S8 Ep54: Espresso Martini | Russian agents target the Olympics, Trump assassination attempt and President Biden steps out of the Presidential race

[00:00:04] Secrets and Spies presents Espresso Martini with Chris Carr and Matt Fulton. Hello everybody and welcome to Espresso Martini. Matt, how are you? I'm doing good. We're really living up to our name this morning, for me anyway. We're recording

[00:00:36] at a particularly early hour for a few reasons. Well actually, you're doing me a huge favor by doing this today and not yesterday. But anyway, yeah, it's very early here. Yeah, I apologize about that. I'm a few hours away from getting a tooth extracted so

[00:00:51] that's why we're recording. We were both recording a bit late and a bit early so we don't usually record on a Friday. So well, today is a jam-packed episode and one story we're

[00:01:01] covering might even have a developing angle to it now. So the first story we're looking at is a Russian operative who was arrested in France who's alleged to have plans to disrupt the Olympics

[00:01:13] and as we are recording this there's obviously been reports of arson attacks at French train stations on the network which is causing massive delays. So we're keeping an eye on that story as

[00:01:25] we're going through the podcast so you may or may not get an update as more information comes through. Then after the Russian operative we're going to be looking at details of the failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump who was on the campaign trail

[00:01:39] and then we're going to look a little bit at President Biden who stepped aside and out of the presidential race and put forward Kamala Harris as his potential replacement. So we will get started

[00:01:52] with the Russian operative story so Matt I'll kind of go into the details and then we'll come back to you for your thoughts. So we're taking information from an article from The Insider by

[00:02:04] Michael Weiss who's one of our kind of regulars, not in person but just virtually. So the key points are a Russian operative named Kirill Grazinov, a Russian lawyer turned chef, was directed by Russian intelligence services the FSB and GRU to stage large-scale destabilization acts at the

[00:02:23] opening of the Olympic Games in Paris which is going to be tonight. So French security services arrested Grazinov on July 19th at his Paris home. He was found with diplomatic material and charged

[00:02:36] with espionage and four days, he was charged of espionage four days after his arrest and he is facing up to 30 years in prison if convicted. The arrest occurred just as the Olympics were about to

[00:02:48] start in Paris where there have been extensive security efforts including tens of thousands of police deployed and a million individuals will be screened for entry to the most secure games venues. The Associated Press reports that 5,000 individuals have been prohibited from the Olympics

[00:03:07] and with a fifth of those people suspected of espionage as stated by the France's interior minister. The Olympics were indeed Grazinov's target according to a joint investigation by the insider Le Monde and Der Spiegel. He told his FSB superior two months ago

[00:03:25] we will have an opening ceremony like no other. Grazinov revealed his plans during a drunken conversation in Bulgaria which is not great for OPSEC by the way, which led to his arrest

[00:03:39] and he is known to have extensive ties to the FSB and GRU and he obviously bragged about his mission to disrupt the Olympics which was a bit of a stupid thing to do. Grazinov he trained at

[00:03:52] the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and worked in Haute Cuisine for over a decade and used his chef persona as cover for his intelligence activities. His glamorous lifestyle and social media presence contrasted sharply with his covert operation and his email and travel patterns shows direct ties

[00:04:11] to Russian special services and his cover identity and background resemble those of other Russian operatives suggesting a carefully orchestrated cover for his spy activities. French authorities were already on high alert due to other Russian provocations and terrorist operations linked to

[00:04:28] France's support for Ukraine and security measures for the Olympics are extensive with significant efforts to prevent foreign interference and as we just stated earlier at the beginning with this arson attack in France which is a developing story there may or may not be a

[00:04:44] connection to this Russian operation but only time will tell. So Matt I will hand over to you let me know what your thoughts are on all of this. Yeah well this is a really interesting story

[00:04:57] I mean by the time this episode is out the opening ceremonies will have already happened and aired so chances you folks listening know a bit more than we do at the moment. Yes. But there have been concerns for months about the security situation around the Olympics whether

[00:05:12] that's through ISIS or groups related to the war in Gaza or of course Russian attempts to sabotage the games to some extent. There was a story that we had previously covered about Russian bots and everything trying to spread like misinformation about the games trying to scare people away

[00:05:33] etc trying to just sort of just rain on the parade you know. This is really interesting the issue with the high-speed rail lines that were sabotaged as of this morning some sort of arson

[00:05:45] attack details and as like you said as we were recording details about this are really scarce we don't really have much evidence at all as to who was responsible I do think it's worth saying

[00:05:58] though that the tactics like the arson attacks and stuff are broadly in line with other incidents of Russian link sabotage that we've seen across the defense industrial base in Europe targeted at European country supplying weapons to Ukraine right. So it just feels very similar doesn't

[00:06:13] mean it necessarily has to be the Russians right but I mean this I don't know this certainly feels in line with what the Russians were planning to do. I find it interesting that this guy who was

[00:06:26] arrested was so kind of just blatant and I don't know like when the Russians send their people they're not really sending their best right now like you have this guy like getting you know

[00:06:38] fall down drunk in at the airport in Istanbul and missing his flight because of it like he literally couldn't he literally couldn't get on his flight. Oh I know that was unbelievable he was so drunk

[00:06:49] that he couldn't get on the plane I mean I don't know what his appointment was supposed to be the other side but and then he went off on a two-day bender at his retreat somewhere on the Black Sea.

[00:06:59] Yeah like super spy this is not you know I don't know but at the same point it certainly shows a clear willingness of the Russians to disrupt these games to some extent and again I would say

[00:07:13] we sitting here recording this we don't really know much at all concrete about these arson attacks maybe it could be that this is it for the day and the games go off without a hitch at least you know

[00:07:26] the opening ceremony goes off without a hitch maybe at some point in a couple hours in the future there's yeah fingers crossed there is more sitting here right now we don't know. The whole

[00:07:36] idea of these games in Paris to center them around the middle of the city right along the Seine it's an incredibly ambitious plan at least visually appealing dramatic from the standpoint of

[00:07:51] you know having the games in the middle of the city I understand what they're trying to do but it just seems like a security nightmare you know like I saw the piece I think it was on CNN that I

[00:08:01] was watching yesterday it was a piece about they mentioned all of the like thousands of apartments that overlook this section of the Seine and the efforts that they went through to like vet

[00:08:13] everyone who lives in these apartments and like to you know check their details and everything it just seems like I it seems to me like the kind of efforts that you would have in DC around like a

[00:08:25] presidential inauguration you know just completely locked down the center of the city nothing moves until the thing is over the difference is a presidential inauguration at least to that extent the security situation lasts for a couple hours this lasts for about like two weeks right yeah

[00:08:44] yeah yeah it just seems crazy extraordinarily difficult to try to keep this thing going forward without any kind of a significant disruption you know as we've seen in um the bombing in uh Centennial Park during the Atlanta Olympics back in the um 90s right

[00:09:04] that didn't it's remembered as an attack on the Olympic Games even though where that bombing happened wasn't anywhere sort of near the Olympic Villages you know and I think in something previously that we'd said about about the games you know we brought up like you don't have to

[00:09:17] attack like the Olympic Village itself to be considered a disruption of the games to some extent just seems yeah it just seems like an impossible situation that the French are are working with I don't envy them at all of course you know yesterday it was reported that

[00:09:31] the Belgians um arrested seven suspects on terrorism charges uh across the country I don't know if it's confirmed that there was specifically linked to the Olympics or or or who they arrested

[00:09:44] if that's you know an ISIS kind of geared threat or if it's you know the Russians or something we're not really sure about that right now but there are no shortage of people out there with

[00:09:53] the means and the resources to um to uh disrupt this thing yeah yeah indeed I mean I mentioned this on the previous episode we talk about the potential disruptions um you know France has been

[00:10:04] on the front line um with jihadist inspired terrorism for many years now and yeah just I don't know I I feel like I'm sort of just holding my breath for the next few weeks while the Olympic goes Olympics goes on hoping nothing happens because um because internationally there's

