Notes on Tom Bilyeu podcast Aug 12, 2025
“The CIA Teaches You to Lie – Even to Your Family” Interview with Andrew & Jihi Bustamante.
Andrew Bustamante was interviewed. Bustamante is a former CIA agent, served for about a decade and left in 2014. He wrote a book on his experience, and is now an corporate speaker and influencer.
The topic was Trump’s Dir of Nat Intel, Tulsi Gabbard, announcing an investigation of the Obama for actions against Trump during the 2016 Presidential campaign. This was another one of the Trump admin’s revenge actions. The Trump admin has already fired all the DOJ prosecutors that handled the thousands of cases of assault on police at the Capitol after Trump’s election loss in 2020, and fired or demoted the FBI agents that investigated the cases. All people following the law, doing their jobs.
Trump has also promoted conspiracy theories about his 2016 Presidential campaign. During the 2016 campaign, Russia intelligence had several programs to disrupt the election and cripple the Clinton campaign. Russian intelligence hacked the DNC, pulled emails for most of the Dems running the campaign, and then released them to the press at strategic moments. Several Trump campaign staffers/advisors including his campaign director had contact with Russian intelligence assets. The FBI became aware of some this in before the election and started investigating. The actions of Russia and the Trump campaign are detailed in the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller (link) and in the report by the Republican led Senate Committee on Intelligence (link). The Obama White House was hands-off with the investigation, and the FBI made no public mention of it before the election.
The podcast includes some deeply delusional framing:
TB: “If we’re being manipulated by our own government, for dealing with all the things you just said, people that are likely to look away from something that’s inconvenient to their career advancement, uh, how do we, the American public, protect ourselves from being manipulated like that? And actually can before you answer that, can I ask an even more distressing question? Do you think we should protect ourselves or should we go along with the narrative?”
A. Bustamante: “If you want the truth, you have to inherently distrust your government.”
TB: “…the media only knows they only feel comfortable reporting what they’re told by the federal government.”
A. Bustamante, says you need to assess who Defense Sec Hegseth is, “All these macro indicators before you dig into did he actually share Houthy secrets on Signal.” Actually we don’t, Hegseth invited a reporter on the Signal chat and then shared secret info with his family and friends. We don’t need to know his story to assess his documented actions.
They seem to have an idea that what America successful in wars was the superiority of American soldiers and tech. The US’s edge in WWII was the ability of the US economy to out manufacture the Axis, and post-Korea the US has fought third world armies and factions, so yes the US had the overwhelming advantage.
Then there’s a discussion of how countries are the people and the one with the greater *will* wins. And the talk moves to vapid pop business bs about the first one to act wins. Then there’s a muddled discussion of how transparency and espionage can be used together somehow to achieve goals.
TB says, “…I I just don’t trust the government. And I assume that they’re going to be as tyrannical as the day is long and that they will go after people randomly”. Why does he assume this is happening, is the current practice of the US government? It hasn’t happened. His example is the word ‘COVID-19’? Unhinged stuff. Then he’s on to “the Democratic Socialists of America, they want to abolish the family.” Which sounds nuts, but more to the point, the DSA has no members in Congress. Zero.
Then the discussion turns to Bustamante’s book and about CIA profiling and being an agent. And Bustamente says men cheat on their wives because they are stressed. Funny.