:37:00.820 --> 00:37:03.679 if there's another re -attack on Iran for the 00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:05.820 exact reasons I mentioned that we've only set 00:37:05.820 --> 00:37:08.440 the program back months or maybe a year or two. 00:37:08.559 --> 00:37:12.349 And so I think that Iran might not be as restrained 00:37:12.349 --> 00:37:15.230 as it was during the attack this summer, right, 00:37:15.289 --> 00:37:17.550 on its nuclear facilities. Iranian decision -making 00:37:17.550 --> 00:37:21.409 is very deliberate, very careful. And so what 00:37:21.409 --> 00:37:25.429 we saw with Iran is retaliation, but it was done. 00:37:25.650 --> 00:37:28.170 They escalated to de -escalate, right? They made 00:37:28.170 --> 00:37:31.829 sure not to go too far because they feared, and 00:37:31.829 --> 00:37:34.869 some Iranian insiders actually said this publicly, 00:37:34.949 --> 00:37:37.420 they didn't want. the wrath of the U .S., right, 00:37:37.460 --> 00:37:40.000 if it responded too harshly against Israel and 00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:43.800 Iran. If there is another attack by Israel and 00:37:43.800 --> 00:37:47.280 or the U .S., I fear that Iran might let loose 00:37:47.280 --> 00:37:50.019 a lot more and then it will be a very terrible 00:37:50.019 --> 00:37:52.699 situation for Israel and maybe U .S. interests, 00:37:52.760 --> 00:37:55.260 U .S. bases in the Middle East and the region 00:37:55.260 --> 00:37:58.500 overall. So in terms of Hezbollah and some of 00:37:58.500 --> 00:38:01.760 these proxy groups, what do you think the likelihood 00:38:02.610 --> 00:38:05.570 of actual Hezbollah or other terrorist organizations 00:38:05.570 --> 00:38:08.090 being in this country waiting to be activated. 00:38:08.409 --> 00:38:10.730 I've heard some analysts say that it exists. 00:38:11.010 --> 00:38:13.289 I know our borders have been fairly porous the 00:38:13.289 --> 00:38:15.289 past, maybe not this year, but the four years 00:38:15.289 --> 00:38:17.550 prior. It seems like a logical conclusion you 00:38:17.550 --> 00:38:20.210 can make that there could be a significant amount 00:38:20.210 --> 00:38:22.610 of terrorists waiting to be activated. Do you 00:38:22.610 --> 00:38:25.690 see that as a potential? It's a potential, but 00:38:25.690 --> 00:38:28.909 I think it's low probability. Here's why. Hezbollah, 00:38:29.050 --> 00:38:30.969 even though it gets maybe most of its funding 00:38:30.969 --> 00:38:33.750 from Iran, that's not debatable. It is a proxy 00:38:33.750 --> 00:38:37.050 of Iran. And Hezbollah has killed, again, prior 00:38:37.050 --> 00:38:39.590 to 9 -11, killed more Americans than al -Qaeda 00:38:39.590 --> 00:38:42.889 did prior to 9 -11. It would have to take Iran 00:38:42.889 --> 00:38:46.309 direct in Hezbollah, activate your stuff, launch 00:38:46.309 --> 00:38:49.510 attacks against not only Israel, but U .S. interests, 00:38:49.829 --> 00:38:53.309 and then in turn agreeing to that and carrying 00:38:53.309 --> 00:38:56.869 out Iranian orders. And I think low probability 00:38:56.869 --> 00:38:58.889 of that, it's one of those low probability, high 00:38:58.889 --> 00:39:01.429 impact things. And for example, that did not 00:39:01.429 --> 00:39:05.230 happen after the U .S. attacked the Iranian homeland 00:39:05.230 --> 00:39:08.309 for the first time in history, right? When it 00:39:08.309 --> 00:39:12.849 attacked the three nuclear sites, Hezbollah operatives 00:39:12.849 --> 00:39:15.650 weren't activated in the U .S. And so low probability, 00:39:15.769 --> 00:39:18.579 but high impact. So you do think there's a probability 00:39:18.579 --> 00:39:21.699 that some could be here? Yes. Not only here, 00:39:21.760 --> 00:39:23.880 but around the world. And that's one of the, 00:39:23.900 --> 00:39:26.619 if you look at, okay, the cost versus benefits 00:39:26.619 --> 00:39:29.059 of attacking Iran, you got to look at that. One 00:39:29.059 --> 00:39:31.360 of the worst terrorist attacks in Latin America 00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:33.739 were back in the nineties when Iran, I think 00:39:33.739 --> 00:39:36.119 it was Argentina twice, once was a Jewish community 00:39:36.119 --> 00:39:39.639 center in Argentina, right? And usually it's 00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:43.070 not just Iran. use those proxies, right? And 00:39:43.070 --> 00:39:46.469 there have been many assassination attempts around 00:39:46.469 --> 00:39:49.690 the world, especially in Europe. And so the Iranian, 00:39:50.110 --> 00:39:51.949 the government cause of the Iranian threat network, 00:39:52.230 --> 00:39:54.030 basically has reach all over the world. The only 00:39:54.030 --> 00:39:57.769 limitation is one, Iranian decision making, because 00:39:57.769 --> 00:39:59.889 Iran's not going to do something that jeopardizes 00:39:59.889 --> 00:40:02.269 the regime, the existence of the regime. That's 00:40:02.269 --> 00:40:05.510 the regimes, the theocracies, primary reason, 00:40:06.210 --> 00:40:09.969 primary goal is regime survival, right? Two is 00:40:09.969 --> 00:40:13.369 the capability and reach, capability and capacity 00:40:13.369 --> 00:40:15.570 to launch these attacks. And what we've seen, 00:40:15.650 --> 00:40:18.510 thankfully, is a lot of incompetence. by the 00:40:18.510 --> 00:40:20.469 Iranian threat network, especially Iranians. 00:40:20.510 --> 00:40:22.010 If you look at some of the thwarted attempts 00:40:22.010 --> 00:40:25.469 in various countries, in one case, an Iranian 00:40:25.469 --> 00:40:28.630 operative blew himself up, blew his legs off 00:40:28.630 --> 00:40:31.809 in a failed bombing attempt, right, a few years 00:40:31.809 --> 00:40:35.130 ago. And thankfully, there's the Iranian, the 00:40:35.130 --> 00:40:37.670 Iran threat network is not a bunch of James Bond 00:40:37.670 --> 00:40:40.429 folks, Jason Bourne, James Bond folks who are 00:40:40.429 --> 00:40:43.630 just incapable, or incapable of everything. But 00:40:43.630 --> 00:40:45.969 that is a concern. And so when you're looking 00:40:45.969 --> 00:40:48.230 at when politicians is looking at the calculus 00:40:48.230 --> 00:40:52.349 of, okay, do we hit Iran for X? What are the 00:40:52.349 --> 00:40:55.070 repercussions both within the region, around 00:40:55.070 --> 00:40:58.130 the world, and within the US homeland? But yeah, 00:40:58.210 --> 00:40:59.929 this is possible. When other countries, like 00:40:59.929 --> 00:41:01.809 other countries in the Middle East, see that 00:41:01.809 --> 00:41:04.309 the United States takes action specifically against 00:41:04.309 --> 00:41:08.139 Iran when they drop the bombs, does that... emboldened 00:41:08.139 --> 00:41:10.420 terrorism. Like is there a counter effect to 00:41:10.420 --> 00:41:12.699 that? Like I remember seeing like the people 00:41:12.699 --> 00:41:14.960 on TV, like Down with America and Burn American 00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:17.679 Flags, right? Is that almost counterproductive? 00:41:17.719 --> 00:41:20.199 And we do these kind of small scale attacks, 00:41:20.340 --> 00:41:21.800 right? We're just bobbing on a couple of facilities. 00:41:21.980 --> 00:41:23.639 Does that increase the hate and then increase 00:41:23.639 --> 00:41:26.380 our risk? It does. And so that's where the cost 00:41:26.380 --> 00:41:30.079 benefit comes in, right? And based on comments 00:41:30.079 --> 00:41:32.780 from supposed Iranian insiders. They're basically 00:41:32.780 --> 00:41:35.300 like, yeah, yeah, you attacked our homeland, 00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:37.880 but you hit, the US hit only three sites, three 00:41:37.880 --> 00:41:40.039 of its sites. And by the way, according to the 00:41:40.039 --> 00:41:43.480 same Iranian insiders, they said that they claim 00:41:43.480 --> 00:41:46.099 that, yeah, we moved the enriched stuff elsewhere 00:41:46.099 --> 00:41:50.579 anyway. And limited strikes have far less possibility 00:41:50.579 --> 00:41:54.780 of created more terrorists, but when you're destroying, 00:41:54.860 --> 00:41:56.360 when you don't care that much about collateral 00:41:56.360 --> 00:41:59.039 damage, when you're injuring or killing family 00:41:59.039 --> 00:42:02.579 members, right? That just, that happened in Afghanistan. 00:42:03.070 --> 00:42:05.429 happened in Iraq, you're creating more terrorists. 00:42:06.010 --> 00:42:08.329 And so you've got to be very careful and look 00:42:08.329 --> 00:42:10.889 at your goals, especially when you realize that, 00:42:10.889 --> 00:42:14.250 again, the militaries usually can't achieve absolute 00:42:14.250 --> 00:42:16.889 terms, destroy and eliminate, right? So if you're 00:42:16.889 --> 00:42:18.309 trying to destroy and eliminate a terrorist group, 00:42:18.389 --> 00:42:21.750 not only is it impossible to achieve that impossible 00:42:21.750 --> 00:42:24.489 goal, you've got to do some pretty unsavory things. 