[00:10:20] a lot of tensions obviously um Ukraine then we've got the Israel Gaza situation and you know obviously then that brings up memories of the Munich Olympics and I don't know if you heard about there was a scandal involving Adidas trainers recently where um Adidas had hired a

[00:10:37] Palestinian model to to model these trainers that were supposed to be for the 1972 Olympics and a lot of people were pissed off about that because it seemed quite insensitive that's pretty tone

[00:10:47] deaf at best yeah exactly and and my fear a little bit has been because you remember that the um we talked about the cyber operation was going on for Russia they were kind of using imagery connected to

[00:11:00] Hamas uh Black September and the PLO right kind of was echoing you know um extremism of the past and I just have been a bit concerned that we may see some sort of some yeah I don't know there could

[00:11:12] be some sort of attack that has what appears to have an Islamist angle but may actually be a something directed by Russia and it's interesting that they've been recruiting Moldovans to do a lot of the should we say the dirty work apparently you know Moldovans are cheap and

[00:11:28] easy to recruit according to the article like the new Bulgarians yeah yeah and uh Grazinov was was basically recruiting Moldovans for whatever we because we don't really know the details of what

[00:11:40] he was planning to do right but so there might well be you know sort of cells of Moldovans already set up to do something and this um arson attack could well be it hopefully not but it could be

[00:11:51] it's difficult to say at this time because we don't really know but the other interesting thing with Grazinov was his you know his cover as a chef this is the second time recently I mean

[00:12:01] obviously we've had Pregozhin was a chef at one time um and then we had this suspect called Vitaly Kovalev who was apprehended in Orlando and he was arrested for speeding and he was linked to

[00:12:13] the Havana syndrome incidents that have been affecting US personnel and he featured in that 60 Minutes documentary earlier this year so he was the Russian who was in the high-speed chase and arrested at the side of the road if you remember that and he was captured with this

[00:12:26] electronic device that um could wipe the like uh yeah the electrics of his car and the other device in his proximity and his cover was a chef and he even appeared on a tv show as a chef

[00:12:38] not too dissimilar something like that yeah not too dissimilar yeah to this other guy because he's all I had a quick look at his instagram and it was all sort of uh food porn and things like that him

[00:12:49] traveling places going to lavish places so there seems to be this new thing of these sort of Russians hiding in plain sight but just sort of outwardly so they don't cover up the fact

[00:12:59] they have a Russian connection they outwardly uh you know pursuing something like being a chef or a social media influencer uh but by night there seemed to be up to you know no good on behalf

[00:13:11] of the Russians and there's just something very interesting there so should we be concerned about Russian chefs now seriously if I was a Russian chef and didn't have anything to do with the

[00:13:21] GRU or the FSB I'd feel pretty nervous right now like uh yeah yeah oh I know I know so it's crazy and with the Moldovan thing as well what was interesting earlier this year um some Moldovans

[00:13:34] were arrested for painting stars of David across Paris amidst the sort of heightened tensions of the Hamas Israel war and they had links to the Russian intelligence services apparently and not long ago well in 2012 there was Moldova and Moldovan assassin who shot a banker in London

[00:13:51] who had ties to the Russian and Moldovian mafia so you know Moldovia is definitely one to keep an eye on now with regards to some of this stuff that's going on um they definitely are being

[00:14:02] exploited by the Russian intelligence services for their for their bidding and then with Grezynov as well the interesting other thing was so his connection to there's this other unit known as 29155 who were kind of the GRU assassination squad and Grezynov seems to share the same driver a man

[00:14:20] named Andrey Cheganov he lives in the same building as a man named Denis Sergeev who is of unit 29155 which is the GRU assassination squad they both live in this building called Zorg 36 in Moscow and Sergeev commanded the botched operation that to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury

[00:14:44] in 2018 so it's kind of interesting that uh yeah that there's this sort of like almost Kevin Bacon like two-step remove from the uh the Salisbury poisoning so with this character so yeah so it's

[00:14:57] just a very dark and murky links a lot of these sort of Russian operatives abroad are slowly getting exposed and um and as you mentioned with his drunken behavior we hardly got the top crop

[00:15:10] of Russian operatives like it's just sloppy it's unprofessional like what are you yeah why would you why would you do that yeah it's so bizarre and the fact that a so-called professional intelligence service would allow would not be aware of him being like that I mean ex-girlfriends have

[00:15:27] publicly shamed him online for his alcohol issues and obviously he was a heavy drinker among his colleagues I mean I know there is a heavy drinking culture within Russia so maybe it just was has been

[00:15:39] normalized I haven't seen how it affects him professionally until now I don't know but I mean I did many many about two years ago a guest on on this podcast we were just talking off air and he

[00:15:50] was just sort of saying that in regards to a lot of the Russian officers connected to like sort of sleeper operations and and these kind of infiltrations of the west are just not as good as

[00:16:01] they used to be he even said that he was sort of uh former connected to MI6 and stuff so it's all yeah I mean I think if if a CIA officer fit this same description this same sort of drunken

[00:16:16] vodka soaked vibe right and got arrested in a in a country disrupting an operation potentially the director of the CIA would get hauled in front of congress like it would be a it would be a huge

[00:16:30] issue like how how everything too like you consider the the cover for this guy and then the other guy the other chef that we talked about who was connected to the to the Havana syndrome stuff

[00:16:43] reportedly these are covers that don't seem to withstand more than a few seconds of concerted scrutiny I mean this information that we're talking about here comes from you know the crew at the insider and Der Spiegel and Lamond they're all using open source information right they're not

[00:17:02] an intelligence agency a security service and this is how quickly they're able to like fully pick this guy apart you know yeah well Vitaly Kovalev the guy in Orlando he was a former GRU technical officer

[00:17:15] it was all in his history and then he immigrated to America yeah um and I I am starting to wonder here's my pet theory is there someone who's vetting some of these visas who's sympathetic

[00:17:29] to should we say Russia's sort of right-wing cause now because Russia positioned itself in a right-wing way are there people in certain countries across the world who are in charge of sort of uh of

[00:17:42] vetting people for visas somehow in the pay of Russia because these people do seem to be quite obvious and I mean but and then or or okay I mean it's a bit conspiratorial thinking all the other

[00:17:53] way is it's just people not looking hard enough anymore than they used to it's more of a very quick rubber stamping kind of systematic yeah you don't have you don't have the the staff like the

[00:18:04] State Department staff overseas to conduct the interviews thoroughly to the extent that you would that you would want to I don't know that but yeah ten years ago obviously we're in a slightly

[00:18:15] different world where a lot of people were thinking the cold war was long over and Russia's not really a threat so maybe some people were I don't know maybe there was a sort of not a policy

[00:18:25] to scrutinize Russians I'm sure they're being scrutinized a lot harder now than they were but maybe 10 years ago they weren't being scrutinized as much because again like with Anna Chapman she was sort of hiding in plain sight the only real thing with her she had at

[00:18:38] her one of her family members was like a senior member of one of the Russian intelligence services which again had they been scrutinized properly that would have been picked up but because she

[00:18:48] went to America with her married name Chapman which was an English yeah she was married to an Englishman and took that surname did that surname kind of disrupt any sort of basic scrutiny I don't

[00:18:59] know there's just something gone wrong somewhere certainly in the States and until some spice scowl comes out here and I can say in Britain too but certainly in the States and in France

[00:19:07] there's some sort of weird gap in in their scrutinization of people and for the States in particular that surprises me because it is quite hard to want to immigrate to America and you know

[00:19:20] depending on what visa you're going for we get a lot of scrutiny it is yeah and I'd be interested I just would be interested in a bit more about Vitaly Kovalev who was in the States about why

[00:19:31] he was granted a visa what was it about him because in the States depending on what these you go for you've got to prove that you're not and you're like a standout individual in your

[00:19:42] area that you aren't replacing and what it could be an American job basically you've got to kind of demonstrate that your particular skills will allow you to come to America and so like being

