U.S. Psychiatrist Reveals the Most Dangerous Leaders | Ken Dekleva

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:01]world now of 8 billion people interconnected like this all the time where you know we're all a part of the human race that we could still separate it out and try to tear it.

[00:00:13]>> Some people obviously not not all >> and and and in today's world it's more dangerous because social media can be an ex it's a good thing. Uh, social media allows me to call my mother in Austria uh on WhatsApp for free. But social media can be a fire accelerant for hatred.

[00:00:32]>> That's right.

[00:00:33]>> It's it's it's a slippery slope of, >> you know, you tamp down on it, you're tamping down free speech, and that always goes worse. But I always I always say like I'm always going to be a free speech guy. What we have to understand as human beings is that that is painful, too.

[00:00:49]>> Yeah. Yeah, free speech is it it's it's a painful thing.

[00:00:52]>> The the hard thing too with the Serbs and and even the Russians that I interacted with, I interacted with a lot of ordinary Russians, >> a lot of ordinary Serbs because they speak the language. And you can have people who are well educated, they studied in the West, you know, they went to the top universities in Europe or in the United States, Ivy League level schools for their profession. But when you talk about things like what happened in Bosnia, they're like, "We had to do the right thing. They have a blind spot." That's right.

[00:01:27]>> Or the Russians who are saying, "We we have what we're doing in Ukraine is justified." M >> uh even though they're they're welltraveled, they've traveled throughout the world through Europe.

[00:01:39]They're multilingual, multicultural, but they have a they have a blind spot when it comes to certain types of nationalism can be a good thing. It makes us root and say rahrrah and weep and salute the flag and that's all wonderful. I'm as I'm as patriotic as anybody.

[00:01:57]>> But it can go down a dangerous slope when you combine it with other types of >> That's right. That's exact. That's a great way to put it. There should be nothing wrong with feeling national pride and loving your country regardless of where you are in the world. I feel very lucky that I was born in America.

[00:02:12]I'm biased. I think it's the greatest country though and I understand other countries don't have the freedoms we do.

[00:02:17]But >> when people are born somewhere and they're part of that culture, even if it it's a country that's in a down period, you have pride about where you're from.

[00:02:25]And that that's a great thing. But to your point, when you then use that to stick your to point your finger somewhere else about whatever problems may exist, no matter how big or small they are, and say they exist because of them, >> yeah, >> it gets very very ugly. And you know, I I think one of the things that has really opened my eyes on this just to like and it's a great example with the social media thing you just mentioned open my eyes on to how people can very quickly go down the you know the wrong diagnosis path. I guess >> it's not diagnosis but if you pull up on your computer Dr. Reed Malloy, Rei D M L Y. He's a colleague of mine. He's a brilliant forensic psychologist. He's written a lot about what they call extreme overvalued beliefs.

[00:03:18]>> Extreme overvalued beliefs.

[00:03:20]>> Yeah.

[00:03:21]>> What What is that? Well, they're looking at people like uh they're looking at there have been cases where you know if you look at the division in our country uh that that's the paper with Reed and Taher Raman I my eyesight's bad.

[00:03:39]>> Yeah, let me read the definition just so people have context.

[00:03:42]>> An extreme overvalued belief is shared by others in a person's cultural, religious or subcultural group. The belief is often relished, amplified, and defended by the possessor of the belief and should be differentiated from a delusion or obsession. Over time, the belief grows more dominant, more refined, and more resistant to challenge. The individual has an intense emotional commitment to the belief, may carry out violent behavior in its service.

[00:04:03]>> Yeah, that's the the if you look at the example like in in Russia today, a large percentage of the population agrees with President Putin's longtime belief that Ukraine is not a real country. He told that 20 years ago to President Bush. He told it to then ambassador >> said it.

[00:04:21]>> He told it to ambassador Bill Burns at the time when Ambassador Burns was ambassador from 2004 to 2008 in Russia and of course later became deputy secretary of state and CIA director. So it's a longheld belief and the so it's it's how do you challenge this or like when you look at when I was a resident uh we saw victims who had survived the branch devidian fire >> and they and you know you have to put your bias aside you're thinking they're followers of David Caresh of who led the branch dividians down this horrible tragic path uh and they were grieving the loss of their friends in the fire and of karesh. They had many of them had post-traumatic stress that were presented that we interviewed.

[00:05:11]>> So it's but so you can have cults that have extreme overv value beliefs. There was a cult in the mid '9s in San Diego. I think it was called Heaven's Gate where they all uh they all killed themselves. Of course you had the famous one in Jonestown.

[00:05:28]>> Yeah, Jonestown. Um you had if you look at the study of intense religious beliefs when does that crawl in? It's very complicated.

[00:05:39]>> Oh yeah.

[00:05:40]>> You know I I've seen though the the thing that has really alarmed me recently in how quickly people can turn on stuff is the revisionism of Hitler that is happening online. Now I don't want to overstate this. It's not like, oh, half half of people are actually revising this. It it's a small percentage, but the fact that it's any real percentage at all is crazy. And to me, what it is is you currently have a a government in Israel who is, I will say, objectively at this point practicing a a disproportionate response. And people people are seeing what that looks like and how ugly that is on the other end.

[00:06:24]and you know the children and women and the innocents outside of Hamas obviously not including them that is going on and they are angry about that and so they are now taking that anger for the decision of a current government in 2025 and saying oh therefore Hitler had a point leading up to World War II. I don't know how much you've seen this. This is a very real thing online. Like >> I've seen it. I've seen it. When I lived in Russia, I I was seeing already the glimpses of it in the kind of restoration of of Stalin as a hero.

[00:07:00]>> They're saying he he industrialized the Soviet Union, which is a true statement.

[00:07:05]>> He he made us a superpower. We got nuclear weapons. Those are all true statements. He made people proud. I've had Russians of that generation say, "I feel very proud when I think about my childhood in those days. I was a pioneer. I remember the pride when I first put on that red scarf for the first time and had a pin." They remember that moment 40, 50 years later.

[00:07:29]>> How about the tens of millions of people he killed?

