Scott Payne (retired undercover FBI Agent)

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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert.

I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Monica Padman.

Woo!

Monica!

Woo!

Episode 900!

I'm so delighted to announce this episode 900 because I'm a bad exaggerator, as you know.

I'm actually, no, I'm not even a bad exaggerator.

I'm an exaggerator, and it doesn't even make sense because it's a marginal exaggeration.

The other day, I was listening to our show and we had a guest, and we were talking about Sederis, and I said, Oh, yeah, he's been on six times.

And as I was listening, I was like, I know he's been on five times.

Yeah.

Why would I have said six?

Six isn't better than five.

This is a good thing to know about yourself.

So I'm a 20% exaggerator, but I've been saying we're like, oh, well, I've done 850 of these or whatever.

Right.

But it actually is 900.

900 today.

I'm going to start saying a thousand now.

Oh, God.

Well, you know what?

No, we do not get to say that until we've really done it.

That's a huge market.

That's a commitment I'll make in public.

Okay.

Now, let me ask you this.

This guest

who I was couldn't say yes to fast enough.

Yes.

Were you a little bit like, oh, I don't know?

Yep.

Of course.

Sure.

This episode is fucking riveting.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

It is so good.

Yeah.

We started the episode and I was like,

oh, boy, oh, I don't know.

And then

I was so in.

It's so fascinating.

What a life.

I think your heart rate, had you been wearing a monitor, I do think your heart rate would have hit 130 at one point.

Yes, this felt like listening to Armchair Anonymous, where we're getting like these crazy stories.

Yes.

It was so good.

He's so cool.

And who is he?

Scott Payne.

Scott Payne is a retired FBI special agent who spent 28 years in law enforcement investigating cases against drug trafficking organizations, human traffickers, outlaw motorcycle clubs, gangs, public corruption, and domestic terrorists.

He hated this when I said it, but everywhere you read about him, he is definitely the second or tied with the most famous undercover FBI agent of all time, with Donnie Brosco, famous Donnie Brosco.

His book is called Code Name Pal Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis.

And there's also a podcast that he was on that led to the book, which is also great.

It's

a Canadian broadcast production called

White Hot Hate.

And the second season is called Pal Horse,

on which he participates quite a bit.

This was unbelievable.

So good.

Yes.

Please enjoy Scott Payne.

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He's an obtained.

He's an obtur.

He's an object.

He's an upchanner.

Nice lot, by the way.

Oh, thank you.

It's so funny because I live in Hill Country, or even if you're down in South Carolina around Charleston, it's just trees and green.

So you don't even know what's on the other side of that hedge.

You turn the corner, you're like, oh oh my gosh, it's like four malls and everything else.

That's what I picture here because you see a fence and you don't know and you go and you go, oh man, you got a nice size lot.

It's good.

Well, I'm from Michigan and I grew up in a hillbilly area outside of Detroit.

And so, yeah, having a big yard is everything.

Yeah.

You're in South Carolina?

No, I'm in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Oh, you're in Knoxville.

And they built a fucking racetrack between Knoxville and Nashville, right?

Yes.

Those are my friends.

What's it called?

It's called Flat Rock.

I was there.

It wasn't a grand opening, but we went out there.

So I've helped Red Bull racing a lot.

My friends are really connected with the Nitro Nitro Circuit.

So we went out there when it was just dirt, but it's a big deal.

The owner got jammed up on a hit and run.

Oh, oh.

Recently?

Yeah.

Leaving the scene.

Drunk.

No.

I mean, you only run if you're drawn.

I think I hit something.

Well, should we stop?

Should we do a little double check?

Should we find it?

Maybe a little reverse.

Maybe not a reverse.

Maybe just pause.

Let me get out and look.

Oh, my God.

Okay, so you're from those South Carolina.

Yeah, born and raised in South Carolina.

And did you not want to retire there?

No, because when you get a a chance to transfer in the FBI, you go to the headquarters division.

I don't know what the RAs out of L.A.

are, but let's just say you're in Tennessee.

Yeah.

It was Knoxville's headquarters city.

But out of Knoxville, you've got Chattanooga as a resident agency.

They're satellite offices.

We had one at Oak Ridge for a while.

We got Johnson City.

So Columbia in South Carolina is the headquarters city.

I was raised in the upstate, and I also lived and played ball and bounced down in Charleston.

So for me, I either want the mountains or I want the beach.

I don't want the center of South Carolina because no offense to anybody who loves it there, but we call it the armpit of South Carolina because that's the hottest point.