[00:19:53] a chef makes sense being an actor is another one or a director if you can show that you've got a certain unique thing that's required by I don't know whoever your sponsor is then you'll get in

[00:20:04] or otherwise there's another visa where if you've you know a certain level of wealth and you aren't going to be a burden on the United States you can get in that way but I'd be interested to know more

[00:20:15] about why some of these people are managing to get into the States and the way they are I think there's a bigger issue there it should be looked at definitely yeah I just I just think

[00:20:25] back to if you know the crew at the insider and these other you know press outlets and stuff if they can pick apart this guy's identity very quickly with just open source information it

[00:20:36] should not be a trouble for you know intelligence services for the FBI you know etc to do the same very very strange here I mean I also think back to maybe linking it back to these to these fires on

[00:20:52] these high-speed lines in France you know some of the the bot discussion centered around the games that we discussed previously it seemed to be geared more towards stoking fear and people to

[00:21:06] stay away from the games right and then you look at okay the four major high-speed rail lines leading into Paris were the ones that were disrupted that physically prevents people from reaching Paris today the day of the opening ceremony right puts a damper on the games they are

[00:21:26] both of those data points that I just mentioned are in line with the same objective which again I mean when this is out tomorrow we'll likely know more but right now I mean it like I think

[00:21:39] Occam's razor is Russians oh yeah there's a lot of prestige around the Olympics and I think Putin's annoyed that obviously the Russians are officially banned from the Olympics and so if he can embarrass

[00:21:51] the French by having a you know lots of rows of empty seats on camera I think he would be happy sure because it will make the Olympics look like they're not very important which then that will

[00:22:02] make Putin feel less aggrieved you know is typically what people do who are not invited to a party they try and poo-poo the party and make it feel less relevant so they feel better

[00:22:12] um so you know I know who will be tuning in tonight it'll be Vladimir Putin just to see how well things have gone so I suspect I'll put money on I would put a cup on a secret of spies cup on that

[00:22:24] this is the Russians in some way probably via Moldovians or some other cut out but I suspect when all is said and done we will find some either GRU FSB link to what's happened um with this uh

[00:22:38] arson attack could be completely wrong I'm really curious to see if if this is if this is the extent of it or if there are more issues in let's say the cyber domain around the games or stuff or like

[00:22:50] something to like disrupt the broadcasts that occurred to me too because like when when this guy said you know oh there's going to be an opening ceremony like no other I don't think the Russians would do something kinetic to the opening ceremony I don't think they're nearly

[00:23:04] that stupid but would they yeah yeah yeah they definitely run into uh they did something kinetic they run into a getting into article 5 territory yeah no it's literally an act of war if you start

[00:23:15] shooting people at the opening ceremony of the Olympic games yeah but um you can imagine so I'm just seeing some footage now of um workers on the railway repairing what looks like cables and

[00:23:25] stuff um so uh yeah I mean what could happen um do you remember do you know that scene in Skyfall where I think M's in a car as she looks at her laptop they're looking she and her colleague are

[00:23:39] looking at something on the laptop and suddenly it something happens in the screen and then this sort of like skull figure appears on the screen and all these things oh yeah that's in the whole

[00:23:48] montage where uh Vauxhall Cross got blown up right that's it yeah yeah so it's just before that and then the building blows up could we see something on those lines with the Olympic broadcast well

[00:23:58] suddenly the signal get interrupted like you were saying and we see I don't know some sort of Russian propaganda thing connected to like Ukraine or something like that if I were sitting in the GRU

[00:24:08] disrupting the broadcast would be something that I think would be feasible and have a high return on investment if I wanted to embarrass Macron and and and the French and disrupt disrupt the games

[00:24:21] that would be something that I would look to quite quite strongly yeah and it's sort of like um as you say it doesn't really harm anybody it just embarrasses people yeah and they'll probably

[00:24:30] you know and it'll probably be done in such a way where you can't completely tell it's Russia either so I guess I don't know if you see a lot of uh Russian embassies around the world tonight tuning

[00:24:40] in at like the time for the Olympics we might need to I don't know if you see all the lights on the embassy yeah I want to keep an eye out I think it airs um I saw the opening ceremony starts 1 30

[00:24:51] in the afternoon eastern time here so that's that's only yeah that's only a couple hours away so we will we will know might be editing this I will probably be editing this I will be on the

[00:25:01] couch editing this literally and it's like oh shit okay and Chris is still hopped up on painkillers from his tooth extractor yeah uh what do we do I know I don't have the ability to speak in a few

[00:25:14] hours so I'm like I might just do use the chat gtp to go up response get you on with like bloody gauze falling out of your mouth yeah with the robotic voice but uh I'm joking aside because

[00:25:26] we don't know what my hope yeah yeah yeah I mean god there might be some atrocity and people die or something which I hope not but uh obviously edit this out yes but uh but yeah yeah

[00:25:46] yeah yeah oh god he could do three scenarios uh-huh but yeah that would work yeah oh god but anyway so I yeah so with the the sabotage I do suspect there might be a Russian connection to all

[00:25:59] of this um and we will see time will tell and I and I hope the Olympic ceremony the opening ceremony and the Olympics themselves go without a hitch but I I'm worried that something's going

[00:26:08] to happen and I think you're right I suspect it you know it might well be um not kinetic it'll be more cyber um so but allegedly actually with the rail attack um we'll call it attack there was

[00:26:21] supposedly reports of some cyber element to it as well but I haven't seen anything significant and just looking at the cables now to be honest with you that is a very um so it's been painted

[00:26:33] as an arson attack which it obviously was and when you I think once we use the word arson I suddenly see buildings on fire I see backdraft yeah you know I'm just looking at an image of

[00:26:43] the cable now and frankly if it only takes what I'm seeing to cause such level of disruption I think we might need to think about how to protect cables better because what I'm seeing is an image

[00:26:54] of a block of black cables um it's on the BBC website and it's a block of black cables and they're just slightly they're just burned it looks as though he's put a little fire next to them

[00:27:04] right and it's just slightly burned through these cables it almost looks like as if cables are overheated yeah almost is is the sort of level of damage I'm looking at here so yeah that that's

[00:27:15] very low level essentially something this wasn't an act of sabotage I haven't seen anything to suggest anything like that but earlier this week on the northeast corridor for Amtrak here they had a disruption between I think it was between DC and New York where um

[00:27:30] uh power lines fell onto the tracks and stuff and yeah shut down rail service between DC and New York for a few hours again that wasn't I don't believe I haven't seen anything indicating

[00:27:40] that that was anything other than just you know an accident normal kind of maintenance issue or whatever um but it shows how how easy it is to disrupt a rail line like that on a day like today

[00:27:52] when you figure it'd be used a lot yeah well uh two years ago I had to do a course in Leeds and I I made the decision because because we have so many rail strikes etc and I'm one of these people I

[00:28:03] will if I'm going to be in another city that's quite far away and especially at 9am in the morning and to get from Leeds to London I think it's nearly two and a half hours so I'm not going to go that

[00:28:13] day I'm going to go the night before which is what I did and anyway I'm glad I did that because the next morning a few uh classmates were late because they were taking the train up from London or they

[00:28:23] were going to and had to drive in the end the and the trains were delayed and disrupted because people were stealing copper from the lines and that's a problem in the UK where people steal

[00:28:32] metals from the lines and sell the metal on and we've had a lot of that in the last few years so again I think like yeah the rail networks need to be slightly better protected especially

[00:28:44] vital cables like that yeah I mean are they uh I can't quite tell whether they're supposed to be it looked okay there are some kind of concrete slabs next to them that could cover the cable

[00:28:55] so maybe this photograph's a bit misleading um uh but still it's yeah I don't know just seems a bit too easy to cause such a level of disruptions so now that's that's yeah my 10

[00:29:08] pennies worth well Matt I'll hand over to you because you've got this uh obviously the failed assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump which has been sort of doing a news quite a large news cycle and that happened just after we aired our previous episodes so we had