[00:07:31]>> Well, they see they that when you ask that, they're like, "Well, these are the costs. they're they're just or well you look at China with Mao you know Xi Jinping is in my profiles I've written about they're really trying to talk about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people and the good things of that mounted they're papering over not only June 4th 1989 which was the anniversary this week but the cultural revolution the the great leap forward you know Mao 50 million people died in Mao's reign probably 30 million in Stalin. So people can paper that over.

[00:08:09]And the same with Hitler. I've had Austrians and Germans tell me Hitler did many horrible things, but he built the autobonds and you know, so you rationalize the behavior. So when you study these foreign leaders, you have to study their followers and how they're able to get otherwise very intelligent, rational people to go down a different kind of rabbit hole. And they're not crazy. People say, "Oh, they're delusional." They're not crazy. The There are so many divisions now in our country and there are psychiatrists out there that think that and have written that anybody and they're labeling half the country crazy or more. 53% anyone who voted for President Trump is delusional or MAGA.

[00:08:56]>> That's crazy.

[00:08:57]>> But but they don't they're not >> having conversations with people. the the divide is so wide. Well, that's that's we are fortunate. We live in a country where we can still have a conversation if we wish to. In Russia, you can't have a conversation about the Ukraine war. If you call it the Ukraine war instead of the special military operation and you say that online or to the wrong person, you could go to jail.

[00:09:27]So that was the other way that I got interested in this kind of work through my work with Dr. Post and and then combining combining my interest in that area w with working as a diplomat as a regional psychiatrist and physician. And when I got out I went I'd always kept up with the profiling world. Then I wanted to write about Putin. So I wrote my first profile of Vladimir Putin in March of 2017.

[00:09:59]>> Now, what did you write about him?

[00:10:02]>> That we misunderstand him, that we don't truly understand him, that the labels one uses to try to figure out what a leader can do, including psychiatric labels, are not terribly helpful. I mean, I certainly think, as I've written about Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-un, I call it the three Rs. They're rational, they're ruthless, and they're very, very Unfortunately for us, very resilient.

[00:10:26]>> Wait, so you view Kim Jong-un as rational?

[00:10:30]>> Absolutely.

[00:10:30]>> Why is he rational?

[00:10:32]>> He wants to stay in power. He wants to continue the Kim family rule in North Korea.

[00:10:38]>> How's it rational though to completely starve all your people, have them dying around you, and lock them out of the world like the Truman Show? I don't understand. I I don't get me wrong, I'm not therefore calling Xiinping rational as well, but I could see how you could make the argument that civilization carries on while he's in charge, whereas Kim Jong-un I mean these people don't even have an understanding of the outside world. How I >> actually that I want to correct you on that statement. The North Koreans are exqui the North Korean diplomats in government and the people that present, you know, that that present their opinions to Kim are exquisitely well informed.

[00:11:17]>> I would believe that. But the actual citizens, >> the actual citizen, not so much. It's going to be the elites, but they they know what's going on, but they still believe in their system.

[00:11:27]>> So, how All right. So, can you explain like psychiatrically the full-blown reasons why he's rational then?

[00:11:34]>> Well, he he's rational in the sense that he has clear goals. He wants North Korea he has aspirational goals where he wants to rule the country, but he wants it to be more prosperous. When he first came to power, he he made a famous speech in 2013. He said, "I want people to be able to loosen their belts, so to speak, after years of privation and what they call the arduous march in the '90s where gosh, up to 2 million people died of starvation during the arduous march."

[00:12:04]Uh, from about 1995 to 1999, that's gosh 10% of of >> North Korea. But in terms of our dealings with him, he can be negotiated with as a rational actor. That's really what that term means in the context I'm using it.

[00:12:23]>> Okay? Cuz like I will say when you have a guy, >> I he's not crazy. He's not suicidal and he's not crazy. When you do have a guy like that though who's willing to play around with testing his nukes and, you know, trying to show his power to the world. I do think there's something to be said for not obviously not endorsing him or like being excited about the guy at all, but you know, in Trump's first term, opening up a line of communication because he's there. You have to deal with him. You know what I mean?

[00:12:59]>> I agree. And I've written and spoken publicly about that in my profile about Kim Jong-un published in 38 North and the cipher brief in 2018 that the Singapore summit Trump's move to go there was a very bold move.

[00:13:13]>> Yes.

[00:13:14]>> Unfortunately and and I thought Trump's the 2019 Hanoi thing was really the high point and then it failed which is a huge disappointment.

[00:13:25]>> What was the Hanoi thing again?

[00:13:26]>> That's where Trump walked away. They couldn't reach an agreement and he said, "I'm done." And he flew home.

[00:13:31]>> Okay.

[00:13:31]>> And then he went, but then he tried to restart it by going to the DMZ, the first American president to walk >> Yes.

[00:13:39]>> into as a sitting president to walk into North Korea, step across the DMZ, shake hands with him. It's very symbolic.

[00:13:47]Unfortunately, he lost the momentum. Uh, and as I told one of my golf teachers who uh, he asked me about it during the time and I said, "Trump's like a guy who gets the first ever eagle on a on a the hardest par five in the world, but you got to play the other 17 holes, you know, you got to follow up." And he lost the momentum in 2019 and 2020, and then it's time for the election, and then you lose the momentum because of domestic factors.

[00:14:15]>> And we also in 2017 in the UN had the support of the hardest sanctions ever from the Russians and the Chinese.

[00:14:24]We no longer have that support. So Kim is unfortunately become more aggressive and bolden his role in Ukraine. And the thing that worries me the most about Kim, >> everyone is talking in the news about uh the amazing historic uh Ukrainian drone attack against the Russian bombers.

[00:14:46]And we should all applaud the courage, the tenacity, the ability to keep it secret for a year and a half. Amazing.

[00:14:53]While they were planning it, it's a psychological blow. It won't change the course of the war, but it's a big psychological blow to the Russians to knock out a chunk of their, you know, air force. But my first thought was, oh, our enemies can now do the same thing.

[00:15:10]If you don't think Kim can send a lot of drones into South Korea >> or the Iranians can do it. So technologies are used by our enemies as well. So that that absolutely scares the crap out of me.