You should call it the crotch if you've got like mountains.

The tank.

The tank of South Carolina.

That's got some charm to it.

It's where University of South Carolina is at, but I didn't really care about going back to Greenville, even though I love it.

And that's where I grew up.

You were out of Knoxville office for a lot of your work and then built a life in a house and bought property there, I assume.

Yes, I was a cop in Greenville, South Carolina.

Last two years, I was a vice narcotics investigator.

I get hired by the FBI.

My first office is New York City.

Oh, wow.

I'm at 26 Fed, and I was still assigned there when 9-11 happened.

It's just the day of 9-11.

I was undercover in San Antonio, Texas.

What age was that?

I came in the bureau at 28, so 29, 30.

In high school, you're working for your dad, you're playing football, you're lifting weights, you're a musician, right?

You're into guitar.

So you have your first taste of undercover work in high school.

I think it's a good story.

Well, I like it because there's a noble cause behind it.

Yeah.

In the book process, I had to dive deep.

You're getting asked these questions.

At first, it's just, hey, I'm going to tell you my blocks of instruction, the things I teach.

This is what I've learned.

Here's mistakes I've made.

Let's try to spread knowledge.

I'm still trying to learn.

But then you dive into, well, let's talk about you growing up.

And then somewhere in that process, whether it was my co-writer or the literary agents, they were like, what do you think is your first undercover?

And I was like, The thing that's popping in my head is high school.

My first two years of high school, my vice principal, Lloyd Walker, short stature black guy, kind of bald and very similar looking to like Mr.

Jefferson.

It's kind of the same suits.

I don't know what it was.

I felt like he did not like me.

I felt like he rode my tail.

But then again, I was a loudmouth teenage kid, boy with testosterone, wearing sleeveless shirts and fingerless gloves and things you're not supposed to do.

Any dude wearing weightlifter gloves in high school, we got to keep our eye on him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's just be realistic.

Throwing a spike bracelet or two.

Yeah, we need to just be aware of what we're doing.

A rolling quarters, some brass knuckles, which I don't even know why you're carrying that.

Oh, yeah.

Butterfly knives.

Butterfly knives.

Yeah.

Major stars.

Major slapjack.

Yeah, I still got one.

So I felt like he was riding my tail.

And then I was in a band called Shade of Green.

We had a talent show, but my maturity was very, very low, experience-wise, because I'd only been playing cake parties.

So if you're up there doing Pretty Woman or Hot for Teacher and you grab your crotch,

I'll have Michael Jackson or something like that, you get a huge roar.

Everybody's drunk.

It's 80s.

So now we're playing at a talent show where people are coming.

coming to see their kids play the violin, do magic tricks, karate tricks.

Some baton, I hope.

Some baton, some gospel stuff.

And here we come out.

I'm grabbing my crotch way more than I thought I was.

Clearly, I was nervous.

I knew I did it when I said hopper teacher, but apparently I was doing it.

I didn't know I did.

So they closed the curtain on us.

It's very TV-ish.

The curtain closes, and they're trying to cut the power.

And me and the bass player still stick our heads out.

And they shut it off.

Well, the principal was Miss Workman.

She came out, and my mother was there.

My mother's a rock star.

I'm her baby boy.

Yeah, yeah.

Only child too.

Yeah, only child.

We're out there in the foyer and everybody's like, oh, man, that was awesome.

And here comes Ms.

Workman.

And she's like, I'm going to expel you.

And she looks at my mom and she goes, you're his mother?

She says, yes.

She goes, did you see what your son did on stage?

And my mom was like, yes.

He's a star.

And I'm like, that's my mom.

But I got to find another school.

So fast forward to like Monday, I get called in the vice principal's office, Mr.

Walker.

And I know it's the walk of shame.

You're never called in there for anything good, at least in my experience.

All right.

So I go in there and he's like, we need to talk about what happened.

I'm already protesting.

I'm like, I know people said I did this, but I didn't do it that bad.

This is BS.

You're always on my back, whatever I'm saying, because I'm a young idiot.

He had a VCR tape.

For the listeners, they used to be VCR tapes, but he pops in the VCR tape and I'm watching it and I'm going, oh.

You've seen it really for the first time.

I'm like, that's an intervention.

I'm looking at it and going, oh, my.

That's what I look like.

Okay.

Why did I even take my hand off?

I could have just left her there the whole time.

And I look at him and I go, that's bad.

I'm so sorry.

And then I started talking about like, but think about like Michael Jackson and these groups.

And I said, they grabbed your crotch all the time.