[00:29:21] a good two weeks I think to look at all this so yeah yeah I had friend of the pod of course um Jacob Ware come on shortly after the um assassination attempt to do a whole kind of breakdown on the

[00:29:32] issue of political violence in the election and his sort of analysis of of the assassination attempt itself that is I believe the episode right above this one in folks's feet if they haven't heard it already so go check that out there's like a whole lot more about that

[00:29:45] than here but in this one um we're working from a group of of articles that cover various parts of this that all could have summarized all together and stuff but there's definitely a lot

[00:29:56] more context and details in those articles that I encourage um listeners to go check out so here's a couple key points here on July 13th during a rally in Butler PA 20 year old Thomas Matthew

[00:30:07] Crooks attempted to assassinate former president Trump killing one person in the rally and injuring several others Trump of course I'm sure almost everyone listening knows this but was apparently grazed by a bullet or potentially according to the FBI director a piece of glass or other kind

[00:30:22] of shrapnel Trump claims it was a bullet that grazes here but anyway Crooks had searched for information on JFK's assassination and registered for the rally a week prior he then visited the

[00:30:33] rally site multiple times and overflew it with a drone on the day of the shooting the FBI is still investigating his motive and background noting his use of encrypted apps and possession of crude explosives Crooks was flagged for suspicious behavior and using a range finder by local

[00:30:48] police and a counter sniper before firing at Trump despite the Secret Service being alerted 19 minutes prior Crooks fired shortly after Trump began speaking analysis from veteran snipers and a former Secret Service agent suggested the counter sniper teams likely overlooked Crooks

[00:31:04] due to their focus on distant threats and highlighted security lapses including a lack of rooftop surveillance and drones and a breakdown in communication with local law enforcement the ongoing investigations will review the counter sniper team's actions and leadership decisions

[00:31:18] with potential consequences for those found negligent so here's an important point here that I want to highlight so in the war zone article that we've included here they interview yeah a couple former snipers and stuff to like get their breakdown of this they noted how shortly

[00:31:34] before Crooks opened fire there's other people that were sort of in the area of this building kind of spotted him and were calling out to cops like yo he's got a gun right there right

[00:31:44] and then on the video you can see the counter sniper team sort of like adjust and looking in that direction so of course the thought was like why don't you just take the guy out you know like

[00:31:53] right there why did a couple minutes go past and then he starts shooting right it was suggested that the counter sniper teams were looking beyond that building into the roof line and the other

[00:32:05] windows and stuff and not seeing him closer in the foreground so I mean there'll be several investigations about this we'll get to the bottom of exactly what happened but that's potentially

[00:32:16] the answer as to why they did not fire on him immediately they were looking past him at something else right and using scopes and binoculars with a limited field of view so this is the other problem

[00:32:27] isn't it right the secret service also didn't have drones overhead during the rally which of course would probably make it easier to spot him on the roof line the incident has raised questions about security failures and miscommunications with republicans and democrats in congress grilling

[00:32:41] secret service director kimberly cheetle at a hearing this week cheetle resigned the following day after the chairman and ranking member of the house oversight committee called for her to to resign i think mike johnson the speaker of the house did as well so she was gone quickly

[00:32:57] investigations by the department of homeland securities inspector general and a potential house investigation have been announced to address security lapses and lack of transparency and um i believe there was a call between mike johnson and hakim jeffries the democratic leader of the

[00:33:12] house and it was decided like at least from what mike johnson said like he wants this to be like a serious thing not like a partisan yeah food fight so i think we will get to the bottom of this in a

[00:33:23] pretty productive way the secret service arm responsible for protecting top officials is nearly 10 smaller than a decade ago despite budget increases and a rise in political violence in the country chronic understaffing competition from the private sector and growing protection demands

[00:33:39] have strained the agency's resources and personnel the agency faces increased threats and retention challenges exacerbated by historical scandals and a slow-moving hiring process chris what you think oh god lots of thoughts on all of this first of all just say like many people i was shocked that

[00:33:54] it would be assassin would get so close to a former u.s president and managed to take a shot and it is obviously a terrible failure of security on multiple fronts and we will find out more in

[00:34:05] time exactly what were the causes of all that um so i've got i got multiple thoughts i'll do my first round then i'll come back and let you say what you want to say and then and then maybe

[00:34:16] my other thoughts might become relevant or unrelevant i don't know but the government himself so thomas matthew crooks we always seem to with would-be assassins or assassins always seem to use their middle name don't we we do that is yeah yeah it's so weird it's so weird

[00:34:31] so uh but anyway so it's a thomas matthew crook so look look into his history so he was described as quiet and academic and apparently he was evicting a victim of bullying um allegedly over

[00:34:43] his body odor and wearing camouflage hunting gear to school and surgical face masks both during and after covid so he used to get a lot of sort of stick for all that his internet history has

[00:34:54] revealed that he looked into details the jfk assassination just days before he was particularly interested in how far oswald was from kennedy then also he looked into upcoming events with both trump and biden indicating that he was less motivated by who the target was but more about

[00:35:13] the reaction from who he was targeting if that makes sense so i think he was looking more for for the fame and notoriety than actually who he was trying to kill it's a bit like that um

[00:35:24] the kind of the natural born killers type thing of the 90s if you remember that movie by uh what's his name he forgot his name guy dredge jfk all of us yeah all of the stones yeah yeah

[00:35:36] directed by all of the stone so where those killers were looking for notoriety and stuff and i think um you know certainly with the mass shootings in the 90s which were thankfully quite

[00:35:47] rare there did seem to be this sort of thing where bullied people were looking to somehow become big and important by committing a terrible atrocity so there's sort of some pop psychology

[00:35:59] in there for you with that so and as you mentioned you know crooks had been flagged a few times as even body cam camera footage of two police officers and a secret service agent standing

[00:36:10] over his body after the fact and they discussed because they're looking at a mobile phone and there's a series of photographs people who've been flagged and he's one of them and

[00:36:18] they confirm in the discussion oh yeah he was he was flagged he's one of the guys you know and also in that brilliant article by the war zone with the two snipers there's some really interesting real-time video embedded in the article where it's like showing multiple cameras

[00:36:31] simultaneously and you start to get a slightly bigger picture of what was going on the the members of the public who spotted crooks it takes it basically is about one he has one minute and 56

[00:36:42] seconds before he fires his first shot after he's been noticed by members of the public who right nearby him and it appears that it kind of like it looks like the security was very focused

[00:36:52] looking inward to the event and it was very focused around the perimeter of you know around the nearby perimeter of the event but not so um but it didn't appear to be a lot of police officers

[00:37:02] further back who were near enough to be able to respond in time right that's that's the impression i'm getting they're kind of looking more inward and less outward was the issue i think with what

[00:37:12] was going on but there were um i believe there was a local police tactical team at least that was inside the building where yeah fired from but they were looking outside the windows of that

[00:37:26] building toward the rally site sort of like a counter fire or something you know what i mean if someone attacked the rally site um really just a perfect storm of uh just incompetence and and lack of imagination and short-sightedness and resources and really just a perfect storm here

[00:37:46] that that yeah you know a millimeter definitely a breeze and we would be in a very different situation today i know i know i mean donald trump is a very lucky man oh yeah if a bullet did strike

[00:38:01] so the bullet thing is interesting because i like many people it's like you think would a 5.56 caliber bullet really just nick the ear or blow it off but i've been looking i've looked at a few

[00:38:11] videos now that have made me feel confident that he could get nicked um by a bullet and it would only just damage ever so slightly damaged it wouldn't quite knock the whole thing off depending

[00:38:23] on where it was hitting the angle thought he would yeah i would think like if you get grazed by a 5.56 round it would take a piece of your ear off but that's what you would think i'm not

[00:38:33] saying he wasn't i don't yeah no enough about environmentalist yeah but yeah yeah well the last video i watched i've watched three now and there's still there's there's apparently one has been this one has found that a lot of commentators i follow keep referencing where apparently his