00:42:26.039 --> 00:42:29.860 by choice or by accident. And those unsavory 00:42:29.860 --> 00:42:32.059 things include a lot of collateral damage. And 00:42:32.059 --> 00:42:35.219 just like any one of us, if some country were 00:42:35.219 --> 00:42:38.920 to invade the U .S. and kill our family members, 00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:42.880 now, okay, now we're in the fight, right? If 00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:45.559 a terrorist group were to kill or some nation, 00:42:45.719 --> 00:42:48.480 say, were to kill our kids or niece or nephew, 00:42:48.840 --> 00:42:50.989 we're in the fight. And so that's one of the 00:42:50.989 --> 00:42:52.829 downsides. And you've got to weigh the costs, 00:42:52.869 --> 00:42:56.449 benefit the losses. And by the way, counter -terrorism, 00:42:56.809 --> 00:42:58.349 fighting terrorism with only counter -terrorism 00:42:58.349 --> 00:43:00.289 never, ever works. And that's one of the reasons 00:43:00.289 --> 00:43:03.349 why. You've got to look at the, you've got to 00:43:03.349 --> 00:43:05.889 address the underlying cause of that terrorism 00:43:05.889 --> 00:43:07.769 or else you'll be fighting terrorism forever. 00:43:07.789 --> 00:43:10.269 It's a fair statement. What concerns you the 00:43:10.269 --> 00:43:12.349 most about terrorism today, whether it's in the 00:43:12.349 --> 00:43:15.230 U .S. or globally, but what's the biggest risk 00:43:15.230 --> 00:43:18.019 that we're facing? Exactly what I just said, 00:43:18.059 --> 00:43:22.820 the biggest risk is fighting terrorism with the 00:43:22.820 --> 00:43:25.119 only kind of terrorism. It never works. It's 00:43:25.119 --> 00:43:27.400 like playing guacamole. And so I think that's 00:43:27.400 --> 00:43:30.960 the biggest risk. Within the US, domestic terrorism 00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:34.199 has always been there. We could go back to the 00:43:34.199 --> 00:43:36.860 90s with the Oklahoma City bombing, and we live 00:43:36.860 --> 00:43:40.219 in a very polarized world now. And there are 00:43:40.219 --> 00:43:43.000 different ways of terrorism right now. And this 00:43:43.000 --> 00:43:45.360 might... I know people will get upset about this, 00:43:45.559 --> 00:43:49.199 but right now, based on the last 20 years, 20, 00:43:49.320 --> 00:43:52.019 30 years, most of the attacks have been right 00:43:52.019 --> 00:43:53.980 -wing. Terrorists have been right -wing in the 00:43:53.980 --> 00:43:56.719 U .S., but it's not a partisan thing. That's 00:43:56.719 --> 00:43:59.639 just what the data shows. In the 70s and 80s, 00:43:59.780 --> 00:44:01.400 most of the terrorist attacks in the U .S. were 00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:05.380 left -wing, right? The first attack by U .S. 00:44:05.380 --> 00:44:08.659 citizens on the U .S. Capitol was the U .S.'s 00:44:08.659 --> 00:44:12.010 only terrorist, female terrorist group. It was 00:44:12.010 --> 00:44:14.170 a bomb and they bombed the U .S. Capitol. Lots 00:44:14.170 --> 00:44:16.750 of damage. And yeah, yeah, oh, a lot of people 00:44:16.750 --> 00:44:19.369 say, oh wow, the U .S. had a few... All -female 00:44:19.369 --> 00:44:21.110 terrorist group? Yeah, they bombed the U .S. 00:44:21.250 --> 00:44:25.190 capital, a left -wing group. And what needs to 00:44:25.190 --> 00:44:27.949 happen is, and one of my concerns is as we look 00:44:27.949 --> 00:44:30.809 at a lot of things we do in terms of finding 00:44:30.809 --> 00:44:32.989 terrorists is not intelligence -based, but at 00:44:32.989 --> 00:44:35.630 least in the U .S. And so you've got to have 00:44:35.630 --> 00:44:40.130 a very sober analysis of the issue and who's 00:44:40.130 --> 00:44:43.860 involved and what it will take to... fight it. 00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:47.440 This year going into next year, the next wave 00:44:47.440 --> 00:44:50.280 might be all left -wing groups fighting this 00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:52.940 administration policies we don't know. But regardless 00:44:52.940 --> 00:44:55.579 of where you stand politically, you have to look 00:44:55.579 --> 00:44:59.980 at the causes and results of terrorism with an 00:44:59.980 --> 00:45:02.639 unbiased eye or less, you'll keep making the 00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:05.039 same mistakes. And I think that unfortunately 00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:07.519 that's what has happened over the last decade 00:45:07.519 --> 00:45:10.019 or two. So I understand you had a pretty heavy 00:45:10.019 --> 00:45:12.400 hand in helping with the no flight list. You 00:45:12.400 --> 00:45:14.539 want to tell us a bit about that? Yeah, just 00:45:14.539 --> 00:45:17.800 one small, extremely small aspect of it. So yeah, 00:45:18.119 --> 00:45:20.659 my last job in the military, we had established 00:45:20.659 --> 00:45:24.480 a relationship with, in our unit with the Customs 00:45:24.480 --> 00:45:26.840 and Board of Protection, the backend folks, the 00:45:26.840 --> 00:45:29.239 Intel and the pretty much the Intel side of it. 00:45:29.480 --> 00:45:32.019 And one of the most capable operations I've ever 00:45:32.019 --> 00:45:34.760 seen. Again, this is the, this is not the part 00:45:34.760 --> 00:45:36.559 that Most people see you when you go to a port 00:45:36.559 --> 00:45:38.679 of entry at the airport, but the back end side 00:45:38.679 --> 00:45:41.340 of it. Wow. What an impressive intel operation. 00:45:41.619 --> 00:45:44.159 And so we established this relationship and I 00:45:44.159 --> 00:45:45.659 won't bore you with the details, but it turns 00:45:45.659 --> 00:45:48.199 out that a lot of information from the military 00:45:48.199 --> 00:45:51.559 and other areas won't get into customs and war 00:45:51.559 --> 00:45:55.199 protection. Part of me being innovative and having 00:45:55.199 --> 00:45:57.719 a lot of initiative. And so that resulted in 00:45:57.719 --> 00:46:00.539 a bunch of folks being put on the no -fly list 00:46:00.539 --> 00:46:03.190 that weren't on the no -fly list. people who 00:46:03.190 --> 00:46:06.429 we knew or suspected were terrorists. And they're 00:46:06.429 --> 00:46:09.130 like various watch lists and no -fly lists. But 00:46:09.130 --> 00:46:11.869 yeah, one of the most interesting was General 00:46:11.869 --> 00:46:14.289 Soleimani, and I'm sure I mispronounced his name, 00:46:14.289 --> 00:46:17.550 but he was again the guy who was assassinated 00:46:17.550 --> 00:46:19.989 in the first Trump administration. He was the 00:46:19.989 --> 00:46:22.489 Quds Force commander, one of the most important 00:46:22.489 --> 00:46:25.010 figures in Iran. So much so that there are some 00:46:25.010 --> 00:46:27.829 rumors in Iran that he might run for political 00:46:27.829 --> 00:46:30.590 office someday when he retires from the military 00:46:30.590 --> 00:46:33.489 before he was killed. by the US. And it turns 00:46:33.489 --> 00:46:36.510 out that shared our prioritized list with, that's 00:46:36.510 --> 00:46:39.030 one of the innovative things I did was came up 00:46:39.030 --> 00:46:41.550 with our prioritized list of terrorists for our 00:46:41.550 --> 00:46:44.150 organization. Share that with Customs Board of 00:46:44.150 --> 00:46:47.070 Protection. Turns out that Soleimani, of course 00:46:47.070 --> 00:46:49.269 he's on the list, but his biometrics were not 00:46:49.269 --> 00:46:52.369 just an oversight. And so he could have put on 00:46:52.369 --> 00:46:55.170 a disguise and scanned his fingerprint. at a 00:46:55.170 --> 00:46:57.570 port of entry and no one would have known the 00:46:57.570 --> 00:46:59.429 better, right? If the background document, he 00:46:59.429 --> 00:47:02.010 would have gotten into the U S now that's highly 00:47:02.010 --> 00:47:05.809 unlikely. Usually you don't get someone at someone's 00:47:05.809 --> 00:47:08.570 level to try to play like James Bond trying to 00:47:08.570 --> 00:47:11.750 get into U S, but still it shows you the benefits 00:47:11.750 --> 00:47:15.409 of coordination collaboration. And after a couple 00:47:15.409 --> 00:47:18.349 of days, the response I got was wow, dude, thanks. 00:47:19.269 --> 00:47:21.730 His biometrics are now in the system. In the 00:47:21.730 --> 00:47:24.739 pre -show, you said you spent five years. gathering 00:47:24.739 --> 00:47:27.019 North Korean intelligence? Is there anything 00:47:27.019 --> 00:47:29.760 worth noting there, worth sharing that you obviously 00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:31.880 can share without getting yourself into trouble? 00:47:32.340 --> 00:47:35.559 So I work Northeast Asia and overall I did spend 00:47:35.559 --> 00:47:38.039 five years, cumulative years, a couple different 00:47:38.039 --> 00:47:41.199 science while working North Korean issues. One 00:47:41.199 --> 00:47:44.139 thing I'm constantly looking at is Kim Jong Un's 00:47:44.139 --> 00:47:47.880 health. One thing that my company looked at was 00:47:47.880 --> 00:47:50.760 his, we basically did a red team. model after 00:47:50.760 --> 00:47:53.360 the CIA's red team memos, we did a red team document 00:47:53.360 --> 00:47:56.639 on his health. And I don't know how this guy's 00:47:56.639 --> 00:47:59.219 still alive. I really don't know if both the 00:47:59.219 --> 00:48:01.300 lifestyle and genetic reasons, right? And so 00:48:01.300 --> 00:48:05.119 genetically, his family history is just ridiculously 00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:08.260 bad, right? From his grandfather, his father, 00:48:08.960 --> 00:48:12.219 his aunts, uncles, his half brother. I'll give 00:48:12.219 --> 00:48:14.530 you one example. A couple examples, in terms 00:48:14.530 --> 00:48:18.230 of heart disease, your half sibling is more of 00:48:18.230 --> 00:48:21.699 a risk factor than your parents. right, believe 00:48:21.699 --> 00:48:25.119 it or not. And this is based on medical research. 