[00:15:24]>> Well, you look at to go back to Putin again. This was a guy that I I'd studied for a lot of years, long before the current Ukraine war broke out. And I always I'm like, how how do more people not talk about the fact that this dude is a full-blown open dictator of a country that for years was very hostile to us and is working its way back towards being hostile again, you know, and then the war broke out and then it became popular to say that. And then people got fatigued from the war because it just kept going. And we see all the funding that's gone over to Ukraine and and we got a lot of problems here. And people are like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?" Because Ukraine also has certainly in their government, not their people, but in their government there there's there are some corruption issues for sure. So people are very disillusion with the war. But one of the biggest disappointments for me is that there hasn't been an acceptance, which is a tough word, but there hasn't to me been an acceptance on the United States side that whether we like it or not, Vladimir Putin, who has his beliefs as out there as they are, is in charge of this in charge of this country, Russia. And if we want to stop hundreds of thousands of people from dying, there are diplomatic solutions to do that without him taking over all of Ukraine.

[00:16:49]>> And yet people refuse. Many, not all people, but people within the government, so many of them refuse to even have this conversation because, God forbid, you know, you you say, "All right, Crimea is yours." I'm not saying I like that. I'm saying, don't you have to be a realist at some point and look at the human cost? and and also realize that like Russia has a GDP the size of Italy. I mean, they're not they're not China, you know what I mean? Like there's a there's a they're a dangerous power for sure, but there's a level to which they can play the game. If this were China, it' probably be a different story. But don't don't you think there's some sort of psychological barrier there that we've created that is actually hindering us and and therefore hindering the people on the ground who are losing their lives >> at times. Yes. I think we have to be careful about the words we choose. If you read my profiles on Putin, I'm very careful in my choice of words. The Russians read my stuff. I've been quoted in Russian media. They translated my profiles. They edited out the parts they didn't like and wrote I I I had there's I found one once that said, "American psychiatrist praises President Putin's leadership style." Oh, >> the North Koreans have quoted me. They read this stuff. They're very well informed. But that being said, the I think again you have to approach President Putin. If you do name calling, it's hard to negotiate with someone who you call a genocidal murderer, a psychopath, or a thug or a dictator.

[00:18:23]That's not going to bring him naturally to the table to want to talk to you. So I think name calling in diplomacy, you have to be careful. Once you go down that road, it's hard to walk it back.

[00:18:36]>> That's right.

[00:18:37]>> And that being said, you need realism. Uh President Putin remains the KGB operative in the Kremlin. His belief systems are longstanding. They're not new. Uh his inner circle is narrowed. He hasn't changed, but his inner circle has changed. It used to be more diverse and have more people in his first two terms in the in from 2000 to 2008. Now it's a narrower tighter circle of people whose views are hardened and align very much with his.

[00:19:09]>> So that makes it more more challenging now to negotiate with him. We don't have any levers we can pull. and he has we're negotiating with a nuclear armed hostage taker basically and he has maximalist demands >> that that he can sort of put out there and this is I've written this is the biggest challenge for uh President Trump and his national security team for special envoy Witkoff and Secretary of State Rubio who are very experienced but this is a whole different level of hardcore negotiation.

[00:19:46]>> Yes. Because the other thing, you know, the he's a smart dude whether you like him or not. Like Vladimir Putin's been around the block and you don't want to underestimate >> he's highly intelligent.

[00:19:57]>> Yes. His intellect.

[00:19:59]>> People forget he's met with world leaders for the last 24 years, 25 years.

[00:20:05]And when he was deputy uh mayor of St. Petersburg in the '90s, he was in charge of all the foreign investments coming into Russia through St. Pete. and he was the liazison with all the German businessmen. He speaks fluent German, all the European businessmen, the Americans. So, he has a lot of political, economic and negotiating experience. He's a very hard negotiating partner in that regard.

[00:20:30]>> Now, you spent a lot of time in Moscow, so this one's close to you as well because, you know, you were there during his reign and you know a lot of people and how their government works. But when we were going through the places you were, you didn't spend time in China, correct? No, I've never served in China.

[00:20:45]>> Okay. But you've become an expert profiler on Xihinping. So what what initially drew you to be interested in that? Just the fact that they're dealing >> I had studied they're very similar.

[00:20:55]They're a world power. I was very interested when Xi Jinping came to power uh in his rise to power his amazing life story.

[00:21:04]>> Can you go through that with people actually it is pretty incredible. When I started, at first I thought I don't speak Chinese and I've not lived and worked in China. So, how can I really study Xi Jinping the way that I've studied Putin? And one of my colleagues who is a retired uh very senior CIA officer who had served in the 70s on the National Intelligence Council and I had sent him this stuff. He goes, "You wrote, you've never been to North Korea, but you pegged you pegged Kim Jong- in your first profile in 2010 really well."

[00:21:41]>> And so you you you have a sensitivity for this. You'll do fine, you know, studying she. So I I started to read everything I could about him and learn.

[00:21:51]And a guy sent me the most fascinating thing about shei, which was hard to get at the time, but now it's on the internet. it's easy is an interview he gave in 2000 before he was really well known uh which has been translated where he talks about his childhood and his upbringing >> and he talks about the years he spent in in a in a remote village in Chani digging latrines being away from his family as a teenager for about eight years and the hardships and how he overcame those hardships how he developed inner strength I found that fascinating when he was arrested by the red guards, they said, "We can kill you 100 times."

[00:22:31]He goes, "Once sounds like it's good enough." And then they let him go. You know, so there's a psychological resilience and steel in his spine that >> I found really kind of imp he's a very impressive person. And the late the late prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yu, who's met every Chinese leader, including Mao, >> called Xi Jinping a person of of of impressive quality similar to a Nelson Mandela.

[00:23:00]>> Which is a very that's high praise. It sounds strange, but what he's talking about is the the the character and the resilience >> people.

[00:23:08]>> Yeah.

[00:23:09]>> Yeah. So I I became interested in she and really fascinated and wrote about him and that's what led to be me eventually being named a senior fellow at the George HW Bush Foundation for US China relations.