[00:38:49] old ear gets blown off in the test and i've not seen that one the one i've the two i've seen and i'm happy to link to them in the show notes but one of them they actually buy some pig's ears

[00:38:58] and stick them on a cardboard target it sounds like a pig's ear it kind of was a bit like that but not but it's sort of like a right wing myth myth busters i think uh because they they they

[00:39:09] use the phrase bro science i was like oh my god so yeah so the two the two the two gun videos i watched it was quite obvious the people who made these videos were into trump uh in one video in

[00:39:23] particular recreated the secret service shooting of crooks they even recreated that for us as well but anyway so with the pig's ear thing they staple all these pigs ears these targets and shot lots of

[00:39:34] multiple calibers at those ears at a slightly closer range they use 5.56 and some higher calibers as well and what they showed was in fact those bullets would almost treat the ear because

[00:39:47] there's not much to it a bit like a bit of cardboard a bit of paper yeah and when you shoot the paper target the amount of distance you will see a perfect hole and because there isn't

[00:39:55] much resistance the bullet would just pass through but if it goes into somebody's main body suddenly you get resistance that's what creates the vacuum which creates the big hole in the bullet fractures and tumbles yeah so the reason why trump could have been hit by a bullet because

[00:40:10] i've certainly seen a photograph a bullet passing him we've all seen that yeah it is highly possible because eight rounds were fired in his direction so it is quite possible with a lot of luck he

[00:40:19] just got nicked on the ear by a bullet and if he did it is physically possible for a bullet to make a very small hole contrary to popular belief that his ear might have been blown off because even i

[00:40:30] was like questioning is that even possible to survive such a thing but apparently it is so just i'm putting it out there for the for purely for um to to be open and honest uh because my initial

[00:40:41] reaction was you know surely his ear must have got blown off and i've watched a few videos that now make me think that it is possible obviously the fbi are looking into it and it is highly

[00:40:50] possible that he could have been hit by a fragment because even victims don't always know what they've been hit by if you know what i mean because you get hit by something somebody's shooting at you

[00:41:00] you're gonna think oh i got a shot and it's totally understandable so even trump himself might not be aware of exactly what it was that his um doctors should know yeah well that's the thing

[00:41:10] too his campaign has been less than forthcoming with details of the medical treatment he received after this exactly yeah and you would have thought uh because i know there's a member of the public is all private stuff but because he's a public figure and potentially the next president

[00:41:25] of america he's like the former president of america you would have thought there's a public interest in releasing details about the wound yeah to hide that strikes me as suspicious so

[00:41:35] so i don't know i'll keep an open mind as to exactly what hit trump's ear but i will reiterate he's a very very very lucky man to be alive today and maybe america dodged a bullet in itself by him

[00:41:50] not being killed because i dread to think what the reaction would have been had donald trump died um yeah it you know i dread to think because one of the videos i watched said uh i can't remember

[00:42:01] how they phrased it now but it's sort of like um they they said something like uh you know he got nick yeah well his head if he moved it one direction he gets nicked on the head and he

[00:42:10] nicked and if he moved it in the other direction we'd get civil war is the way this gum website put it and it's like coming from them that should tell you something yeah exactly and it was also

[00:42:20] interesting with that video so here's the other problem with this whole scenario so the men who made that one of these videos i watched went out and purchased both the exact model of rifle the

[00:42:32] secret service be using and went out and easily purchased the same model of ar-15 that thomas crooks is the most popular assault rifle in the country yeah and so i think the wider issue still

[00:42:46] is the um ability for people with problems because crooks clearly had some mental health problems maybe he was politically motivated and a throughing at the mouth whatever but he was still able to get

[00:42:57] hold of a military grade weapon and it was his father's gun and he went and purchased ammunition himself so it wasn't like he he took the gun i'm assuming his father didn't have ammunition and he

[00:43:08] went and bought some but the fact that you can go to a walmart in america and buy ammunition is an issue in itself or any shop really minimal checks so it's and and one other point that's just cropped

[00:43:18] into my head as you were speaking earlier because it's this whole thing about how he had a bicycle with him and a bomb on this bicycle with some sort of remote detonator and i want to ask did he drive

[00:43:28] to the event or did he take a bicycle because how did the gun get there if he took a bike that's true i yeah i don't have an answer that one it was a bit weird i remember seeing reports

[00:43:40] from the day of the shooting that there were you know suspicious explosive devices of some sort in his car yeah because i've seen something about a bike because even a photograph of bike but maybe

[00:43:50] maybe in the confusion there was a suspicious bike and a suspicious car and in the end it turns out to be his car but right because the car would make more sense um but it's it's very weird nonetheless

[00:44:00] hard to i mean i guess you could travel with an ar-15 on a bike but i mean you're going to get noticed he would raise an eyebrow yeah why you got that big ass long gun strapped to your back

[00:44:12] wheeling down the street like that's suspicious yeah yeah well here's one of the other issues ed with the mass availability of guns and then suddenly making it a political thing where people should open carry and carry guns everywhere that's another thing yeah suddenly psychos don't

[00:44:26] stand out anymore because suddenly they look like a regular person and so if you wash the whole population with firearms when there is a bad person with a gun it's not so easy to tell

[00:44:36] in london if somebody walked down the road with an ar-15 you know it would be a national emergency i think but yeah so yeah it would stand out like crazy um and to put a record once in the i think

[00:44:51] it was the late 90s a man connected to the ira on a motorbike did successfully drive through london with an rpg on his back and shoot at the mi6 building and get away and never get caught

[00:45:05] so it has happened i don't know that we've gotten that bad um over here yet i don't know that you could quite do that um i'm sure there's some people who wouldn't see anything wrong with it

[00:45:16] but we're not we're not we're not quite that extreme yet no yeah we haven't gone full afghanistan no no and as you said earlier obviously the l15 is one of the most popular guns in america and sadly

[00:45:27] it's one of the most popular guns for mass shootings as well and sort of getting into the sort of slightly icky political territory has been quite a few republicans who've been wearing ar-15 pins in congress prior to the shooting because the ar-15 sort of become this symbol

[00:45:43] for second amendment advocates and you know i just think it's led to this sort of stupidity around the debate of guns in america and i would have hoped that when you know a presidential

[00:45:56] candidate gets shot at with an ar-15 it would at least bring up a healthy discussion about how maybe we should make it harder for people to be able to get access to military grade weapons

[00:46:05] because i still don't really understand the need for to personally own an ar-15 i think having one on a gun range and all that i can understand but an ar-15 i don't really understand what the actual

[00:46:19] need for one is for a regular member of the public or even i know you mentioned once before when i brought this up about if you lived in a rural area maybe but you could have there are different

[00:46:29] choices of weapons like shotguns or the classic winchester rifle or even a bolt action rifle that could still give some of the firepower of an ar-15 but not as such a rapid succession um but i don't

[00:46:44] know so i'm gonna hand it back to you max i've been going on for ages now but yeah i mean you raise all valid points the other thing that i'm thinking about in the in the aftermath of this

[00:46:53] and of course i mean there'll be multiple investigations there'll be serious investigations we'll get to the bottom of of what happened here you know i think too that there are in one of

[00:47:02] these articles here talks at length about kind of the the staffing issues that the secret service has and how that you know leads to leads to these issues right you just don't have the people to

[00:47:13] effectively yeah staff these details i mean the the so the secret service protects the president his family right down to his children and grandchildren the vice president and their family down to their i believe their their children right their spouse in there and their children

[00:47:37] former presidents their spouses and children up to the age of 16 key members of white house staff as assigned by the president based on the threat environment so that would typically include the chief of staff and the national security advisor remember during the obama administration valerie

[00:47:54] jarrett had secret service protection too that so she was um senior advisor to the president at the time but she had a secret service detail i'm not aware of who else in the uh in the biden

[00:48:04] white house has secret service protection right like as far as staff but yeah typically the chief of staff and and the national security advisor do they also protect uh the secretary of the treasury the deputy secretary i believe right because the secret service was traditionally part of the