00:48:25.420 --> 00:48:27.980 And so, his half -brother was known to have, 00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:30.340 his half -brother, Kim Jong -un, the current 00:48:30.340 --> 00:48:33.179 leader of North Korea, assassinated in a famous 00:48:33.179 --> 00:48:36.500 attack in, I think it was Malaysia, using a chemical 00:48:36.500 --> 00:48:39.400 weapon, or a biological weapon, I forget which 00:48:39.400 --> 00:48:41.840 one it was, I think it was VX. And he killed 00:48:41.840 --> 00:48:43.579 his half -brother, but his half -brother is known 00:48:43.579 --> 00:48:46.559 to have heart problems. And that's based on a 00:48:46.559 --> 00:48:49.599 doctor who, a Western doctor who treated his 00:48:49.599 --> 00:48:53.199 brother. And half sibling heart problems are 00:48:53.199 --> 00:48:55.760 more of a risk factor than your parents' heart 00:48:55.760 --> 00:48:58.739 problems. And that's just one example. And so 00:48:58.739 --> 00:49:02.699 his father and Kim Jong -un's father and grandfather 00:49:02.699 --> 00:49:05.679 had heart attack, had heart problems or stress 00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:08.679 when you're running the tatership, when most 00:49:08.679 --> 00:49:11.719 population is starving from famine, people might 00:49:11.719 --> 00:49:14.420 want to kill you. That stresses you out. You 00:49:14.420 --> 00:49:18.320 got the U .S. and South Korea. not liking what 00:49:18.320 --> 00:49:21.400 you're doing. I guess that stresses people out. 00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:26.139 And so you got not only genetics working against 00:49:26.139 --> 00:49:28.300 Kim Jong -un, but you got lifestyle problems 00:49:28.300 --> 00:49:31.340 too. In addition to stress, you got he smokes, 00:49:31.539 --> 00:49:35.420 he drinks. a lot based on folks like Dennis Rodman, 00:49:35.719 --> 00:49:38.340 folks who've visited him, other diplomats who've 00:49:38.340 --> 00:49:41.579 been in North Korea, and he's gone missing for 00:49:41.579 --> 00:49:44.659 a while. I'll be surprised if he, and then there's 00:49:44.659 --> 00:49:46.500 a weight problem also, that's very obvious that 00:49:46.500 --> 00:49:48.760 everyone can see. And yeah, that's one of the 00:49:48.760 --> 00:49:51.099 many things I'm watching with North Korea is 00:49:51.099 --> 00:49:53.179 health. If he were to die, who would take over? 00:49:53.519 --> 00:49:56.840 North Korea is a patriarchal society. It looks 00:49:56.840 --> 00:49:59.440 like he's trying to groom his daughter to take 00:49:59.440 --> 00:50:03.730 over from him. She's very young. be a committee 00:50:03.730 --> 00:50:09.329 or a regency or a regent that would hold power 00:50:09.329 --> 00:50:12.869 for or groom his daughter or whoever. If he were 00:50:12.869 --> 00:50:14.969 to die, it was a sister takeover. There are all 00:50:14.969 --> 00:50:17.269 these questions related to North Korea. Of course, 00:50:17.349 --> 00:50:21.050 there's a nuclear program too. probably one of 00:50:21.050 --> 00:50:23.030 the most interesting countries to watch and will 00:50:23.030 --> 00:50:26.010 be for 2026. I think there's a couple of countries 00:50:26.010 --> 00:50:27.730 that we think about when, at least when I laid 00:50:27.730 --> 00:50:29.530 out a night, you usually think about Iran because 00:50:29.530 --> 00:50:31.809 of our recent military activity there. And then 00:50:31.809 --> 00:50:34.010 North Korea is one of those. And as you said, 00:50:34.349 --> 00:50:36.210 Kim Jong -un, you can look at a picture of him. 00:50:36.230 --> 00:50:37.909 It looks like this guy has never skipped a meal 00:50:37.909 --> 00:50:40.650 in his entire life. And even though he's torturing 00:50:40.650 --> 00:50:43.150 his citizens, he's enslaving his people. He's 00:50:43.150 --> 00:50:46.130 really just. running his own people into the 00:50:46.130 --> 00:50:49.070 ground. Is it a net benefit if he does die of 00:50:49.070 --> 00:50:50.869 a heart attack? What would that kind of look 00:50:50.869 --> 00:50:52.550 like in current state? Obviously his daughter, 00:50:52.570 --> 00:50:56.250 I think is 12 or very young. She can't run the 00:50:56.250 --> 00:50:59.010 empire. Is there any way that if like you cut 00:50:59.010 --> 00:51:00.349 off, sometimes they say you cut off the head 00:51:00.349 --> 00:51:03.369 of a snake and you produce 12 more, but is it 00:51:03.369 --> 00:51:06.010 a better world? Is there a path to democracy 00:51:06.010 --> 00:51:08.750 or some type of freedom if the Kim Jong line 00:51:08.750 --> 00:51:11.309 gets out of the way? It's hard to tell, possibly. 00:51:11.429 --> 00:51:13.869 And here's why. There's a chance that say his 00:51:13.739 --> 00:51:16.599 sister were to take over or temporarily take 00:51:16.599 --> 00:51:20.360 over there's a chance that she might be more 00:51:20.570 --> 00:51:24.110 she might be less authoritarian and less brutal 00:51:24.110 --> 00:51:27.010 than Kim Jong -un. Remember that Kim Jong -un 00:51:27.010 --> 00:51:29.429 reportedly murdered his uncle. Who helped groom 00:51:29.429 --> 00:51:31.510 him after he murdered his uncle was supposedly 00:51:31.510 --> 00:51:33.909 with an anti -aircraft battery, right? Again, 00:51:34.190 --> 00:51:36.070 don't know if that's ever been concerned, but 00:51:36.070 --> 00:51:39.070 either way, he murdered his uncle. And so would 00:51:39.070 --> 00:51:43.670 his sister be less brutal and more open to not 00:51:43.670 --> 00:51:46.070 being as belligerent? with the West and with 00:51:46.070 --> 00:51:47.969 South Korea. I don't know. It could go either 00:51:47.969 --> 00:51:50.309 way. There's a chance that she might be worse. 00:51:50.599 --> 00:51:54.059 then him, then Kim Jong -un. So it's one of those 00:51:54.059 --> 00:51:56.579 things like flip a coin, it could go either way. 00:51:56.920 --> 00:51:58.719 There's a lot of times in international affairs, 00:51:58.820 --> 00:52:01.599 geopolitics, there's the unintended consequences. 00:52:01.699 --> 00:52:05.559 The example of Iraq, right? So Iraq, Saddam Hussein 00:52:05.559 --> 00:52:08.199 was one of the most murderous dictators in the 00:52:08.199 --> 00:52:10.280 world and used chemical weapons against his own 00:52:10.280 --> 00:52:13.420 people. But he also hated al -Qaeda. And there 00:52:13.420 --> 00:52:15.579 was a story, I don't know how true it is, but 00:52:15.579 --> 00:52:17.860 I think it's true, where he murdered one or two 00:52:17.860 --> 00:52:19.639 al -Qaeda folks who were traveling through Iraq. 00:52:19.690 --> 00:52:23.250 Iraq under Saddam was also counterpoint to Iran, 00:52:23.869 --> 00:52:25.909 right? They're like mortal enemies, Iraq and 00:52:25.909 --> 00:52:29.469 Iran. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, 00:52:29.929 --> 00:52:34.389 that eliminated Iraq as a foil to Iran. And so 00:52:34.389 --> 00:52:38.429 Iraq now became, it's basically a vassal state 00:52:38.429 --> 00:52:42.110 is probably too strong of a word, but basically 00:52:42.110 --> 00:52:46.710 Iraq is now in Iran's camp, right? And during 00:52:46.710 --> 00:52:50.159 the US occupation of Iraq, it became a basically 00:52:50.159 --> 00:52:53.420 breeding ground for terrorism. The ISIS or Islamic 00:52:53.420 --> 00:52:58.079 State got its start in Iraq during the US occupation 00:52:58.079 --> 00:53:00.940 years. And so you could use the example of Iraq 00:53:00.940 --> 00:53:03.500 to see how, wow, it might not be obvious right 00:53:03.500 --> 00:53:06.139 then, but the law of unintended consequences 00:53:06.139 --> 00:53:08.539 was huge in Iraq, and that might be the case 00:53:08.539 --> 00:53:11.679 in North Korea if Kim Jong -un were to fall or 00:53:11.679 --> 00:53:14.159 were to die. Yeah, I just see North Korea as 00:53:14.159 --> 00:53:17.590 like a proxy state. for China. I could be wrong. 00:53:17.590 --> 00:53:19.969 I'm not the expert you are, but I feel like regardless 00:53:19.969 --> 00:53:23.050 of who's in charge in North Korea, I really feel 00:53:23.050 --> 00:53:25.969 like to vast extent, China's kind of pulling 00:53:25.969 --> 00:53:28.369 those strings. Would you agree or disagree with 00:53:28.369 --> 00:53:31.730 that? Maybe pulling strings is a little bit too 00:53:31.730 --> 00:53:34.570 strong of a term, but it does seem like China 00:53:34.570 --> 00:53:38.349 has a lot of influence over North Korea. And 00:53:38.349 --> 00:53:40.969 one reason is a lot of it is just self -interest. 00:53:40.989 --> 00:53:42.750 Most of it, if not all of it is self -interest 00:53:42.750 --> 00:53:46.280 because if war were to break out, between North 00:53:46.280 --> 00:53:49.219 Korea and South Korea or Kim Jong -un were to 00:53:49.219 --> 00:53:52.179 fall, there could be a massive influx of migrants 00:53:52.179 --> 00:53:54.659 flowing into China. China doesn't want that. 00:53:55.099 --> 00:53:57.079 And so a lot of this is China's self -interest 00:53:57.079 --> 00:54:01.360 to maybe keep North Korea in its orbit and try 00:54:01.360 --> 00:54:03.920 to make sure that doesn't happen. Also concerning 00:54:03.920 --> 00:54:07.139 is North Korea's support for Russia in terms 00:54:07.139 --> 00:54:10.800 of personnel. I think it's about 10 ,000 troops 00:54:10.800 --> 00:54:14.539 that North Korea provided to Russia and also 00:54:14.539 --> 00:54:17.119 some equipment. also artillery shells and so 00:54:17.119 --> 00:54:19.659 forth. And yeah, you got that regional peace 00:54:19.659 --> 00:54:22.639 with China, but you also have North Korea having 00:54:22.639 --> 00:54:25.880 an influence, however little on the Ukraine -Russia 00:54:25.880 --> 00:54:28.739 conflict. It's a scary situation. I don't understand 00:54:28.739 --> 00:54:30.780 it. But to get back to one of your points, like 00:54:30.780 --> 00:54:33.889 when you were talking about Iraq and Iran, Even 00:54:33.889 --> 00:54:36.070 though it was Iraq and Saddam Hussein were horrible 00:54:36.070 --> 00:54:38.309 people and it was a bad empire, there was some 00:54:38.309 --> 00:54:40.929 net benefit, right? Like it prevented a lot of 00:54:40.929 --> 00:54:42.750 the creation of the terrorism and the downfall. 