When the CIA is forced to downsize, who gets cut? What happens to the intelligence left behind? And how does political control change the way spies operate?
In the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter’s CIA director launched a brutal purge, firing hundreds of intelligence officers in what became known as the Halloween Massacre. Now, with Trump taking his own axe to Lan ... Show More
Aug 2025
Mossad, Terrifying CIA Technology, Blackwater & The Most Secret CIA Unit | John Kiriakou
John Kiriakou served 15 years in the CIA as a Case Officer and as CIA's Head of Counterterrorism Operations in Pakistan where he lead the raid that captured Abu Zubaydah. After his CIA career, he blew the whistle on the CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Program.John’s Links:Substack: ... Show More
4h 18m
Sep 2025
601. Scandal in the White House
Who was Grover Cleveland, and why is he one of the most controversial American Presidents of all time? Why was the run up to his first term, in 1884 at the height of the Gilded Age, so pivotal to American politics? How did he rocket to the heights of political power? What dark se ... Show More
1h 11m
Mar 2024
Fatal Neutrality: Lumumba, the CIA, and the Cold War
In 1960, the Congo gained independence from Belgium. Patrice Lumumba was elected prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu president. Within a year, Lumumba was deposed and assassinated. This week on Deconstructed, executive editor of Foreign Affairs and author Stuart Reid joins Ryan Gr ... Show More
46m 10s
Sep 2025
Part Two: Former CIA Spies on America’s Decline, The Potential of WW3, & What’s Really Happening Behind the Scenes in the US Government
What’s REALLY Going On Behind the Scenes of the CIA, the Media, and the U.S. Government? On Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, former CIA agents and intelligence officers Andrew & Jihi Bustamante (creators of the EverydaySpy podcast, authors of Shadow Cell: An Insider Account of America’s ... Show More
51m 42s
Oct 2021
‘The Americans’ Creator: Being in the CIA Made Me Empathize with the KGB
In this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Joseph Weisberg explains how his time in the CIA made him see the KGB and Russia in an entirely new light (“They weren't like evil, cold-blooded killers.”) Plus, he tells Molly Jong-Fast all about his new show that’s about a serial kille ... Show More
18m 25s
Sep 2025
Former CIA Spies on America’s Decline, The Potential of WW3, & What’s Really Happening Behind the Scenes in the US Government
What’s REALLY Going On Behind the Scenes of the CIA, the Media, and the U.S. Government? On Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, former CIA agents and intelligence officers Andrew & Jihi Bustamante (creators of the EverydaySpy podcast, authors of Shadow Cell: An Insider Account of America’s ... Show More
1h 10m
Mar 2025
JFK Revisited: FBI Finds 2,000 More Documents
In early 2025, the FBI announced that they had found more than 2,000 new records related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination. What do they include? Why did it take so long to find them? How many will be made public? The world waits to find out. In late 2023, we sat down with journ ... Show More
59m 11s