[00:48:21] treasury department before getting moved to dhs after 9-11 in that reorganization they also protect the secretary of homeland security and the deputy secretary and that's kind of like half of what the secret service does i don't know i mean there have been years of various security failures

[00:48:39] and missteps and scandals you know like this one of the articles you have here mentions the um secret service agents on obama's detail during a trip to cartagena colombia were um visiting

[00:48:52] like brothels while on the trip you know there were instances of uh believe in was it in 2011 someone fired shots at the white house residence at you know the windows uh there was another

[00:49:06] incident in 2014 where um believe someone uh hopped the fence and made it into the east room of the white house you know serious security failures that could be too an issue of i don't know you

[00:49:18] know staffing training i'm not ascribing a reason why but i i think the rare bipartisan nature by which like congress and you know everyone's like hey we should we need to take a serious look at

[00:49:30] this i wonder if it's time for a serious rethink of what the secret service's fundamental mission and and and organization look like you know does it make sense is it the best use of taxpayer resources to have an agency that does counterfeiting cyber stuff on one side and

[00:49:51] this massive and critically important mission of protecting key government officials on the other like it's just a weird it's a weird combination that you know that nowadays with the federal law enforcement infrastructure and stuff that we have you don't you don't need to

[00:50:07] do it like that necessarily you know no i mean i thought the fbi could handle half of that and then let them focus on protection right i mean and i don't think it's going to be the the issue of like

[00:50:18] you know the secret service is like broken up and like dissolved because i think that name at least carries a lot of history and prestige and stuff that you would want to preserve in some way

[00:50:28] but i it wouldn't surprise me if this is the thing that ultimately leads to a sort of fundamental rethinking of of what the secret service is and what it's what it's responsible for yeah yeah and

[00:50:40] obviously depending on which administration you get will determine maybe how good or bad that ends up i don't know yeah um we'll see yeah many years ago this was yeah 20 2010 i was uh far more

[00:50:53] involved in domestic politics at that time than i am now but i was at the um dnc winter meeting in dc that was at the capitol hilton which is on 16th street a couple blocks up from from the white

[00:51:05] house and that was um that that winter dc got hit with like two like really big blizzards gave it like three feet of snow right so me and a group of about i want to say like six friends probably

[00:51:19] stayed in a hotel room at the capitol hill on the night before obama was coming to speak to the dnc winter meeting that morning i was in the i was in the shower so like the door closed locked and

[00:51:34] while i was in there uh the secret service came to the room with it with it with a dog and like you know sniffed through the room you know checked everybody out went through a room while

[00:51:43] you're in the shower geez yeah i mean they were like my friends were in the room in the in the hotel room i was in the bathroom right so yeah they didn't come in there while i was in the bathroom

[00:51:54] like along right but it was it was weird like yeah i'm in there i'm in the bathroom with the door closed and locked and they never i mean i'm sure my friends were like oh yeah our friends and they're

[00:52:03] getting ready but i mean they never i remember thinking like they never came in to like check for sure that it was just me in there with you know something that i wasn't supposed to have

[00:52:16] or shouldn't have right yeah never did that and then later that day so we're down in one of the big like ballrooms of the hotel where obama was speaking we go through magnetometers and everything

[00:52:26] to get into the room my friend then stepped out i think he went to the bathroom or something and then came back and said to me yeah i just sort of like found a way back in here that i didn't have

[00:52:36] to go back through like the magnetometers and stuff into a room where obama was going to be speaking in a couple minutes you know so i think about that and that's just like one that's just me and one

[00:52:47] story that i have from the secret service like over a decade ago right and you you think it's sort of just i don't know it's it's a miracle in a way that this that this is the first time

[00:53:01] in like 40 years that we've had a series attempt on the life of a president or or or a former president just seems like pure luck that that trump survived and pure luck that it doesn't

[00:53:12] happen far more often well yeah i think there's a mythology around the secret service ie the kind of the clint eastwood uh what's that film in the line of fire many movies we've seen where this

[00:53:23] there's this sort of idea that the secret service kind of all seeing all knowing and also the if you attempt to take the life of the president or somebody protected by a secret service you're

[00:53:34] not going to walk away from it no and maybe that mythology deters 90 of the people who might think about doing it and then the secret service just have to deal with the maybe 10 to 5 percent of

[00:53:46] people who actually would try it i don't know it's and also there's no such thing as 100 security no matter how much you there's still there are i mean my imagination can plant scenarios if you can get

[00:53:58] access to even heavier firepower how you could easily take on the secret service i um yeah i mean they do their counter-assault team and stuff they do they do train for that for a much more serious

[00:54:10] threat where of course you know the the detail would sort of break off and and get the principal off the x while the counter assault team would stay and and respond to the threat you know i mean

[00:54:20] if if the secret service had had it their way the president would live in a bunker under camp david or mount weather right and just never leave that's that's a full proof right exactly yeah but

[00:54:31] that's not that's not the way you campaign it's not the way you you run the country you know so it's um i mean it's an incredibly different mission they have the amount of people that

[00:54:42] they are supposed to protect and you consider with the environment like okay let's say you have the responsibility to protect you know the president's children consider the threat environment against say hunter biden as compared to i don't know um one of gerald ford's kids right

[00:54:59] radically different in terms of the media attention the sort of political spotlight and an animosity focused on hunter biden for you know good reasons or bad not going there but i mean requires a lot more resources to protect just one of the president's children yeah yeah

[00:55:18] and then people like nancy pelosi her husband was attacked in what was a politically motivated attack right man for hammer and he had zero protection i believe yeah well that's the capital

[00:55:28] police that would have um that would have that would have been responsible for for that but uh yeah i mean it's true of congress too just just the insane threat environment that they're dealing

[00:55:39] with and there just aren't there just aren't the bodies and the and the dollars to to deal with it effectively it's a real problem that we're having no it's not yeah it's not gonna be

[00:55:48] easy no matter what happens and with the kind of contentious political environment that we're now in and yeah i was gonna just say something a little bit about that i mean you know like we'd mentioned

[00:55:58] earlier these ar-15 pins that mega republicans were wearing i mean i hate to say it but since about 2015 trump himself has significantly contributed to the very divisive political environment that's leading to this political violence that we're starting to see and i found

[00:56:17] it a bit rich when a lot of uh mega republicans were turning around and blaming everything on leftist rhetoric when really leftist rhetoric is not i i mean personally i've not seen any mainstream

[00:56:30] leftist rhetoric that's violent there are fringe elements who are nut jobs but they're not the mainstream democrats i've never seen a mainstream democratic candidate in any way um you know use

[00:56:41] a weapon in a political video i like there's some video i think it's from i can't remember which candidates it was now but as a mega republican he used an ar-15 to shoot at a car and they named the

[00:56:52] car socialism i mean i've never seen a democrat there's been a number of those kind of ads you know that that use an ar-15 for a prop that shoot at you know whatever there was a another republican

[00:57:04] senate candidate i believe in missouri who had an ad with like a SWAT team breaking into a house to you know like go after the rhinos or whatever you know yeah so yeah it's like i never thought the

[00:57:15] lepers would eat my face yeah no no so it's and trump himself's been very callous in his comments about political violence he mocks nancy pelosi's husband who was that who was a victim of a politically inspired hammer attack he suggested that followers of the second amendment could use

[00:57:30] their guns to stop hillary clinton's gun reform campaign uh gun reforms at a campaign rally in 2016 and apparently a group called citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington uh known as crew um they're a watchdog organization they looked at 13 000 messages

[00:57:46] published by trump on his true social platform and found him vowing for revenge retaliation and retribution against his foes so trump does like to use violent language and i don't want to victim blame but he has certainly helped contribute to the environment that potentially led to a man

[00:58:04] trying to shoot at him so it's yeah jacob and i'm not good jacob and i talked about crooks's potential motives if if we'll ever be able to fully to fully pick them apart i mean the only