[00:23:23]>> Yeah.

[00:23:24]>> Yeah. There's one story about G like everyone's got their origin story. The thing that that's like whoop there it is. That's why they're motivated by X Y or Z. But the story about G's father >> Yeah. and and the fact that his father was disgraced by the Communist Party and then they made a young Xi who I think was somewhere around seven years old at the time >> denounce him >> denounce him and stand in the middle of town with a sign saying my dad's like a traitor or something like that and his own mom had to walk by and spit on him.

[00:23:54]>> Yeah.

[00:23:55]And when I look at that, again, I don't empathize with someone when they're evil and when they become evil. But I always try to learn and empathize from where someone came from.

[00:24:05]>> Father was one of the there's a new biography out that I'm now reading by Joseph Tigian, which I he's a great writer. I highly recommend it. I've started it. But she's father was one of the was on the long march. He was one of the founders of the people's republic.

[00:24:21]He was one of the youngest vice ministers in the 50s. So, as a friend of mine said, she went from the penthouse to the outhouse and back to the penthouse in his life, but the party rules. If she screws up, he'll go to the jail house.

[00:24:39]Well, there's definitely from an event like that, and I've seen that type of story on a way lesser scale before. I'm not talking world leaders, but when something like that happens, there's a thing that gets clicked off and that person says, "Oh, you're going to do this to me? [ __ ] you. I'll show you. I'm going to rule all you motherfuckers." And whatever that switch is, it got switching him. Cuz you're right. Like from everything I've looked at too, the party does rule. But you can't deny that that guy's ability to get a firm grip on power within that government. Incredible. It's incredible.

[00:25:18]It's surreal. Exactly.

[00:25:20]>> To to rise up the ranks like he did. He was barely accepted into the He had to apply 11 times to get into the Communist Party and he was not accepted to the central committee on the first vote. He was an alternate and then yet Amir I think eight years later became vice president. And one of the things that helps me try to get a feeling for these leaders is I've talked to people who've been in the room with Kim, with she >> with Putin, who've been in the room with them.

[00:25:54]>> Who'd you talk to who was in the room with Xi?

[00:25:57]>> Uh, >> if you're not allowed to say, I don't.

[00:25:59]>> Uh, an American, a businessman who was there on business and a very senior American diplomat who's >> How long ago we talked? 2008 when she was put in charge of the uh Olympics.

[00:26:10]>> Got it. And the what they say is a different portrait than some of the other media port. They said he's very a very good listener. He's very observant >> and and he was cordial to them, but he asked good questions.

[00:26:29]So the the there was a cable that went out of in the US embassy in 2009 that said she is of average intelligence. This is nonsense. I've said so publicly. This is complete.

[00:26:43]>> Who the hell wrote that cable?

[00:26:44]>> Well, I don't know. But it was based on a single source who had known she when he was younger and had a lot of sour grapes and he said, "Oh, this guy's just a political hack. He's not that smart."

[00:26:55]No. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

[00:26:57]>> Yeah. you know, when you look at what she's accomplished for China, uh, and the challenges he's had to deal with, he's probably one of the most he's probably the most formidable leader in the world today. And I've said this publicly.

[00:27:12]>> I think I think you're right about that.

[00:27:13]Yeah.

[00:27:14]>> I hate saying that as an American patriot, but, you know, got to give credit where credit is due.

[00:27:19]>> You have to be a realist about what not how you want things to be, but how they actually are. That's how you That's how you try to find the pathway forward in the world.

[00:27:28]>> But with him, it's like >> there's always these rumors coming out.

[00:27:35]It's been happening over the last 3, four years, especially that, oh, his days are numbered. He's retreating and paranoid all the time. He's going to be taken out of power. But he never does.

[00:27:45]And the country, China can cook their books and everything like they do on some stuff, but the country does even if you discount that >> continue to grow economically and the GDP is neck and neck.

[00:27:59]>> And in the AI race, uh, they're going to, I hate to say it, but if we're not careful, they're already playing catch-up and they're getting close, but if we're not careful in how we use our resources and our talent, they're going to kick our ass. Did you read Kyu Lee's book on that?

[00:28:16]>> Yeah.

[00:28:17]>> Yeah, it was an eye openener.

[00:28:18]>> Yeah, that was a good one. Kyu Lee's book is a good one because they're they're pouring money into key technologies, robotics, AI, cyber, um biio medicine.

[00:28:32]>> Yeah, >> you know, we're we're cutting our resources and funding for these things and the Chinese are surging forward.

[00:28:43]They're behaving like we did after World War II with with the NIH, the National Science Foundation, and in in the ' 50s and '60s, '7s, '8s, 90s, even in the 2000s, and now with DARPA with DARPA.

[00:28:57]>> Yeah. They're they're creating the same kind of mechanisms to surge their capability.

[00:29:03]So when you kick out I I'm going to say this publicly on this show. When you kick out um tens hundreds of thousands of really bright Chinese graduate students and posttos we're shooting oursel in the foot.

[00:29:18]>> Now people are I've talked to leading counter intelligence experts. I've met them at conferences shaking their head as these questions.

[00:29:25]>> They're like they're spies.

[00:29:27]>> Yeah. Some of them are. When when when Deng Xiaoping o did the opening up in 1979 and started sending these students to America, he was asked, "Do you are you worried that some of them won't come back?" He said, "No, if 5% come back and help us out, we're good with that."

[00:29:46]>> That's right.

[00:29:47]>> You know, and that's there the the during Xi Jinping's time, they've tried to lure them back with the thousand talents program. If you tal >> if you think of a Chinese scientist who got his PhD and did a posttock at Harvard or Duke or UCLA or Stanford and and they're crackerjack scientists in biio medicine let's say or robotics at Caltech or something and they tell them we tell them oh you got to go stand in line and we're cutting grants for NSF NIH and all that you won't be able to get a grant and she's saying we'll give you all the grants you want. We'll give you all the techs you want, labor to work in the lab. We'll give you all the lab space you want. Oh, and you can have a nice apartment, too. And we'll give your wife a nice job. And your kids can go to a nice school. You know, you can help out China and be a patriot. That would be hard for somebody who's starting a family and finished their training to turn down, right?