00:54:42.949 --> 00:54:45.030 They were mortal enemies or between Iraq and 00:54:45.030 --> 00:54:48.230 Iran. Is there a net benefit with North Korea 00:54:48.230 --> 00:54:52.050 being the way it is today? Yeah. In terms of 00:54:52.050 --> 00:54:56.530 U .S. interest and its allies interest? No. And 00:54:56.530 --> 00:54:58.909 the reason why I narrowed it to just US and its 00:54:58.909 --> 00:55:02.309 allies for China there is because tens of thousands, 00:55:02.409 --> 00:55:04.610 hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are not 00:55:04.610 --> 00:55:08.090 trying to flow into China, which is right on 00:55:08.090 --> 00:55:11.030 its border to avoid whatever nasty situation, 00:55:11.230 --> 00:55:15.630 right? That could go away if there's a war or 00:55:15.630 --> 00:55:18.329 all of a sudden the border ... North Korean border 00:55:18.329 --> 00:55:22.170 troops just melt away. But for regional stability, 00:55:22.909 --> 00:55:26.530 South Korea, they're all these reasons why. And 00:55:26.530 --> 00:55:28.809 so remember every once in a while, it hasn't 00:55:28.809 --> 00:55:31.230 happened in a while, but remember North Korea 00:55:31.230 --> 00:55:34.110 has launched attacks and assassinations against 00:55:34.110 --> 00:55:35.690 South Korea. I think it's been a while since 00:55:35.690 --> 00:55:38.050 it happened, but remember that there's some senior 00:55:38.050 --> 00:55:40.389 folks who have been assassinated by North Korea 00:55:40.389 --> 00:55:42.630 as an example. A few years ago, there was that 00:55:42.630 --> 00:55:45.090 sink and North Korea sank that boat, South Korean 00:55:45.090 --> 00:55:47.739 boat. using one of the submarines. And yeah, 00:55:47.800 --> 00:55:51.619 it's North Korea. You can see why. It's the bane. 00:55:51.960 --> 00:55:55.300 It's the current North Korea under this dictatorial 00:55:55.300 --> 00:55:58.059 dynasty is the bane of every U .S. president. 00:55:58.360 --> 00:56:02.860 And by the way, so if you look at Japan, Japan, 00:56:02.860 --> 00:56:05.980 I just saw, just received cruise missiles, Tomahawk 00:56:05.980 --> 00:56:08.619 cruise missiles from the U .S., right? A long 00:56:08.619 --> 00:56:11.500 time ago when I served in Japan as an intelligence 00:56:11.500 --> 00:56:16.000 officer, I, Japanese air self, defense officers 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:18.079 told me that, yeah, we're tied to this North 00:56:18.079 --> 00:56:20.659 Korea situation and we want to be able to strike 00:56:20.659 --> 00:56:23.400 North Korea. And that's bear fruit now many years 00:56:23.400 --> 00:56:26.739 later with the unprecedented acquisition of Tomahawk 00:56:26.739 --> 00:56:29.760 missiles by Japan to deal with situations like 00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:32.489 North Korea. This North Korean regime is not 00:56:32.489 --> 00:56:35.590 a good deal for anyone. And commercially too, 00:56:35.670 --> 00:56:37.250 there are some risks there. Look at Sony, the 00:56:37.250 --> 00:56:39.369 Sony hack by North Korea a few years ago because 00:56:39.369 --> 00:56:42.130 of that movie that came out. A lot of embarrassing 00:56:42.130 --> 00:56:45.250 emails by Sony executives were leaked or hacked. 00:56:45.889 --> 00:56:47.469 I don't know if you can answer this question, 00:56:47.469 --> 00:56:49.690 so I'll preface it with that. North Korea obviously 00:56:49.690 --> 00:56:52.150 says they have a nuclear bomb. There has been 00:56:52.150 --> 00:56:54.250 no shown proof. There are some people in the 00:56:54.250 --> 00:56:55.989 United States that says they don't. Is there 00:56:55.989 --> 00:56:58.469 a nuclear risk connected with North Korea today? 00:56:58.809 --> 00:57:02.090 There is, but I think we, and this is just my 00:57:02.090 --> 00:57:03.590 opinion, it's going to be very controversial. 00:57:03.949 --> 00:57:07.190 I think for some reason with North Korea and 00:57:07.190 --> 00:57:10.550 to some extent Iran maybe, we tend to throw out 00:57:10.550 --> 00:57:13.769 70, 80 years of nuclear deterrence theory and 00:57:13.769 --> 00:57:16.230 reality when it comes to North Korea. And North 00:57:16.230 --> 00:57:21.710 Korea knows that the US could level that country 00:57:21.710 --> 00:57:25.809 within. minutes. Iran knows that Israel could 00:57:25.809 --> 00:57:29.849 level Iran within minutes with nuclear weapons. 00:57:30.210 --> 00:57:33.829 And so North Korea, of course, it would be great 00:57:33.829 --> 00:57:37.789 if none of these anti -West belligerent countries' 00:57:38.210 --> 00:57:40.829 dictatorships have nuclear weapons, right? That 00:57:40.829 --> 00:57:44.500 would be ideal. This is counterintuitive, but 00:57:44.500 --> 00:57:45.980 North Korean nuclear weapons don't worry me that 00:57:45.980 --> 00:57:48.500 much. It's the other stuff. It's the cyber capabilities, 00:57:48.579 --> 00:57:51.039 in my opinion, based on my experience. North 00:57:51.039 --> 00:57:55.679 Korea is the third best adversarial cyber capability. 00:57:56.119 --> 00:57:59.300 in the world after Russia and China, it's North 00:57:59.300 --> 00:58:01.940 Korea. The Sony hack is an example. And they're 00:58:01.940 --> 00:58:04.000 always hacking South Korea, other countries in 00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:06.380 terms of stealing stuff from banks, stealing 00:58:06.380 --> 00:58:08.780 money from banks and so forth. So in addition 00:58:08.780 --> 00:58:13.099 to the cyber capabilities, it's the covert capabilities, 00:58:13.300 --> 00:58:17.400 the assassination capabilities. The North Korean 00:58:17.400 --> 00:58:21.840 Intel capability, focused on special ops. Their 00:58:21.840 --> 00:58:24.539 special ops are one of the most capable in the 00:58:24.539 --> 00:58:27.610 entire world. Right. I guess when you're spending 00:58:27.610 --> 00:58:29.530 all your money in the military and especially 00:58:29.530 --> 00:58:32.110 special ops, that tends to happen. But, and these 00:58:32.110 --> 00:58:34.570 are not, these are what, if you look at the top, 00:58:35.289 --> 00:58:37.809 the top folks that the U .S. now can talk about, 00:58:37.869 --> 00:58:40.090 as mentioned probably, the Navy SEAL type, the 00:58:40.090 --> 00:58:43.289 Delta Force type, very small capable units. You 00:58:43.289 --> 00:58:46.530 got entire regiments. You got huge units that 00:58:46.530 --> 00:58:48.650 are basically the North Korean equivalent of 00:58:48.650 --> 00:58:53.570 that. That could do a lot of damage in South 00:58:53.570 --> 00:58:57.079 Korea. other countries in the region. And the 00:58:57.079 --> 00:59:02.000 artillery, the estimates, I've seen public estimates, 00:59:02.659 --> 00:59:04.599 publicly disclosed estimates that 20, 30 people, 00:59:04.900 --> 00:59:08.119 20 to 30 ,000 South Koreans could die within 00:59:08.119 --> 00:59:11.599 the first 24 hours or less of artillery assault 00:59:11.599 --> 00:59:15.199 on South Korea. Right. And I think that's more 00:59:15.199 --> 00:59:18.300 of a concern than nuclear stuff because I don't 00:59:18.300 --> 00:59:20.860 think the North Korea would use WMD, especially 00:59:20.860 --> 00:59:23.480 nukes, unless the regime was threatened, just 00:59:23.480 --> 00:59:26.980 like Iran. Same thing there. And so the threshold 00:59:26.980 --> 00:59:30.179 below that, that's vast. So when you talk about 00:59:30.179 --> 00:59:33.780 the cyber capabilities, the special ops and all 00:59:33.780 --> 00:59:35.699 the covert capabilities, the intel capabilities, 00:59:36.340 --> 00:59:39.980 the artillery capabilities. Of course, the missiles. 00:59:40.760 --> 00:59:44.300 That's why Japan now has been seeking strike 00:59:44.300 --> 00:59:46.380 capabilities against North Korea, because of 00:59:46.380 --> 00:59:49.699 the missile capabilities that North Korea has. 00:59:50.340 --> 00:59:52.760 For all these reasons, that's why I'm less concerned 00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:55.809 about the nuclear issue than many people. A lot 00:59:55.809 --> 00:59:58.630 of people cite that we're supposedly building 00:59:58.630 --> 01:00:01.449 the golden dome over United States to protect 01:00:01.449 --> 01:00:04.610 against nuclear threats, to protect against ballistic 01:00:04.610 --> 01:00:07.010 missiles that are coming from these adversarial 01:00:07.010 --> 01:00:10.190 countries. Do you think that's true or do you 01:00:10.190 --> 01:00:12.309 think our deterrence is good enough and perhaps 01:00:12.309 --> 01:00:14.429 it's a vanity thing just saying we have better 01:00:14.429 --> 01:00:16.949 protection or why do you think United States 01:00:16.949 --> 01:00:18.489 is reaching in that direction? Because obviously 01:00:18.489 --> 01:00:20.829 it's a huge project. We're not talking about 01:00:20.829 --> 01:00:23.190 Israel where we put the dome over the country 01:00:23.190 --> 01:00:25.449 and it's small and it's relatively capable. We're 01:00:25.449 --> 01:00:28.570 talking huge landmass to protect from this. Is 01:00:28.570 --> 01:00:31.230 there a risk out there that we should be worried 01:00:31.230 --> 01:00:34.090 about with North Korea or Iran or Russia or China 01:00:34.090 --> 01:00:36.070 or somebody that we should be thinking about 01:00:36.070 --> 01:00:38.489 that this is what this country needs today? Yeah, 01:00:38.570 --> 01:00:41.409 the threats there with China and North Korea, 01:00:41.550 --> 01:00:44.269 it obviously is the threats there. But the whole 01:00:44.269 --> 01:00:47.489 Golden Dome thing, which is pretty much a continuation 01:00:47.489 --> 01:00:50.690 of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars thing. There's a 01:00:50.690 --> 01:00:53.289 lot to unpack there and none of it's good, right? 