Before you know it, we were cutting jokes and laughing.

I don't know if that was the catalyst, but after that, it was like we were buddies or as close as you could be, vice principal and a student.

And then we get to the part in the book where he calls me into his office one day.

And he says, hey, man, did you hear about what happened to me?

And I was like, yes, I did.

Cause I could drive past his house a lot.

it was near my neighborhood it wasn't like somebody took toilet paper and rolled his trees they keyed his car they spray painted his car spray paint his car inward

racial slurs yeah it was like the horror story you hear we're talking south carolina in the 80s in the 80s yeah you know it takes a while to get out of that culture and in some places you still aren't out of it you get out there in the rural areas and you're like but

he saw something in me through this process i finally realized it's just me connecting to people it's not blending in because i don't look like i'm a beta club member, but in the 80s, you had a smoking area.

I could go in there and hang out.

I was a jock.

I could hang out with all the jocks.

I could hang out with musicians.

Yeah.

The burnouts.

Potheads.

I could hang out with that.

Does that mean I smoked duck back then?

Yes.

Yeah.

That's how I hung out with them.

I was even on the beta club.

So that was a weird fit, but he must have seen something.

And he asked me if I'd be willing to help him try to figure out who did this because he's pretty sure it's somebody from the school that has a beef with him.

And I said, absolutely, man.

That's wrong what they did.

Some people may want to call it snitching or whatever.

No, I'm doing the right thing.

I'm fighting a good fight, even at a young age.

So I start working crowds, something simple like we're in the gym.

Hey, man, hell yeah, how's it going?

Yeah, shooting the bull.

Hey man, man, do you hear about what happened to Mr.

Walker?

Yeah, man, that's crazy.

I did that in every circle and not like suspicious, I don't think, but there was one dude.

We'd start talking and man, his whole body language.

You got to go by the baseline, right?

If you're always looking up when you answer, it doesn't mean you're lying.

That's your baseline.

Right.

But if you never do it and now I'm seeing different things, it's usually because you're thinking and you're trying to make up something.

This dude did the Homer Simpson.

Well, you get super aware of everything you're doing.

You have a level of self-consciousness all of a sudden.

And you do the back away.

Sink into the shrubs.

Yeah.

And I noticed that.

I don't think they ever pinned it on him, but this part ended in the book.

I know that that kid slashed the tires on my car.

We were at a night event.

It might have been another talent show, but I came out and my Cutlet Supreme was flat.

And I was very angry.

And when you told the principal, he was like, yeah, that's who I think.

They probably called him in and questioned him, but it was clear.

If he didn't do it he definitely had something to do right mr.

Walker was like yep I just recently whatever he did maybe that kid got two weeks of after-school suspension or something but he had just gotten in trouble right most likely it was him and some friends outside of our high school but my tires got slashed and I was pretty sure it was him and then one day in school I went after him I waited for class to start I went down to his classroom and I opened the door and I started busting through desks knocking people out of the way going at him he ran into there was a room in the back of that classroom where they did like the newspaper which is where his girlfriend worked and of course i got got sent to the principal's office.

And he was lenient.

Yeah, Mr.

Waller.

He goes, now listen, I'm going to have to yell and stuff.

I'm telling you, Scott, don't you ever do that again.

Let's get you out, man.

That's cool.

So that's kind of when I start thinking I'm connecting with people.

Not that I'm necessarily deceiving them, but I'm trying to find out information.

Okay, so you go away to college, you end up majoring in psychology, you get a degree in psychology.

I majored in criminal justice, minored in psychology.

Oh, okay.

I could have had a double major.

Two more classes.

Okay.

Monica had had a double major.

I beat her to the bunch.

Well, if I went back for six hours, I just needed two classes.

You should.

You should go back.

Oh, really?

Just roll into class at Charleston Southern?

I probably could.

So you end up getting a job as a police officer.

Yes, at first I couldn't.

I came out of college with a 3-8 average my last two years on the dean's list playing NCAA football.

But in South Carolina at that time, for whatever reason, four different departments told me I did really, really well.

They would love to have me, but they weren't hiring white guys.

And I said, that would have been nice to know know before I graduated.

So how did you end up?

I kept applying.

I was already bouncing at gentlemen's clubs.

I'm using air quotes.

Sorry if I'm offending you, but you can be honest here.

There are no gentlemen in those clubs, and neither was I back then.

It's funny you bring that up.

I was just watching a documentary.

You know, there's this story of this guy who had seen a guy beating the shit out of his girlfriend on the side of the road, then called the cops.