[00:30:48]>> We need to do that. We used to do that really well. You look at the stats. A lot of Nobel Prize winners are are Asian-American immigrants.

[00:30:58]>> A lot of um a lot of startups, I think half the startups in Silicon Valley are Asian-American immigrants.

[00:31:07]>> Uh if you look at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute scholars around the country, Texas has like 20. Five of them are Chinese. They came in the 80s and 90s. And one of them, I think he won the Lasker Prize. that that that's like a precursor to a Nobel Prize. So, these are people with immense talent and we want to draw them in and keep them here to help our country.

[00:31:30]>> We do and there's got to be ways to your point about the and it's a legitimate concern about spying and stuff like that. There has to be ways to mitigate that or also take a page out of China's book like you said in 1979 when their leader opened up you know opened up the the exchange for Chinese people to be able to come here he was playing the percentages game which is yeah there will be some that a lot that don't come back but we'll take the ones that do and I think to some extent you could play that game a little bit here like yeah there will be some that smile on some things but we're going to have enough that are here to take the talent to build which is some people are uncomfortable with that might be the way to do it.

[00:32:12]>> The new cold war is not like the old cold war. The new cold war of the 21st century is a war of human capital and talent. Whoever has the most talent wins.

[00:32:24]>> I agree. That was the thing though, the speed. I I in in Kyu's in Kyu Lee's book, I think it's called AI Superpowers. Yeah. Is that right?

[00:32:33]>> That's right.

[00:32:34]>> It's funny. The very first podcast I ever recorded, I put out 10 the first day I went public with this thing, but number six was the first one I ever actually recorded. There was a whole segment where I was talking about that book cuz it just blew my mind. But he opened my eyes when he painted a scene in one of the early chapters, might have been the first chapter of a college campus in China in I believe 1999 or 2000 where he was at the time living there or visiting or whatever it was.

[00:33:04]And he witnessed at night, I think it was like on a Friday night, all these students went out onto the street. And they didn't go out on the street to party. They went out on the street to like study together. And he said at this time you could make the argument by certain metrics that China was still like a third world country >> 1998. Yeah.

[00:33:24]>> Right. And within a decade not at all.

[00:33:29]Basically what he was saying is if you look at the gap in technology between us and them in 1999 if you're listening not watching I'm holding one hand way up and one hand way below. It's like this. And then within like 10 to 15 years it goes like that and almost evens out. And now when we're talking about something that you brought up like AI, the fear here is when you have a tyrannical government who's just trying to win a race, they we got to worry about it here, but like they're damn well not thinking about the humanity implications of what this could be. You know what I mean? And and if they get somewhere fast, let's say they get to something sensient first, I mean, we might be [ __ ] >> Well, and then you look at space. The Chinese are really going forward very aggressively with their space program, the tyon.

[00:34:20]>> Well, they're they're going to at the rate if we cut our NASA funding and look at all the great things NASA's done. I love NASA.

[00:34:29]>> I love NASA, too. you know, and we cut the funding and we we lose that momentum of wanting to get put a lunar colony on Mars and on the moon and get to Mars first. The Chinese aren't slowing down there.

[00:34:43]>> So, they're they're ramping.

[00:34:44]>> They're ramping that up. They're ramping that up. Yes. The astronauts in China are national heroes. They're they so you create role models for the the next generation to say we want to be like them the way that the right stuff people were heroes when I was a little kid. I was obsessed with NASA when I was a kid.

[00:35:05]Yeah. I remember Mercury.

[00:35:06]>> Be an astronaut.

[00:35:07]>> No, I don't. I'm I'm not techy enough.

[00:35:09]That's a tech culture. That's an engineering culture. I know PE I've met astronauts in Moscow. I've I've got to talk to them. I have friends that are have worked with NASA physicians. Uh, I met astronauts at receptions for Yuri Gagarin's family in Moscow. They're incredible people. They're incredibly brilliant people. I spent an hour talking to Chris Cassidy, who's a now retired, who was a flew multiple space missions, was a Navy Seal, highly decorated in Afghanistan.

[00:35:40]>> Then he went then he went back to school and got a master's degree at MIT. These people are like they they get they get higher degrees like in their sleep.

[00:35:49]They're like, "Oh, it's fun. It's easy."

[00:35:51]You know, and then and then they then he became an astronaut. Really an amazing guy. They're at a whole different level.

[00:36:00]>> It's interesting that you say, for example, in China, the astronauts are national heroes. This is one thing I bring up a lot. It sucks to say it but you know the an advantage that a totalitarian regime does have is I always cite this the Tik Tok example since they don't have free speech and freedom of choice there they get to decide their kids in China their Tik Tok feeds for their 9-year-olds turn off at nine o'clock or whatever it is and when it's on it's nature videos and science videos and math and making learning fun if you M ours is 24/7 and kids are watching titty videos when they're nine, right? And so another extrapolation of that is they can make their astronauts, they can make sure those are the people that are marketed so the kids want to grow up to be that. Whereas here, you know, the influencer who's doing a prank video on [ __ ] Park Avenue out here might win the attention, which which is fine, but like >> we don't have I I remember when I was growing up, so many kids, you'd ask them what they want to do.

[00:37:06]They want to be an astronaut. They want to be a firefighter. They want to be police officer or whatever. And I say this as someone sitting here doing YouTube right now, but like now when you talk to kids, almost everyone's like, "Oh, I want to be an Instagram influencer or a YouTuber or whatever."

[00:37:19]And that's great. But when mathematically everyone wants to do that and you're not putting forth the really the the the things that drive humanity forward as well in other ways. Meaning when you don't have built-in diversity with that because the free market is pushing all towards one area.

[00:37:37]>> They have an advantage over there because they can push that diversity too.

[00:37:41]>> Yeah. You know >> and they have numbers and like they build up their sports program for the Olympics. That's that's a classic example. their their Olympic athletes are are considered national heroes.

[00:37:52]>> Yeah.