01:00:53.429 --> 01:00:56.070 And it's largely a vanity thing. The Golden Dome 01:00:56.070 --> 01:00:58.429 thing or whatever it's being called, it's a play 01:00:58.429 --> 01:01:01.090 on the Israeli Golden Dome. It's a lot different. 01:01:01.190 --> 01:01:03.170 It's not going to be anywhere as capable. And 01:01:03.170 --> 01:01:06.690 here's why Israel's Golden Dome is, it's limited. 01:01:06.769 --> 01:01:10.300 Israel is not such a huge country. And most importantly, 01:01:10.840 --> 01:01:16.260 Israel is not too concerned about ICBMs and intercontinental 01:01:16.260 --> 01:01:19.340 ballistic missiles, right? Iran does not need 01:01:19.340 --> 01:01:22.840 to fire ICBM long range, basically missiles that 01:01:22.840 --> 01:01:27.280 go to outer space and return, reenter the atmosphere 01:01:27.280 --> 01:01:30.789 with all kinds of what's called MERS, multiple 01:01:30.789 --> 01:01:33.929 reentry vehicles, many of which are decoys, right? 01:01:34.230 --> 01:01:36.409 The Golden Gnome doesn't have to deal with that. 01:01:36.650 --> 01:01:39.750 What's been proposed since Ronald Reagan's years 01:01:39.750 --> 01:01:42.170 is much more complicated. It's like hitting a 01:01:42.170 --> 01:01:45.269 bullet with a bullet. It's almost an impossibility. 01:01:45.409 --> 01:01:48.110 The few tests that have been done have been highly 01:01:48.110 --> 01:01:51.449 scripted. It's almost like giving the student 01:01:51.449 --> 01:01:54.269 the answers to the test, right? And so not only 01:01:54.269 --> 01:01:58.849 do you have to attack a much faster bullet, ICBM, 01:01:58.989 --> 01:02:01.570 intercontinental ballistic missiles, that's either 01:02:01.570 --> 01:02:04.170 in the midphase in space or re -entering the 01:02:04.170 --> 01:02:06.730 atmosphere. You have to differentiate between 01:02:06.730 --> 01:02:09.690 which ones are MIRVs, which ones are the decoys, 01:02:09.750 --> 01:02:12.389 right? And you have to do that within seconds. 01:02:12.869 --> 01:02:16.389 And I think, of course, politically, it's everyone 01:02:16.389 --> 01:02:21.289 wants to be for a protection system. The reality 01:02:21.289 --> 01:02:23.389 behind it once you start peeling the onion back 01:02:23.389 --> 01:02:27.329 is it's extremely limited and it's been in terms 01:02:27.329 --> 01:02:29.630 of bang for the buck, it's just not there. It's 01:02:29.630 --> 01:02:32.469 not a great success story. So Casey, I know you 01:02:32.469 --> 01:02:35.429 do a lot with business continuity and personal 01:02:35.429 --> 01:02:38.630 protection. What are some things that corporations 01:02:38.630 --> 01:02:41.809 can do to help mitigate that risk, to forecast 01:02:41.809 --> 01:02:44.449 potential problems? What would you suggest to 01:02:44.449 --> 01:02:46.920 them? Yeah, I think that this is something that 01:02:46.920 --> 01:02:49.679 some organizations do well, others not so well. 01:02:49.860 --> 01:02:51.679 I think organizations need to pay attention to 01:02:51.679 --> 01:02:54.099 geopolitical risk a lot more. So it's becoming 01:02:54.099 --> 01:02:57.639 more popular or more prevalent. But I know some 01:02:57.639 --> 01:03:00.360 organizations have gotten rid of their geopolitical 01:03:00.360 --> 01:03:02.780 risk person or team, which I think is a bad idea. 01:03:03.119 --> 01:03:05.300 One organization that does it well, seems to 01:03:05.300 --> 01:03:08.460 do it well. I know I've read that 3M way before 01:03:08.460 --> 01:03:11.179 other companies did or were able to notice that 01:03:11.179 --> 01:03:14.019 something was going on in terms of some kind 01:03:14.019 --> 01:03:18.070 of virus in China and elsewhere. And so 3M was 01:03:18.070 --> 01:03:20.570 on it. Other companies, not so much. And you 01:03:20.570 --> 01:03:23.510 got to, especially for the global organizations, 01:03:23.650 --> 01:03:25.789 whether you're an NGO, whether you're a non -profit 01:03:25.789 --> 01:03:28.710 or for -profit organization, you got to take 01:03:28.710 --> 01:03:32.230 geopolitical risk seriously and do red team and 01:03:32.230 --> 01:03:36.409 scenario development and not think about things 01:03:36.409 --> 01:03:40.440 that, not think about only things. that have 01:03:40.440 --> 01:03:42.440 happened exactly like they happened. I wrote 01:03:42.440 --> 01:03:44.619 an article a few years ago about retinine where 01:03:44.619 --> 01:03:48.340 I highlight several things, seven or eight indicators 01:03:48.340 --> 01:03:51.579 of, or just events that happened in the two decades 01:03:51.579 --> 01:03:54.840 prior to COVID, right? Various outbreak, MERS, 01:03:55.260 --> 01:03:59.679 SARS, Ebola, the publication of a pandemic. It 01:03:59.679 --> 01:04:02.820 was focused on flu, flu pandemic, but the US 01:04:02.820 --> 01:04:04.920 government had published a pamphlet, a guide 01:04:04.920 --> 01:04:08.219 that talked about the exact same things that 01:04:08.219 --> 01:04:11.909 we ended up. doing. in 2020, 2021. They published 01:04:11.909 --> 01:04:14.710 this like 10 years before. And all the indicators, 01:04:14.909 --> 01:04:17.570 so when CEOs and other corporate leaders talk 01:04:17.570 --> 01:04:20.150 about, they claim that COVID was a black swan 01:04:20.150 --> 01:04:22.369 event, no one could have seen that company. No, 01:04:22.369 --> 01:04:25.030 that's not the case. Disaster prep folks were 01:04:25.030 --> 01:04:27.329 talking about the exact same type of scenario 01:04:27.329 --> 01:04:29.949 decades before. They're the events I talked about, 01:04:29.949 --> 01:04:32.550 MERS and SARS and so forth, that were basically 01:04:32.550 --> 01:04:34.829 almost a blueprint for what could happen. And 01:04:34.829 --> 01:04:38.150 so for this year with the stuff, the rest of 01:04:38.150 --> 01:04:40.360 this year, for the infectious diseases I talked 01:04:40.360 --> 01:04:44.059 about. For next year, the conflicts that are 01:04:44.059 --> 01:04:45.840 happening around the world, again, the most conflicts 01:04:45.840 --> 01:04:49.039 in decades around the world, organizations need 01:04:49.039 --> 01:04:51.159 to think outside the box, do some red team and 01:04:51.159 --> 01:04:53.760 scenario analysis, take geopolitical seriously, 01:04:54.099 --> 01:04:56.639 especially when it comes to supply chains, and 01:04:56.639 --> 01:04:58.539 they'll be much better off. You keep saying the 01:04:58.539 --> 01:05:00.619 term red team. Could you explain to our audience 01:05:00.619 --> 01:05:03.320 what that means? So Red Team is basically just 01:05:03.320 --> 01:05:05.360 an alternative way of thinking, right? That's 01:05:05.360 --> 01:05:07.659 one of the, one of the different types of Red 01:05:07.659 --> 01:05:09.679 Team. The other is physically trying to break 01:05:09.679 --> 01:05:12.380 into stuff, whether it be cyber or physically, 01:05:12.380 --> 01:05:15.460 right? You can hire someone to test your day. 01:05:15.619 --> 01:05:17.119 What's that movie from the nineties? I think 01:05:17.119 --> 01:05:19.760 it's called Sneakers, where they would be hired 01:05:19.760 --> 01:05:22.500 to, to break into. I remember Sydney Poitier 01:05:22.500 --> 01:05:24.960 was in there. They would hire this team to try 01:05:24.960 --> 01:05:27.039 to break into banks, whatever, right? That's 01:05:27.039 --> 01:05:29.239 one type of Red Team. And then the other is just 01:05:29.239 --> 01:05:32.059 a tabletop exercise. NYP. PD is really good. 01:05:32.219 --> 01:05:33.619 New York police department is really good at 01:05:33.619 --> 01:05:36.460 this, just tabletop exercises on what could go 01:05:36.460 --> 01:05:39.480 wrong at various events. And then the third type 01:05:39.480 --> 01:05:42.280 is the stuff I've done is the alternative way 01:05:42.280 --> 01:05:44.039 of thinking, just thinking about things that 01:05:44.039 --> 01:05:46.420 you normally would not think about. For example, 01:05:46.880 --> 01:05:49.179 so my, I posit that if companies had red team, 01:05:49.260 --> 01:05:51.980 what could go wrong based on the previous outbreaks? 