[00:58:18] the only data point that suggests crooks was motivated by you know left-wing agitation whatever you want to call it against trump is the nature of the target of who he shot at right that's

[00:58:29] the only data point that suggests that at all i mean he was a he was a registered republican that doesn't necessarily mean anything concrete either way but it's also a data point against

[00:58:40] that he was motivated by you know the left i find it very interesting that there's no manifesto you know like if you consider okay if he saw himself as uh saving the world from trump from

[00:58:54] from a second trump presidency or something right you would think he would leave some kind of a statement behind and there's none of that you know i think it's entirely possible and probably

[00:59:03] even likely at this point that he was another disturbed young man with access to weapons of war who wanted to go out in a blaze of glory with notoriety i mean it's entirely likely that if

[00:59:19] he had reached this point in october when schools were in session he would have gone and shot up his old high school or if let's say if biden was coming to a rally in his area on that same day he would

[00:59:30] try to take a shot at him you know i think he i think it's probably likely that he was yet disturbed wanted to go out in a blaze of glory take out a nationally important figure and there was trump

[00:59:43] coming to his area on that day and he he took the shot yeah indeed yeah i i suspect you'll be bright that analysis there um you know it would be just this big mystery a bit like the las vegas shooter

[00:59:55] um yeah but we'll see we will see but i mean with the las vegas shoes there still is quite a lot of tangential evidence to suggest he was motivated by conspiracy theories but there's still nothing

[01:00:05] completely 100 solid on that but there we go well shall we move on just to our last bit we don't need to spend too much on it but about um biden stepping down from the presidential campaign

[01:00:17] that was a huge huge thing though yes so again as surely listeners all know unless they were i don't know in you know an island for the last couple weeks in which case good for you you had the right

[01:00:29] idea yeah but so here's some here's some couple notes on kamala harris's foreign policy and what a potential um administration could look like we also have in here um an opinion piece by michael

[01:00:42] weiss again that talks to his sort of thoughts on the month of shterman drang of will he won't he drop out of the race which i think is pretty um interesting anyway we can expect uh kamala

[01:00:55] harris to largely continue biden's foreign policies uh this includes strong support for ukraine building alliances to counter china in the asia-pacific and maintaining support for israel and other arab allies in the middle east there's also some indication so her national security

[01:01:11] advisor is philip gordon who you know assuming saying you know for the sake of conversation if she wins philip gordon would probably be her national security advisor is a bit more less iterative in how they sort of approach these issues so rather than the kind of tortured process

[01:01:30] of will we won't we give f-16s to ukraine well we won't we give them abram tanks or attack on the missiles or something they he seems to be more like yeah let's just do it which you know there's

[01:01:41] pros and cons to that but that sort of seems to be more how he's how he's um inclined uh however harris has shown a more sympathetic stance toward palestinians this could lead to a shift in how

[01:01:52] the u.s handles the israel hamas conflict should the war continue into her uh administration if there is one um her statement yesterday after meeting netanyahu sounded a bit more forceful in her criticisms and biden seems netanyahu noticed that in the statement he put out after

[01:02:07] her statement following the meeting um of course unlike biden harris hasn't known netanyahu for 40 years so there aren't those sort of like personal uh history complications interestingly as a senator harris had a track record of being more hawkish compared to biden and speaking out against

[01:02:23] authoritarian impulses from foreign leaders like muhammad bin salman in saudi arabia modi in india and erdogan in turkey which could present some diplomatic challenges you know trying to thread the needle between maintaining those alliances while also you know speaking out in favor of like

[01:02:39] you know democracy and stuff when it comes to china harris is expected to maintain biden's stance she's advocated for reducing economic dependence on beijing supporting human rights in hong kong and uh xinjiang and reinforcing taiwan's self-defense lastly harris has consistently

[01:02:54] focused on human rights throughout her career she opposed trump's approaches to north korea and myanmar and has been vocal about the rights of the kashmiri diaspora in india which could be potentially interesting it's worth noting that harris came into the vice presidency with limited

[01:03:08] foreign policy experience so she was of course originally a district attorney in the san francisco bay area she was the attorney general of california she was a senator from california before becoming biden's vice president she's relied heavily on a team of advisors who are traditionalists and

[01:03:25] internationalists similar to those who served under clinton and obama so sort of the in broad strokes the same sort of center left a lot of the same people actually that have been around through since obama who would who would be in that administration not a radical change from

[01:03:43] biden at all if she's elected yeah well like many um uh when president biden announced he was going to step down from the race i was a bit surprised because um just days before i'd seen some uh

[01:03:55] information out saying that it was the opposite um and you know obviously i've seen the pressure on him uh for many weeks building um and so yeah so whether or not this will be seen as a massively

[01:04:09] positive thing or a big political mistake i think only time will tell uh personally i think camilla harris vice president kamala harris seems like a good choice and a logical choice to take

[01:04:20] over from biden um and it's good to see that she's got largely the backing of the democratic party obviously officially she's not the candidate right now even obama this morning has just

[01:04:32] announced that he backs her because he'd been a bit cautious before but he announced he now backs she is the yeah she is the presumptive nominee she has in the first i think it was 36 hours after

[01:04:43] biden dropped out she secured the necessary pledges from delegates to to to to get the nominations but um she is a presumptive nominee she has delegates yeah and it's good to see obviously she's committed to the nato alliance which again there's a question mark with trump

[01:04:59] about that um she's committed to supporting ukraine which is good and as you mentioned it looks like she's going to take a more critical line in support of israel but not to the point where they break diplomatic ties or relation or the relationship with israel

[01:05:13] because i i still think that the relationship of israel is important but i don't think it should be a card for the israeli government to be able to do whatever they want carte blanche yeah i

[01:05:22] agree this is one of the contentious issues right now and i think um and i'm gonna say that i think netanyahu would rather have a trump administration absolutely he's going to do everything he can

[01:05:33] to keep this situation going all the way through the um presidential campaign and you know the more of a mess it is the more it will deter people to vote democrat or and maybe go to a third party i'd

[01:05:49] be surprised if anybody who is democratic leaning who's pissed off with the democrats over their handling of israel and gaza um would go to trump but they might move to a third party

[01:06:01] um and or just not vote and i think that's the issue um you know i think this is where america's quite vulnerable sometimes it does seem to be quite easy to manipulate people's voting behavior

[01:06:11] or just to not vote um over you know minor you know what i would say is singular issues not minor issues singular issues and i think that's a bit of a weakness a little bit um in the american

[01:06:23] public there uh but that's just me speaking openly um you know and and so yeah so i think so i think harris is a very capable candidate and i've certainly seen on a surface level there's

[01:06:34] been a lot of energy towards her since and a lot more energy in the political in this race i think uh because i think biden now it's sort of night and day between her and biden i think from an

[01:06:45] energy point of view and the way people are enthusiastic about her but again that's the base who are enthusiastic i don't know how that translates across the whole of america but i

[01:06:54] have been i will just mention alan lichman i've been this whole year i've been following this man called alan lichman who has the 13 keys to the white house um and he just did an update on the

[01:07:03] keys yesterday so prior to um biden stepping down biden had do you want to say what the what his keys are what oh yes so yeah yeah yeah so um alan lichman's successfully um predicted each president

[01:07:20] for the last 40 years and he famously predicted trump would win in 2016 when all the polls were saying it was going to be hillary clinton and he's not using polling data he has these sort of 13 keys

[01:07:31] that are based on an academic study he did and there's yeah so i'll quickly go through what the keys are i'm not going to go into the whole process of how alan lichman makes these judgments

[01:07:39] because that's for alan lichman to say but the keys are so the first key is midterm gains the second key is no primary contest the third is being an incumbent seeking re-election the fourth key is no third party competition the fifth key is a strong short-term economy

[01:07:58] the sixth key is a strong long-term economy the seventh is a major policy change number eight is no social unrest key number nine is no scandal key number ten is no foreign or military failure key number 11 is a major foreign or military success key 12 is a charismatic incumbent