[00:37:53]>> Uh so they can they can sort of direct the party and she can set the pathway where they want society to go. It's it's a different culture. It's a different system. It's a very tight authoritarian system. But uh you you know they're going to make an argument works for us.

[00:38:12]>> Yes.

[00:38:14]Who's the most evil person you ever studied?

[00:38:20]That's a good one that I've written about.

[00:38:28]>> Sure.

[00:38:28]>> Miloshovich.

[00:38:30]>> Why?

[00:38:33]>> There was just something real dark about him. I I struggled to see anything that that I could con that I could imagine on a connective on a human level about him with Putin. All the leaders I've written about have done evil things. Putin, she with the genocide in Shinjang.

[00:38:59]um the their system of of their justice system where they lock people up indefinitely with no due process that disappear into the system if they cross the party wrong.

[00:39:11]>> You know, things like that are fundamentally evil to me. But but Putin, you could sort of see a a human side when you see videos him of him interacting with ordinary Russians on campaign rallies or his judo videos, which I've watched many times. You know, there's a playful quality to them. He's he's throwing people, they're throwing him. He's interacting in a respectful way. He's laughing. He's posing for selfies. You could see that with Kim too when he visits all the military bases and missile bases. He's, you know, North Koreans are weeping and he's hugging them. They're all doing selfies with him. It's a big deal.

[00:39:52]>> Yeah, >> you can see that to some extent with shei, but with Milos, you I couldn't see that part of it.

[00:39:59]>> No humanity.

[00:40:00]>> It was just really cold.

[00:40:03]And you're talking for people out there, you're talking about the Serbian leader during the >> 90s who the late Sloban who really led to the destruction uh caused a lot of destruction when you have the destructive wars in Bosnia and Kosovo which he really was the driver behind those. When you look at the brain drain where in a country of 10 million people in the '90s 200 200,000 college educated Serbs left Serbia each year. Brain drains aren't good for countries.

[00:40:35]>> Russia's had this problem now with uh the Ukraine war where a million Russians between the ages of 20 and 45 have left the country. They're not going back when the war ends. You know, they're in Europe, they've plugged roots down, they have families, their kids are in school.

[00:40:52]Why would they go back?

[00:40:53]>> Right?

[00:40:54]>> So, that's that's a problem. Brain drains. We we've historically benefited from brain drains. A million Russians left in the 90s after 911 because of the collapse of their economy and a lot of them went to the west. A lot came here.

[00:41:08]Uh so I I think in this kind of war of human talent these things matter a lot.

[00:41:16]>> Oh for sure. Sometimes I wonder about it with our own systems too. You talk about the the brain drain thing is interesting. It's like you know we've create this is a different context than what you're talking about. of course, but we created this amazing education system in this country and now we've kind of inflated it to the point where we tell every kid they have to go to college and every college is like overloaded and overpriced and a degree is not worth what it's used to what it used to be and so many kids are drowning in debt and you know working a shitty job that you know they can't even keep up with their bills.

[00:41:52]>> Dave Ramsey made a documentary about this that's really good.

[00:41:55]>> I'm going have to check that out. Yeah.

[00:41:57]But like sometimes I wonder if part of >> it's called borrow either stolen futures or borrowed futures.

[00:42:05]>> Sometimes I wonder if a part of that is like us sinking our system in on itself and is going to lead to a brain drain. Not necessarily because people are leaving and going to other places but because people get disillusioned with the upside of education in this country and far fewer of us in the next generations actually get educated.

[00:42:26]in a way that well that's a concern.

[00:42:28]It's it's a different type of >> it's where they tune out. This is what happened in Japan with a with a whole generation of young people in the '9s and 2000s that were educated and no longer wanted to participate in uh in the system if you will and would retreat and just stay in their rooms. The they're called the Hikomori >> and they've written there have been books written about this. their therapists that tried to work with were they shut down, just didn't work, didn't go to school and stayed in their room with no human connection for a decade or more. Uh so that's the that's the risk.

[00:43:08]If the educational system isn't working for young people, you'll have people that tune out. Uh >> I think that >> in a way that's not creative.

[00:43:16]>> I think some of that's probably already happening a little bit. Maybe not at that extent, but I mean Joe's nodding his head over here, too. It's like I disillusionment.

[00:43:28]>> It it it's it's really a it's not it's a social psychology phenomenon that you you look at that social psychologists study when they look at these societies.

[00:43:39]I'm not a social psychologist, but I have to when I write about a leader to profile them, I have to understand the historical and cultural context of the society and what's happening during that time period. It's not just attaching a label to a leader and saying they're they're a narcissist or they're a psychopath, they're a thug. That stuff's useless. All politicians are narcissists.

[00:44:02]>> I was just going to ask that.

[00:44:03]>> It goes with the territory.

[00:44:05]>> Yeah.

[00:44:05]>> You know, now there are degrees of it.

[00:44:07]Some are worse than others, but >> the So I I think you have to look at different perspectives on it and that's what I I try to do in my work. M how much I mean you've mentioned today you've talked about like social media and the forest fire that can be and obviously the instantaneous nature of that and how it can galvanize people behind certain ideas but how much worse is like the madness of like the crowd going to get in our society or do you think we're going to learn to deal with that better? I don't know, but I hope that we'll put some some guard rails around some of that with social media.

[00:44:47]People are talking about it and there's, you know, there could be the companies can build in the guard rails where, you know, it doesn't work after a certain hour for for kids, things like that. you know, you you put more filters and things like that on what people can access without getting into free speech, but there are certain things that we don't want young people accessing and and because it could be potentially harmful. I think the the scary thing for a lot of young people is is the we've seen this in the mental health field is the terrible effects of the pandemic on socialization >> and now people are coming out of that slowly but there's a risk that there will be a subgroup of society that won't get past that. They'll be kind of forgotten or lost because they were kind of under socialized during a key part of their growing up years. a subgroup. I think you're being generous. I think it's more in a subgroup. I see it with adults.

[00:45:49]>> That was a real like I was in my parents house for three and a half years doing this job when the pandemic broke out. My job is to talk with people and have people coming in and out all the time.