01:05:52.440 --> 01:05:54.719 probably could have had things in place that 01:05:54.719 --> 01:05:57.000 could have helped them deal with COVID, like 01:05:57.000 --> 01:05:59.300 having people work from home or companies or 01:05:59.300 --> 01:06:00.739 organizations to include some government agencies 01:06:00.739 --> 01:06:02.559 were trying to figure out how to have people 01:06:02.559 --> 01:06:05.380 working home with VPN and stuff like that. That 01:06:05.380 --> 01:06:08.039 could have been easily practiced years before 01:06:08.039 --> 01:06:11.099 COVID. So Red Team is just a different way to 01:06:11.099 --> 01:06:13.760 think. I actually worked in risk management for 01:06:13.760 --> 01:06:16.820 about the past decade after I left law enforcement 01:06:16.820 --> 01:06:19.300 and I was part of standing up a red team for 01:06:19.300 --> 01:06:21.800 Amazon web services where our thing was social 01:06:21.800 --> 01:06:23.380 engineering and trying to get past the guard 01:06:23.380 --> 01:06:24.980 shacks, trying to break into facilities, trying 01:06:24.980 --> 01:06:28.059 to hack technical equipment to compromise, obviously 01:06:28.059 --> 01:06:30.420 compromise in a loose term, customer data. So 01:06:30.420 --> 01:06:33.360 you learn how to defend against it. What you 01:06:33.360 --> 01:06:35.000 learn a lot of the times when you're doing those 01:06:35.000 --> 01:06:37.800 types of activity, whether it be red teaming 01:06:37.800 --> 01:06:40.719 or just doing risk analysis, a lot of times the 01:06:40.719 --> 01:06:43.320 CEOs and some of the executive leadership team 01:06:43.320 --> 01:06:45.179 don't understand the net benefit of why they 01:06:45.179 --> 01:06:47.500 should prioritize this for their organizations. 01:06:47.820 --> 01:06:49.940 So what would you say to those types of people, 01:06:50.059 --> 01:06:52.039 right? Yeah, that sounds scary. I don't really 01:06:52.039 --> 01:06:53.579 care. I'm still going to sell my product overseas, 01:06:53.599 --> 01:06:55.860 whether they have Ebola in that region or not. 01:06:56.019 --> 01:06:58.519 What would you say is the reason that they really 01:06:58.519 --> 01:07:00.599 should be prioritizing this stuff and taking 01:07:00.599 --> 01:07:03.699 it seriously and prepare. Yeah, basically organizations 01:07:03.699 --> 01:07:06.619 need to lose the ego, right? And so I remember 01:07:06.619 --> 01:07:09.320 one, I have, I've had a couple of NSA assignments 01:07:09.320 --> 01:07:12.679 and one assignment, the, what, the six, what, 01:07:12.780 --> 01:07:15.019 you know, the comms, the head of comms, full 01:07:15.019 --> 01:07:17.559 Colonel, he said, Hey, red team, the hell out 01:07:17.559 --> 01:07:21.579 of me. NSA has a red team outfit. And so we requested 01:07:21.579 --> 01:07:23.800 them for this, for the consulate. And we were 01:07:23.800 --> 01:07:26.440 so impressed with this guy. He was a Navy captain. 01:07:27.130 --> 01:07:30.489 kernel equivalent, and we were so impressed with 01:07:30.489 --> 01:07:32.389 this guy because he didn't care about his ego. 01:07:32.670 --> 01:07:35.070 He said, he looked, I want you to retina academy, 01:07:35.730 --> 01:07:38.289 find what's wrong with our communications, with 01:07:38.289 --> 01:07:41.769 our IT, IT systems. And so he got to lose the 01:07:41.769 --> 01:07:44.510 ego and realize that it can only benefit you 01:07:44.510 --> 01:07:47.869 to find the stuff before the bad guys do. If 01:07:47.869 --> 01:07:51.050 you look at the pipeline incident from back from. 01:07:51.230 --> 01:07:53.590 A couple of years ago, you look at all the outages 01:07:53.590 --> 01:07:56.349 that we've had recently that's affected airports 01:07:56.349 --> 01:07:59.710 and travel. It's not always about red team and 01:07:59.710 --> 01:08:01.610 bad guys, right? It's just red team in general. 01:08:01.889 --> 01:08:04.570 And so what can go wrong? And companies need 01:08:04.570 --> 01:08:07.949 to think long -term and worst -case scenarios 01:08:07.949 --> 01:08:10.150 and maybe not so worst -case scenarios and plan 01:08:10.150 --> 01:08:13.250 for those. It comes down to money, right? Do 01:08:13.250 --> 01:08:16.729 you want to lose money when just having spent 01:08:16.729 --> 01:08:19.789 in a few minutes or spending far less money? 01:08:19.960 --> 01:08:22.840 doing a risk assessment or having a red team 01:08:22.840 --> 01:08:25.899 exercise tabletop or red team analysis could 01:08:25.899 --> 01:08:27.699 have prevented, could have helped you prevent 01:08:27.699 --> 01:08:29.789 some of these things. Think about money. It's 01:08:29.789 --> 01:08:31.850 a really good point. And a lot of times it comes 01:08:31.850 --> 01:08:34.430 down to brand protection too. Like I work for 01:08:34.430 --> 01:08:37.189 the largest nonprofits now in the risk management 01:08:37.189 --> 01:08:39.390 space, but there was a big conversation around 01:08:39.390 --> 01:08:41.869 when the Russia Ukraine conflict came around 01:08:41.869 --> 01:08:43.850 and we want to continue operations within the 01:08:43.850 --> 01:08:46.489 Russian space. Could we maybe until the government 01:08:46.489 --> 01:08:48.770 sanctions really kicked in, but sometimes it 01:08:48.770 --> 01:08:50.689 was about perception and how your customers are 01:08:50.689 --> 01:08:52.409 going to perceive your product, whether it's 01:08:52.409 --> 01:08:54.729 safe, secure, and reliable within those spaces. 01:08:55.409 --> 01:08:57.010 So, which it comes right back to the almighty 01:08:57.010 --> 01:08:59.109 dollar, right? That we're talking. about is these 01:08:59.109 --> 01:09:00.970 things are important. If you are one of those 01:09:00.970 --> 01:09:03.149 heartless CEOs that don't think about your people, 01:09:03.229 --> 01:09:05.229 think about your bottom line and being able to 01:09:05.229 --> 01:09:07.430 protect that is absolutely essential. Exactly. 01:09:07.630 --> 01:09:09.770 The bottom line is important because especially 01:09:09.770 --> 01:09:12.510 for the for -profit companies, right? You might, 01:09:12.750 --> 01:09:15.170 your brand and marketing might talk about making 01:09:15.170 --> 01:09:17.789 the world a better place and so forth. But if 01:09:17.789 --> 01:09:19.710 you're a for -profit company, it comes down to 01:09:19.710 --> 01:09:23.409 money, right? And so one of the best ways to 01:09:23.409 --> 01:09:26.109 protect it is to protect that money, that bottom 01:09:26.109 --> 01:09:28.310 line, is to realize that your reputation and 01:09:28.310 --> 01:09:30.489 brand is important. One of the things in security, 01:09:30.750 --> 01:09:33.149 and a lot of security people don't realize this, 01:09:33.529 --> 01:09:36.689 and a lot of risk owners, the CEOs that realize 01:09:36.689 --> 01:09:39.829 this, is that one of security's job is not just 01:09:39.829 --> 01:09:42.489 to protect people and assets, it's to protect 01:09:42.489 --> 01:09:45.710 the brand and reputation, right? And when you 01:09:45.710 --> 01:09:48.670 think about it that way, and how important brand 01:09:48.670 --> 01:09:52.550 and reputation is to a company, it can lead you 01:09:52.550 --> 01:09:54.920 to realize how important some of these, some 01:09:54.920 --> 01:09:57.760 of this planning and red team and scenario development 01:09:57.760 --> 01:10:01.439 is. And I could give you one quick example. We 01:10:01.439 --> 01:10:04.720 didn't talk about Taiwan and China, right? If 01:10:04.720 --> 01:10:09.140 you're a company that's based in Taiwan or has 01:10:09.140 --> 01:10:13.640 a supply chain that touches Taiwan and you haven't 01:10:13.640 --> 01:10:16.420 thought about done some planning, scenario building 01:10:16.420 --> 01:10:19.920 on what could go wrong. Forget about China invading 01:10:19.920 --> 01:10:22.699 Taiwan. I don't think that will happen. I think 01:10:22.699 --> 01:10:24.979 that's far less likely to happen than a blockade 01:10:24.979 --> 01:10:28.260 or squeezing of Taiwan. That will make it a much 01:10:28.260 --> 01:10:30.880 tougher decision for any US president to decide 01:10:30.880 --> 01:10:35.000 whether to attack China. just a blockade of China. 01:10:36.760 --> 01:10:39.060 If your company organization has people based 01:10:39.060 --> 01:10:41.579 in Taiwan or a supply chain that touches Taiwan, 01:10:42.140 --> 01:10:44.359 you will remiss if you have not done detailed 01:10:44.359 --> 01:10:46.739 planning, business continuity planning or scenario 01:10:46.739 --> 01:10:49.619 planning or red teaming on how to deal with that 01:10:49.619 --> 01:10:53.359 eventuality as an example. How real is it today? 01:10:53.619 --> 01:10:57.659 I know back in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, a lot of 01:10:57.720 --> 01:10:59.659 corporate type people would get kidnapped when 01:10:59.659 --> 01:11:02.119 they would go to certain countries. Is that still 01:11:02.119 --> 01:11:04.420 a real concern today for corporate executives 01:11:04.420 --> 01:11:07.680 or people that work for rather large corporations? 01:11:07.979 --> 01:11:10.920 I think it's less likely now, but it's still 01:11:10.920 --> 01:11:13.239 a distinct possibility, especially for the lower 01:11:13.239 --> 01:11:17.000 level folks. I'm a big fan. I've written articles 01:11:17.000 --> 01:11:19.979 on this. Listen to the State Department. If you 01:11:19.979 --> 01:11:24.000 remember, for both organizations, for both travel, 01:11:24.430 --> 01:11:27.630 for your company, travel risk management, and 01:11:27.630 --> 01:11:29.729 also justifications. Listen to the State Department. 01:11:30.449 --> 01:11:32.210 Because kidnappings still happen even though 01:11:32.210 --> 01:11:34.449 they're less likely than they were maybe 20, 01:11:34.489 --> 01:11:38.289 30 years ago. They still happen on unlawful detainment 01:11:38.289 --> 01:11:41.789 is the way is one term the U .S. government uses. 01:11:42.409 --> 01:11:45.550 I was just on the call with some government folks. 