In the 5th episode of the “Mack on Politics” podcast, we take a deep dive into Russia and the world of intelligence.

First, we began by speaking with former world chess champion, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, Russian pro-democracy activist and author Garry Kasparov (“Winter is Coming”). We discussed his upbringing in Russia and his adult life as a dissident, what he would tell President-elect Trump about Russia if given the chance, what his views about Henry Kissinger and Rex Tillerson are, how he believes Putin will test Trump in the early weeks of his presidency, if he lives in constant fear for his life, and what a post-Putin Russia looks like.

Then, we spoke to lifetime intelligence community professional John Schindler, who worked at the NSA for nearly a decade, taught at the Naval War College, and is a national security columnist for The New York Observer. We discussed his views about Russian interference in the U.S. election, Wikileaks and what their real mission is, who Edward Snowden is and what his real mission is, and we reviewed Iran and North Korea and the intelligence challenges those opaque regimes pose to the U.S.  We finished by examining the state of the U.S. intelligence community, made up of 17 agencies, and then heard John name his four favorite spy movies.