[00:45:59]>> So, in some ways I'm I'm very grateful for that because I kind of was disconnected from a lot of the immediate after effects that were happening like out there, you know, cuz I really just worked all the time. But when I moved up here and I would walk down the street and just see people's inability to even hold their head up when you go by them.

[00:46:20]>> Mhm.

[00:46:21]>> That opened my eyes. And it's all different age groups.

[00:46:24]>> I mean, there's people I see every day who look down when I walk by them. I just laugh afterwards. Like I'll and I will even look right at them down >> and away. And that is to me, I'm sure some of that existed before the pandemic. It's just the law of averages.

[00:46:40]>> We're still learning about We're still learning. The mental health effects have certainly been profound. My I and my colleagues in the psychiatric space, the psychological space, psychotherapists, our workloads are through the roof.

[00:46:54]>> I can imagine.

[00:46:55]>> Uh we have we all have waiting lists of months. And I'm a practicing psychiatrist. I see patients every day.

[00:47:02]Yeah.

[00:47:03]>> All week and waiting lists all over the country. It's not just in where I live in Dallas. everywhere. And I I get a lot of phone calls from people who need help. Sure.

[00:47:13]>> From the national security space that know me, people that are retired, they may have a family member or a child that needs help if they're still in the system and they can't access the system.

[00:47:25]So, I I try to help them and access the system and use workarounds to help their loved ones. So, it's very rewarding.

[00:47:34]Yeah. But it's a it's difficult and we cannot we cannot train enough psychiatrists in the in residency programs. Even if they triple their quadruple in size, we still wouldn't meet the demand. So that's why there's we're using a lot of I work with a lot of mid-level providers, nurse practitioners, PAs. They're very good, but that's we can scale up more by using them. Uh because the pipeline to become a psychiatrist is a long pipeline.

[00:48:05]You're talking about four years of college, university, four years of med school, four or five years of residence.

[00:48:11]It's a long 12 13 year pipeline before you're practicing. So that's the challenge in the field, right?

[00:48:20]>> Whereas a nurse practitioner does gets a BSN, a bachelor's in nursing, two years, and then they can start they get a license, they can start seeing patients. So that's an advantage and done properly.

[00:48:34]>> Now you've been out of government for what almost a decade?

[00:48:37]>> Yeah, 2016. Okay.

[00:48:40]>> Obviously there's ways that you use your experiences to stay connected to that, especially when you're writing profiles of world leaders and staying involved with some of the institutions you're involved with. But in your day-to-day work as a psychiatrist, you know, kind of back in America, I guess I don't want to underell it at all, but like the stakes are lower than than what you were doing in the sense that, you know, you had to be a plugman going all over at all different places at all different times with the most stressed people, as we said, at the tip of the spear. You know, do do you do do you find your work now, even if it's not as adventurous, fully fulfilling?

[00:49:18]>> Yes, it's different. The stakes were higher on the national security level, but it was a largely healthy workforce >> that's highly stressed with some emergencies that would come through and dealing with cases I dealt with like kidnappings and hostage takings and things that are super intense. Now, what I have is is a a very much sicker patients, a really challenging population of patients with chronic medical problems, neurologic illness.

[00:49:47]Uh, I take care of late stage cancer patients. I've I probably have had over a 150 patients with stage four lung cancer, prostate cancer, >> other cancers, pancreatic cancer. I've I've the last couple years I've lost eight or nine patients to cancer.

[00:50:04]>> Oh god. you know, and patients with horrible neurologic diseases that also have psychiatric illness, depression, anxiety, who have Parkinson's or Huntington's or have had multiple strokes or dementia. Uh I So it's a very acutely ill outpatient population I work with. So the challenges are intense in a different way.

[00:50:28]>> Sure.

[00:50:28]>> The and I just see adults. I don't see kids. When I was in the government, you had to take care of everyone. So, I had to learn how to treat kids in adolescence.

[00:50:39]>> How do you how do you how do you approach working with someone who's stage four lung cancer and has been told they had they have six months to live?

[00:50:48]Like, what's that like working with someone like that? Sometimes >> it's very it's very emotionally intense.

[00:50:53]Let me tell you a story what happened. I had a patient who came to me. He died of prostate cancer. He'd had it for he'd had it for 10 years, stage four. And he came into me and I said, "How can I best help you?" And he said, "I want you to help me die with dignity."

[00:51:11]I'm like, "Holy moly, that's not what I typically hear in a chief complaint." I said, "The fact that you're already here and able to articulate it shows the dignity, >> but I'm here to I'm I'm not good at helping you die, but I can help you live until you die."

[00:51:28]>> And I treated him for a couple years. He hung in there and then his cancer kind of dramatically worsened and he came to my office with his family and went to hospice weeping. The family's weeping and he died 3 days later and the family came back after. They sent me a thank you note and a card for caring for him.

[00:51:51]So the the message here is the famous article from Francis Peabody in 1927 in the New England Journal of Medicine. He was an internist at Harvard who said the secret of caring for the patient lies in caring for the patient. So you care for people whatever they bring to you got to deal with. I had a resident once another case like this where I saw the patient he was a veteran had been an officer and he died of a late stage cancer. He'd been stable for years.

[00:52:21]>> You he'd been retired from the military, had a good retirement. Um he was, I think, in his 50s, enjoying family life, grandchildren, and then suddenly from out of the blue, his prostate cancer took a bad turn and aggressive bad turn.

[00:52:38]And he came to my office said, "I'm going to hospice." I said, "This is our last visit." I said, "How are you handling?" He says, he goes, "Doc, I'm an I'm a military officer. I've been shot at. He used to be a pilot. I get it." I said, "I'm I'm concerned about my family." So, we talked about it >> and he had a tear came down his face and the resident watching the video with me started crying and she goes, "I I didn't sign up for this on this elective." I go, "Welcome to my world.

[00:53:09]>> This is what we deal with as physicians.

[00:53:12]You know, it's not all pretty. It's hard, of >> course.

[00:53:16]>> So, you have to you have to see the human side >> and try to help people. And I think part of the challenge for patients with cancer that I've had is when I was a medical student resident a long time ago, if you got a stage 4 diagnosis of any cancer, you were dead in a year. We didn't have to deal with these things.