01:11:46.060 --> 01:11:48.800 a webinar that discussed the same topic just 01:11:48.800 --> 01:11:50.800 a couple of days ago, I think yesterday actually. 01:11:51.560 --> 01:11:53.380 And listen to the statement, if the State Department 01:11:53.380 --> 01:11:56.399 says issues are level four, warn them. about 01:11:56.399 --> 01:11:59.600 a country. Level four is basically, do not travel. 01:12:00.039 --> 01:12:01.880 Don't go there. And if you're already there, 01:12:01.880 --> 01:12:05.180 leave. There is a misperception that the US government 01:12:05.180 --> 01:12:08.579 is obligated to do whatever it can to get US 01:12:08.579 --> 01:12:12.119 citizens out of any country in all cases, no 01:12:12.119 --> 01:12:15.899 matter what. And that's one of the biggest mistakes 01:12:15.899 --> 01:12:18.619 that travelers make because that's not the case. 01:12:19.159 --> 01:12:21.159 And that's one of my biggest recommendations 01:12:21.159 --> 01:12:24.760 is to mitigate against unlawful detainment and 01:12:24.760 --> 01:12:27.079 kidnapping. Read the State Department travel 01:12:27.079 --> 01:12:29.220 advisories and register State Department when 01:12:29.220 --> 01:12:32.340 you travel. Obviously kidnapping is a scary thing 01:12:32.340 --> 01:12:34.739 for executives that travel. Maybe we could talk 01:12:34.739 --> 01:12:37.720 a little bit about the importance of having sanitized 01:12:37.720 --> 01:12:39.619 devices when you're going into austere environments 01:12:39.619 --> 01:12:42.600 like China or France or other countries. How 01:12:42.600 --> 01:12:44.920 important is that to take care of your equipment? 01:12:45.199 --> 01:12:47.939 And then my second part of my question is, so 01:12:47.939 --> 01:12:50.729 kidnapping, though a risk, is it a bigger risk 01:12:50.729 --> 01:12:53.069 now of more like assassination attempts like 01:12:53.069 --> 01:12:55.890 we've seen with the insurance executive that 01:12:55.890 --> 01:12:58.329 was killed not too long ago? Is that something 01:12:58.329 --> 01:13:01.130 executives should be thinking about and starting 01:13:01.130 --> 01:13:03.430 to hire people in close protection in order to 01:13:03.430 --> 01:13:05.729 care for them as they go about their travels? 01:13:06.229 --> 01:13:10.270 Yeah, it is. So firstly, the device issue when 01:13:10.270 --> 01:13:12.729 traveling some countries, there was, I had a 01:13:12.729 --> 01:13:15.850 family member who traveled to China a few years 01:13:15.850 --> 01:13:18.359 ago and what I advised his family remember it 01:13:18.359 --> 01:13:20.859 was like, hey, don't take your normal phone, 01:13:21.060 --> 01:13:23.140 take a burner phone. That phone was going to 01:13:23.140 --> 01:13:25.539 be there for a few months. Take your burner phone 01:13:25.539 --> 01:13:28.380 and don't take a computer that you don't want 01:13:28.380 --> 01:13:30.439 to get rid of when you get back. And same with 01:13:30.439 --> 01:13:33.500 Russia. And so there's just some countries where, 01:13:33.579 --> 01:13:36.430 and I know a lot of Institutes of higher education, 01:13:36.649 --> 01:13:39.449 universities, colleges have that rule that, yeah, 01:13:39.609 --> 01:13:41.350 you need to take a burner phone. And by the way, 01:13:41.430 --> 01:13:44.609 don't take our official, your school issued phone 01:13:44.609 --> 01:13:47.689 to China or Russia. And for good reason. Yeah. 01:13:47.810 --> 01:13:51.369 I would never travel to China or Russia with 01:13:51.369 --> 01:13:53.710 my main phone. I would use a burner phone. And 01:13:53.710 --> 01:13:56.989 then once I got back to the port of entry in 01:13:56.989 --> 01:13:59.409 the U .S. just toss it in trash, I wouldn't even 01:13:59.409 --> 01:14:02.710 take it home. In terms of assassination, kidnappings, 01:14:02.949 --> 01:14:05.409 for most people, the risk is low. And this is 01:14:05.409 --> 01:14:07.810 where risk, what I call risk, risk intelligence 01:14:07.810 --> 01:14:10.149 is a common term, but basically how we got to 01:14:10.149 --> 01:14:12.909 understand risk, right? And so for, and I've 01:14:12.909 --> 01:14:16.279 done some executive protection work. for the 01:14:16.279 --> 01:14:19.220 vast majority of people in the US who are protectees 01:14:19.220 --> 01:14:23.000 who whose organizations or or Family offices 01:14:23.000 --> 01:14:25.300 higher protection for them don't need an armed 01:14:25.300 --> 01:14:27.560 protector right for the mass vast majority of 01:14:27.560 --> 01:14:30.260 people if you really with the hair within the 01:14:30.260 --> 01:14:33.319 US Right if they were going to travel to say 01:14:33.319 --> 01:14:36.579 Syria or some of the countries Yeah, you probably 01:14:36.579 --> 01:14:39.859 want to have someone armed with you but here 01:14:39.859 --> 01:14:43.949 in the US for most reason not possible but depend 01:14:43.949 --> 01:14:46.189 on your organization risk intelligence if you 01:14:46.189 --> 01:14:49.329 have a good risk intelligence team whether organically 01:14:49.329 --> 01:14:52.409 or you've contracted out, you quickly realize 01:14:52.409 --> 01:14:55.409 that some people are at much higher risk. The 01:14:55.409 --> 01:14:57.529 health care, health insurance companies, right? 01:14:58.270 --> 01:15:00.750 And a couple of months after the assassination 01:15:00.750 --> 01:15:03.810 attempt on the UnitedHealthcare worker, I wrote 01:15:03.810 --> 01:15:06.729 an article in Domestic Preparedness Journal about 01:15:06.729 --> 01:15:09.949 this. And I wrote that according to his wife, 01:15:10.029 --> 01:15:12.909 he had received threats based on his company's 01:15:12.909 --> 01:15:16.880 profile and his perceived role in... deny in 01:15:16.880 --> 01:15:19.840 healthcare to people or health insurance claims 01:15:19.840 --> 01:15:23.300 to people. Some people in some positions are 01:15:23.300 --> 01:15:26.340 at higher risk. And that's why, and this can 01:15:26.340 --> 01:15:29.180 affect the bottom line, and that's why some boards 01:15:29.180 --> 01:15:33.199 require their CEOs and pay for their CEOs to 01:15:33.199 --> 01:15:35.760 have protection. And that's important. You just 01:15:35.760 --> 01:15:38.350 have to... understand the risk, but it's still 01:15:38.350 --> 01:15:41.369 there. In that same article I mentioned, I highlighted 01:15:41.369 --> 01:15:44.829 several cases where CEOs or senior executives 01:15:44.829 --> 01:15:49.649 were killed or stalked and almost killed by people. 01:15:49.970 --> 01:15:52.710 And so this includes, I think it was Tim Cook 01:15:52.710 --> 01:15:56.609 is one example where a female stalked him relentlessly. 01:15:56.689 --> 01:15:59.770 She was later arrested. One entrepreneur was 01:15:59.770 --> 01:16:02.989 beheaded in his apartment in New York. This is 01:16:02.989 --> 01:16:04.729 all recent. This is not 30 years ago. This is 01:16:04.729 --> 01:16:08.670 in the last few years. Yeah, so there was a beheading. 01:16:08.970 --> 01:16:11.810 And so, yeah, the UnitedHealthcare thing, that 01:16:11.810 --> 01:16:14.649 was like the most visible recent one. But there 01:16:14.649 --> 01:16:17.590 have been many cases where, yeah, people were, 01:16:18.109 --> 01:16:21.159 executives were stalked. or killed or kidnapped. 01:16:21.199 --> 01:16:22.840 And there have been a couple of kidnappings of 01:16:22.840 --> 01:16:26.319 executives. Recently, the same goes for celebrities. 01:16:27.260 --> 01:16:29.079 For celebrities, that's interesting. We could 01:16:29.079 --> 01:16:31.260 talk about that if you like, but celebrities 01:16:31.260 --> 01:16:34.840 at a certain level are more vulnerable because 01:16:34.840 --> 01:16:36.439 of certain limitations. We could talk about that. 01:16:36.439 --> 01:16:39.819 Are you surprised by the outpouring of people 01:16:39.819 --> 01:16:42.979 that supported the shooter and the United Healthcare 01:16:42.979 --> 01:16:46.779 worker or the United Healthcare executive when 01:16:46.779 --> 01:16:48.869 that happened? Were you surprised by that? I 01:16:48.869 --> 01:16:51.869 was surprised, very surprised actually. And so 01:16:51.869 --> 01:16:54.289 of course, it goes without saying that violence 01:16:54.289 --> 01:16:58.489 is never the answer. And so it will be an interesting 01:16:58.489 --> 01:17:02.850 trial for sure. But that relates to how the risk 01:17:02.850 --> 01:17:05.310 intelligence piece of it, right? It shows you 01:17:05.310 --> 01:17:07.949 how the fact that there's so much support for 01:17:07.949 --> 01:17:11.699 him shows you arguably. in my opinion, shows 01:17:11.699 --> 01:17:15.100 you how real the risk is for people, for executives 01:17:15.100 --> 01:17:18.220 in the health care insurance industry. I was 01:17:18.220 --> 01:17:20.600 shocked by it. Obviously we have disagreements 01:17:20.600 --> 01:17:23.300 of being overcharged, but a life is a life and 01:17:23.300 --> 01:17:26.140 it's important. The last question I have for 01:17:26.140 --> 01:17:29.359 you, Casey, is in reference to the Charlie Kirk 01:17:29.359 --> 01:17:32.300 event that transpired not too long ago and the 01:17:32.300 --> 01:17:35.619 assassination there without getting into who 01:17:35.619 --> 01:17:38.079 he was as a man or if you support him in his 01:17:38.079 --> 01:17:40.619 political stance or his Christian stance. Just, 01:17:40.619 --> 01:17:43.859 were you surprised by the gaps that were allowed 01:17:43.859 --> 01:17:46.539 where the assassination attempt occurred? And 01:17:46.539 --> 01:17:49.640 what do you think went wrong to produce an environment 01:17:49.640 --> 01:17:52.560 where that could happen? Yes. I don't think anyone 01:17:52.560 --> 01:17:55.100 outside of law enforcement has the details and 01:17:55.100 --> 01:17:57.359 exactly went wrong in terms of the mechanics. 