[01:08:21] and key 13 is an uncharismatic challenger so as it stands to alan lichman uh obviously biden had more keys because he was the incumbent and so the democrats have lost the incumbent key now

[01:08:35] now they currently have one two three four five six keys they've got solidly in their favor but they need eight to win the white house and there are two keys that are very likely for the democrats

[01:08:49] to win but they're the ones that are the risky keys for harris so the risky keys are third party competition which is key number four and social unrest is key number eight those are the two that

[01:09:01] are a light blue at the moment they're looking good for harris but if those two keys change to red then trump will win according to alan lichman i don't know what would cause political unrest

[01:09:12] to the extent that lichman says would be needed i don't see i mean unless something like george floyd happens or whatever he said it needs to be 1968 level yeah i just don't know what would what would possibly cause that unless again something happens completely unexpected that

[01:09:29] changes things i can't see what would what would cause that at this point and the third party issue rfk jr is he's all over the place yeah he's all over the place he's arguably drawing more people

[01:09:39] away from trump than he is biden sorry then then he is harris um at this point especially now with the um people at least you know the base of the democratic party are incredibly excited about

[01:09:50] harris at least you know for now oh yeah massively massively it's been great to see oh yeah like hundreds of thousands of yeah last night there was my mom was on the zoom call actually like an

[01:10:01] organizing call for harris it was the largest zoom in history i think 140 ish or whatever a thousand people on it yeah they may raise a few million they raised a few million then they raised over

[01:10:11] 100 million in the first 24 hours after you know she she she took over the ticket yeah the polls are tightening they're within the margin of error in in a lot of places now really just kind of

[01:10:24] fundamentally changed changed the race and you know what i what i like to talk about as far as our elections and domestic stuff is you know what foreign what questions foreign listeners would

[01:10:34] would have or what or what they would be asking um to know but you know it's uh i don't know the the vibes here have been have been very different in the last week um i don't know if that will

[01:10:47] change you know there's been question you know is this like a sugar high or what i don't i don't know it's been really kind of stunning the speed with which she consolidated support behind her yeah

[01:10:57] indeed well if we if the keys to be believed is a 50 50 chance currently that harris will win or trump will win trump needs one more key to win and harris needs to lose at least one key if not two

[01:11:11] yeah to lose so um so yeah actually needs to basically completely get the key number four number eight on her side which she's half got now as it is so um we will see um alan lichman's been

[01:11:23] right for 40 years this could be the first one he's wrong who knows because the question i have which i haven't asked him yet was i think my feeling a little bit is the problem is we're in

[01:11:33] a space now where people are not all thinking the same thing anymore and responding to the same information that they once were i think the dominance of mainstream media is long gone

[01:11:44] and i think since 2016 and in the world of and we've grown into a world of personal truths etc i do wonder whether the criteria for judging the keys um takes all that into account but we'll see

[01:11:59] and that's for alan lichman to answer not me and the other the other unfortunate thing so yes youth hopefully you know youth enthusiasm towards harris seems to be higher than it was to biden but the

[01:12:11] night and day as always right now at least night and day yeah and the problem is youth voter turnout is the most unreliable in america as it is in britain um like famously for all the

[01:12:23] people who were pro jeremy corbyn which was mainly young people very few of them actually went and did a vote yeah if they did they might have got who they well i don't know depends what they were

[01:12:33] uh in our system but um you know it but the problem is like if you don't vote for the candidate you want then you have to you know then basically that's a vote away from who you want and you will

[01:12:45] bear some responsibility they don't get in and young people need to be a bit more politically engaged with the actual political systems that are in place because there's a lot of politically

[01:12:55] engaged people out there but it but they're in a kind of weird um cycle where it leads to actual little uh political action it leads to a lot of protest leads to a lot of like sounding off on

[01:13:08] the internet etc and a lot of positive things but it doesn't lead to actual tangible action that results in your candidate winning and i think this is the problem that somehow needs to be solved

[01:13:21] but then their west wing episodes from the 90s where they had to organize like um rock the vote etc all these sort of things it's been an ongoing problem this is not just a problem for now and i

[01:13:32] feel like an old man for bringing this up you know but it's it's just it is a thing and in fact there are people in my generation i'm in my uh early well i'm 43 am i still early for 40s i think i'm

[01:13:41] not quite 43 is early 40s i would say yeah cool i'm still just early for yeah that will change soon um but but so there are people in my age category who don't vote never have voted because they've

[01:13:55] got this weird apathetic view um especially on the is many people on the left who suffer from this um have this weird apathetic view and seem to misunderstand the whole point of voting and some

[01:14:05] people think it's like a really right wing thing to do and i'm like what the fuck is that about yeah so so yeah there's there's some very bizarre things and i was saying to people if people think

[01:14:14] voting doesn't matter if anybody's telling you voting doesn't matter they're either lying to you or they're misinformed because voting does matter and people need to get out there and exercise the democratic right because there are people out there right now working to take it away from you

[01:14:29] and once it's gone it's gonna be very hard to get it back and you will feel the difference so there we are yeah well said well i mean there's a there's 100 days left to the election

[01:14:40] as of as of today we shall we shall see a situation seems to be very different than it was you know even a week ago yeah we will see i feel i feel very hopeful for you guys in the state so

[01:14:51] i hope you know i i hope um if i hope there isn't a messy primary now because it's the other thing that could mess everything up there won't be no no so there won't be so i'm hoping i'm hoping it

[01:15:04] will yeah yeah be a relatively smooth um transition and we will see and i would like to you know like all the press negative press biden got about his age and his long-term kind of issue for gaffes

[01:15:15] which has been turned into this oh he's got alzheimer's nonsense you know i would like to see that thrown at trump now because if you ever watch a trump speech he is all over the place

[01:15:25] and there's been a big political well so it's been a big uh media silence on people talking about what the substance of what trump says or lack of substance um and instead they just selectively pull quotes to make him appear more of a presidential candidate than he actually

[01:15:41] is and i think maybe this might flip it all around and suddenly he will be exposed for being the 70 year old man 78 year old man with issues that he is so we'll see we shall see yeah yeah well

[01:15:53] there we are well i think we probably should move to extra shots yeah this is our teeth remove or two for a move yes this is our this is our last one for the until until september

[01:16:03] at least yeah this is it till september so we we we will be taking a production break from extra shot and espresso martini um there are three episodes still to come out over august that

[01:16:14] i've recorded and uh matt we should chat about if you want to record one as well but um so that you won't be totally left alone over august but we are officially sort of taking our

[01:16:22] production break over august um and i'm going to be away at some buddhist uh retreat filming people in silence for a few for a week which would be interesting and providing no catastrophic

[01:16:33] event happens um you should not be hearing from us on extra shots or espresso martini until september yeah and i think our plan is still to stick with the second uh saturday and fourth

[01:16:45] saturday of the month as our transmission date i think that for now that that works and we're hopefully going to start transitioning to video so you'll be able to start seeing us do this on

[01:16:54] youtube if you want to see us doing it i still i'm still not sure we're the most exciting people to actually physically watch whilst doing this but um we will we will see but hey if you want

[01:17:05] to watch us you go ahead maybe and we're gonna make do our best to make it look good at least whether whether you think we're great on camera or not is another matter but um but there we go

[01:17:14] but yeah so uh if you want to stay with us for one more show then join us on extra shot on extra shot we will be covering a developing spy case in australia tech bro look arcs courting trump

[01:17:28] influences driving extreme misogyny and a former u.s analyst accusing of spying for south korea so if you want to get access to extra shot you will need to be a patreon subscriber just look at the

[01:17:40] show notes now and you will see a link to the episode in your show notes click on that and it will take you through and depending on which level you pick you either get a secrets and spies cup

[01:17:50] or set of coasters so thank you for your support if you do join us on extra shot if you don't i hope you enjoyed the show have a wonderful summer break have a wonderful weekend please stay safe

[01:18:02] and we will catch you in september thank you for listening thanks for listening this is secrets and spies