[00:53:36]>> Now, these people can live with the sophisticated treatments. They can live for many years, but it's like having an albatross perched on your shoulder. You don't know what's going to happen.

[00:53:46]Patients have asked me, >> "Should I have a bucket list?"

[00:53:49]>> You know, ingest, but it's it's serious.

[00:53:53]>> I had a patient once tell me he he said, "Now with technology, people are recording videos for their children and grandchildren."

[00:54:02]>> I've had patients talk to me. I asked him, "What did you record? What kind of music do you want played at your funeral?

[00:54:09]You know, so I you have to a lot of what we do in psychiatry, it's not about adjusting your zolaf dose or all that.

[00:54:17]That's easy. It's psychotherapy. That's the hard part. That's the human part.

[00:54:21]That's what makes it enjoyable. It's just prescribing pills. They boring. I mean, they help. I use pills all the time. I write I write 100 prescriptions a day. I write I write 50 to 100 Aderall and Valium and Xanax and Clinazipam controlled subscripts daily.

[00:54:41]>> We're like pill pushers. I get it. But the psychotherapy part is the part that makes it real.

[00:54:47]>> Yeah. Speaking of the real, yeah, that's the hat I'm wearing is the >> the Real Mental Health Foundation, which is founded by a friend of mine who's a former Wall Street executive named Sean Leser. And he started about a year ago after he had a painful depressive experience. He's in his late 40s, early 50s, and he wanted to do something different. He had been involved in what they call impact investing. He was very successful, very wealthy, and his life kind of took a turn. So he started this foundation and the goal is to raise 10 billion dollars in mental health investment in the next decade.

[00:55:22]>> And I'm one of now I think 80 or 100 around the world ambassadors for this where we do a walk once a month >> and take a picture with a hat and walk with people.

[00:55:35]>> That's cool.

[00:55:35]>> And and uh try to promote this.

[00:55:38]>> All right, we're going to stick that link down below. And I see right there people can can >> I know that guy on the left. Chin.

[00:55:45]>> I've had lunch with him a few months ago.

[00:55:47]>> People can see what you're doing. You can also donate if you like the organization. It's really cool.

[00:55:51]>> Yeah. Or buy a hat.

[00:55:53]>> I like the hat.

[00:55:54]>> You can you can go on the website and shop and get a hat. There's a white color and a I think Oh, they have other things, too. They have a >> Yeah, they swag. Yeah, they got a pullover. I see it.

[00:56:06]>> Yeah, that's cool.

[00:56:07]>> One one last question for you, Doc. It's been awesome today, by the way. I really appreciate you coming up here and doing this. But, you know, it it's I'm just curious because of the nature of some of the people you're you're dealing with now that you were just explaining how they how they look at things when when they're faced with with death. Like, do you do you fear death?

[00:56:26]>> No.

[00:56:27]>> No.

[00:56:29]>> You know, I'm not saying it to be facitious. I'm a scaredy-cat like anybody else. The the you know, when I was going to war zones, I I was taking a risk, you know. Uh I I've been to consulates and embassies the day after a terror attack. Had to show up and provide support. Uh you know there's there's risky places I've been to. So it's in the back of my mind you're taking a risk and I was a rock climber as a kid, a big-time rock climber in Yoseite. So that was real scary stuff back then and it's kind of out there. I was a pretty hardcore rock climber. If you've ever seen the movie Free Solo, I didn't I free soloed easier stuff than Al Alex Hnold, but I've been out there on hard climbs without a rope and I was a teenager. You fall, you die.

[00:57:18]But >> yeah, >> I was stupid then. So the the if I if I ask about my fear, it would be I you know, I'm a religious person. When God takes me, I don't know when he's going to take me. I've had a great life.

[00:57:36]I'm grateful for so many blessings in my life.

[00:57:39]>> But I'd kind of like to see my grandkids graduate from college and get married.

[00:57:44]Knock on wood, have good health. But you can't predict when you get older. You can be in good health and suddenly not in good health. I lost a very dear friend a year ago. I'm a board member of One Community USA. You might put that up there. It's a great organization. The late Tony Brinker, I mean, who who started this in 2015. She was married to Norm Brinker, the founder of Chili's, and then Boon Pickkins.

[00:58:11]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:58:11]>> And and she took whatever money she had and started this amazing foundation uh to help communities, to help law enforcement, to help people who are going from jail and prison back into the community, what they call re-entry. So, I'm on the board of this organization.

[00:58:28]And that's cool. Tony was this super amazing, charismatic, lovely person, extremely healthy, you know, super health, super slender, ate right, no bad habits, and then suddenly she got stage four lung cancer and was dead within 6 months. So it it when she was 73 at the time, she didn't look 73, she looked like she was in her early 60s. But bad things can happen. So one has to kind of psychologically, spiritually, mentally be okay with that.

[00:59:01]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, life can change in an instant too. You know, you walk outside of >> the other thing I want to share with you and your listeners too is one other piece of me is a writer uh novelist.

[00:59:13]I've written spy novels.

[00:59:14]>> Oh, that's right. You have a you have a couple couple published, right?

[00:59:17]>> The negotiator's cross was my first one.

[00:59:19]And then most recently this spring, uh, The Russian diplomat's Wife, which is set in Vienna, the city of spies.

[00:59:27]>> That feels like it's based on true events.

[00:59:29]>> Uh, well, it's about the Russian diplomat's wife is Jim Lawler wrote a blurb in the book where he he even said that I'm not really a psychiatrist, that I was under some kind of deep cover doing other things.

[00:59:44]>> I thought that was cute, but it's it's false. The >> I don't think so. I'm thinking he's on something there.

[00:59:50]>> But the story uh the story began the cover is a Gustaf Climpmp painting uh death and life toten. I was in the Leopold Museum last fall when I was visiting family and I walked in the room and there's this amazing painting. That painting is I think eight or 9 ft in in height and I I'd seen it many many times before but it just grabbed me and it bec Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help.

[01:00:21]And if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.