01:17:58.039 --> 01:18:00.779 But what's obvious to me. based on the fact he's 01:18:00.779 --> 01:18:04.340 no longer with us in the physical body is that 01:18:04.340 --> 01:18:06.699 it was a failure of what I call one of the three 01:18:06.699 --> 01:18:09.340 P's. I have these three P's of special event 01:18:09.340 --> 01:18:12.039 security. Protect the performer, protect the 01:18:12.039 --> 01:18:14.739 pocketbook, protect the patrons, right? You follow 01:18:14.739 --> 01:18:17.180 those three P's, everything will be fine. The 01:18:17.180 --> 01:18:19.079 first one, protect the performer, is obviously 01:18:19.079 --> 01:18:23.000 a failure, right? Or unless you, that's obvious, 01:18:23.159 --> 01:18:25.380 or unless, again, he would still be here. And 01:18:25.380 --> 01:18:28.140 one of the things that's obvious, based on that 01:18:28.140 --> 01:18:32.560 is just the sight lines and where the shooter 01:18:32.560 --> 01:18:36.329 probably had to be to take that. What appears 01:18:36.329 --> 01:18:38.409 to be a fatal shot and again there there are 01:18:38.409 --> 01:18:40.970 all kinds of there are all kinds of weird things 01:18:40.970 --> 01:18:43.489 inconsistencies that we the public know very 01:18:43.489 --> 01:18:46.829 little about this but about the details, but 01:18:46.829 --> 01:18:49.409 obviously there was a failure the failure to 01:18:49.409 --> 01:18:52.390 protect the performer and a sightline issue where 01:18:52.390 --> 01:18:56.250 there should not have been a Clear shot to do 01:18:56.250 --> 01:19:01.060 what appears to have been done So you got to 01:19:01.060 --> 01:19:03.140 weigh when you are not a, when you're a private 01:19:03.140 --> 01:19:06.500 citizen, your security team doesn't have, has 01:19:06.500 --> 01:19:10.100 no authority whatsoever. Private security teams 01:19:10.100 --> 01:19:13.300 hired by most people who have no authority whatsoever. 01:19:13.739 --> 01:19:15.819 So there are limitations while you can accomplish, 01:19:15.899 --> 01:19:19.380 but there's also a lot that you can do and should 01:19:19.380 --> 01:19:21.880 do. And there's a failure here. So you got to 01:19:21.880 --> 01:19:23.939 look at, was there a risk intelligence team? 01:19:24.159 --> 01:19:28.439 How competent was the team? Was there how thoroughly? 01:19:28.640 --> 01:19:31.060 How thorough were there? Was there a manpower 01:19:31.060 --> 01:19:34.319 issue based on perceived threat? There are all 01:19:34.319 --> 01:19:38.539 these issues that we don't know. And it reminds 01:19:38.539 --> 01:19:41.220 me of the Solomon Rushdie assassination attempt 01:19:41.220 --> 01:19:43.479 in, I think it was New York a couple of years 01:19:43.479 --> 01:19:46.060 ago. For those unfamiliar, Solomon Rushdie is 01:19:46.060 --> 01:19:49.140 an author who wrote a book that's... the clerics 01:19:49.140 --> 01:19:52.359 in Iran hated. And so I think it's called the 01:19:52.359 --> 01:19:54.180 Satanic Verses, the book he wrote. I think it 01:19:54.180 --> 01:19:56.960 was eighties, was it? And so they had a fatwa 01:19:56.960 --> 01:19:59.859 against this author for a while. And then at 01:19:59.859 --> 01:20:03.380 a speech on stage a few years ago, he was stabbed 01:20:03.380 --> 01:20:07.039 multiple times. He lost an eye. And if you look 01:20:07.039 --> 01:20:10.439 at his, he basically had no protection team there. 01:20:10.720 --> 01:20:12.960 And so the Charlie Kirk assassination reminds 01:20:12.960 --> 01:20:16.060 me of that in terms of the complacency and the 01:20:16.060 --> 01:20:19.770 lack of precautions. Yeah, it's just, it's bizarre 01:20:19.770 --> 01:20:22.890 that you wouldn't have guys on top of the building. 01:20:23.430 --> 01:20:26.010 Yeah, that. Exactly. That's a strange one. Or 01:20:26.010 --> 01:20:28.409 at least a drone or hovering something up there. 01:20:28.789 --> 01:20:31.270 It's, I don't want to get down in conspiracies. 01:20:31.329 --> 01:20:33.409 This is a conspiracy show, but this particular 01:20:33.409 --> 01:20:35.869 episode. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And that's why 01:20:35.869 --> 01:20:39.130 I'd say it comes down to potentially competency. 01:20:39.229 --> 01:20:41.930 And look, if he was, if his protection team was 01:20:41.930 --> 01:20:45.229 all retired secret service guys or other guys 01:20:45.229 --> 01:20:48.779 who have actual protection experience. Law enforcement 01:20:48.779 --> 01:20:52.439 doesn't count unless you have, that's a big misperception 01:20:52.439 --> 01:20:55.399 there, unless you've actually had executive protection 01:20:55.399 --> 01:20:56.760 training as law enforcement officer. Same with 01:20:56.760 --> 01:20:59.899 military. I see a lot of job as, let's say, for 01:20:59.899 --> 01:21:02.859 protection person, bodyguard, whatever, it says 01:21:02.859 --> 01:21:05.199 you must have military or law enforcement experience. 01:21:05.479 --> 01:21:08.779 Yeah, good luck with that. Because that's not, 01:21:09.260 --> 01:21:11.220 most people in law enforcement and military are 01:21:11.220 --> 01:21:13.899 not trained to do protection. And so it's a completely 01:21:13.899 --> 01:21:15.579 different skill set, a lot of people don't realize. 01:21:15.680 --> 01:21:17.720 So you got to wonder if... What was the case 01:21:17.720 --> 01:21:20.939 here? And if it was a competent team, was there 01:21:20.939 --> 01:21:23.619 a manpower issue? Because people are expensive 01:21:23.619 --> 01:21:26.439 to hire, and maybe they didn't have enough people 01:21:26.439 --> 01:21:29.439 to place on a rooftop. Who knows? And I don't 01:21:29.439 --> 01:21:31.760 know if we'll ever know, just for various reasons. 01:21:32.140 --> 01:21:34.819 KC, man, you are amazing. Thank you so much for 01:21:34.819 --> 01:21:37.760 coming on. Where can our guests find you and 01:21:37.760 --> 01:21:39.899 what closing thought do you want to leave everybody 01:21:39.899 --> 01:21:44.880 with? Sure. And so, yeah, they can reach me on 01:21:44.880 --> 01:21:47.350 my website. contact me through my website, it's 01:21:47.350 --> 01:21:50.829 coalcambell .com. And yeah, I think that's right. 01:21:50.949 --> 01:21:54.050 It's coal with a K. Yeah, coal with a K, yeah. 01:21:54.149 --> 01:21:57.310 K -O -L -E Campbell, C -A -M -P -B -E -L -L, 01:21:57.390 --> 01:21:59.670 just like the website. I'm sorry, just like the 01:21:59.670 --> 01:22:02.539 soup. That's probably the easiest way to reach 01:22:02.539 --> 01:22:05.539 me. You can use a contact form there and later 01:22:05.539 --> 01:22:07.840 on I could share with you the, they can reach 01:22:07.840 --> 01:22:10.979 me on, on Signal app also. And you could, if 01:22:10.979 --> 01:22:13.319 you want to put that in your show notes. So you 01:22:13.319 --> 01:22:15.659 have a couple of ways to reach me. Great. Awesome. 01:22:15.800 --> 01:22:17.300 So anything you want to leave the audience with 01:22:17.300 --> 01:22:19.920 before you get the part? Yeah, just we discussed 01:22:19.920 --> 01:22:22.359 this a little bit, but yeah, it's an interesting 01:22:22.359 --> 01:22:26.630 world. It's a cliche usually, right? this world 01:22:26.630 --> 01:22:28.850 is all going to hell and it's the worst ever. 01:22:29.229 --> 01:22:31.409 I usually hate that cliche, but if you look at 01:22:31.409 --> 01:22:33.550 the number of conflicts going on that started 01:22:33.550 --> 01:22:35.729 last year and going on now, yeah, it's actually 01:22:35.729 --> 01:22:38.350 one of the worst in terms of interstate conflict 01:22:38.350 --> 01:22:41.489 in decades. And so you look at that, you know, 01:22:41.890 --> 01:22:46.029 terrorism and political violence and polarization, 01:22:46.390 --> 01:22:48.989 especially in the U .S., you might think, wow, 01:22:49.069 --> 01:22:51.829 I'm never leaving the house or I'll be on like... 01:22:51.739 --> 01:22:54.840 red alert every time I leave. And no, I strongly 01:22:54.840 --> 01:22:57.920 discourage that. Live your lives. Do what you 01:22:57.920 --> 01:23:01.140 do. Don't live in fear. Just be realistic about 01:23:01.140 --> 01:23:04.039 things, and especially in terms of organizations. 01:23:04.659 --> 01:23:08.789 Invest in that risk intelligence. professional 01:23:08.789 --> 01:23:11.470 security team, that geopolitical team and listen 01:23:11.470 --> 01:23:13.970 to them. Listen to the experts and you'll be 01:23:13.970 --> 01:23:16.090 fine. That's awesome, man. Thank you so much 01:23:16.090 --> 01:23:18.949 for your time today. Everyone reach out to Casey. 01:23:19.069 --> 01:23:21.369 He's one of the brightest minds in this industry 01:23:21.369 --> 01:23:24.949 and he can help you level up your game. But until 01:23:24.949 --> 01:23:30.630 next time, we are Zero Signal. We're out. We've 01:23:30.630 --> 01:23:33.430 hit the zero hour. That's a wrap on this week's 01:23:33.430 --> 01:23:36.899 transmission. New episodes drop weekly, so stay 01:23:36.899 --> 01:23:39.739 tuned and don't miss the next Signal. Follow, 01:23:39.840 --> 01:23:43.579 subscribe, and spread the word. You've been listening 01:23:43.579 --> 01:23:45.720 to Zero Signal. We're out.