That guy ended up having killed the woman.

But in his statement to the cop, because they're now playing the audio on the documentary, he goes,

well, the gentleman was hitting the girl.

And I was like, No, I think he got that right.

The piece of shit was hitting the woman.

And where would the gentleman have been?

Okay, so how long are you there?

And when at that job do you start dabbling in undercover stuff?

I graduate college.

I can't get a job.

I was actually overqualified to be a mall cop.

They wouldn't hire me.

So I took a job as a security officer for two months, maybe.

And then I said, I can't do it.

I'm going back to Bounce.

And I went to a large country club in North Charleston we had a law enforcement presence there we all got certified in pressure points and control tactics by the state of South Carolina through law enforcement so now I'm starting to get more exposed and I knew I wanted to be a cop and I get hired by Granville County Sheriff's Office so I go back home and I'm uniform patrol for three years and then my last two years I was able to become a vison narcotics investigator and that's when I now go back to Columbia to the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.

I get certified in undercover techniques.

How long is that program?

That was just a one-week school.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

What are they telling you in there?

Seems like a lot to learn in a week.

It is.

A lot of role-playing.

How to commit to your story, that kind of stuff.

I don't even remember there if we really focused on backstory or not.

That came in the FBI because once I got back to the narcotics unit, if I was doing the undercovers, it's not deep undercover.

I'm making a couple of buys and we're doing jump outs, or I may be hopping in a car with the source.

Also, how hard is it when you're in the town that you work in?

Very hard.

Yeah.

You don't have people know you.

That is a huge issue on the state and local level because if I'm in Greenville County, let's just say you get threatened.

Greenville County, number one, doesn't have it in their budget.

Number two, they're not going to spend money to move me outside of the county.

I work for Greenville County.

How many ways can I shave my facial hair?

Right.

Cut my hair on my head if I have any.

It's very thin now.

I'm hanging on to what I got.

I'm in a battle myself.

Oh, man.

Hourly.

Yeah.

I'll be at CPI stem sales next week in Tijuana, and I think I'm going to get them to shoot something in my head.

See if it does anything.

So I start getting that bug.

First thing I did was they rolled me down to a drug corner in a high trafficking drug area.

And here I am at probably 270 pounds.

I do not look like I smoke crack.

And I'm going down there to ask for a 20 because it was a $20 for a crack rock.

I was so scared.

I was scared on multiple fronts because.

Number one, I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of the gurus that are training me.

Number two, I'm just scared because I don't know what the hell you're doing.

Yeah, exactly.

I go down there and they're like, all you got to do is roll up.

They're going to rush your car.

And you just tell them you want a 20.

So they come up and I crack the window because I'm so scared.

I put the 20 through the window like it's a vending machine.

And he's like, what you want?

Yelling at me.

And I'm like,

I'm like, a 20, you know?

He takes the 20 and then he yells at me to roll the window down because he can't hand me the dope through the window.

So I started getting that bug and I started learning.

But to the question you asked, I hope it's changed now.

I still teach at narcotics officers associations and conferences.

I need to ask this question at the next one, but you come in as a fresh face.

So as a fresh face, you can go by on the corners, hop in with the source.

But after a while, that's your county or your your city.

You go to court.

Before long, everybody knows.

Now you have the wisdom and you can make great cases in that unit.

But a lot of times they'll kick you out to bring in a fresh face, but that fresh face has no experience working this stuff.

So you got to have some kind of transition or oversight.

Once I got in the FBI and I learned about the undercover program, you get certified and we can go anywhere.

Right.

So how do you end up at the FBI?

Because I want to get into some of these cases.

I remember sitting with my sergeant on a surveillance.

He was a Southern Command narcotic, Sergeant Kellett, former Marine, Fu Manchu, looked like a bulldog, built like a bulldog.

I think he even had a bulldog on his arm.

Sure.

He was committed.

Maybe he went to Georgia.

Maybe.

Hey.

Big red.

That's right.

Roll tide.

No.

Roll tide.

He always tries to do that.

I always cut it.

We can throw in the Tennessee balls and throw in a gator.

Oh, no.

I don't know what y'all throwing down.

Roll tie is usually sufficient to get her pissed off.

Yeah, I know, right?

Mama.

I'm sitting with him one day and he says, hey, my nickname at that point was Kingpin.

He goes, Kingpin, if I was your age, I had a degree and I was single, man, I'd apply with the FBI and I'd put New York as my first office.

And I was like, what in the hell's wrong?

Like, you kidding me?

Really?

I only thought the FBI worked like bank robberies.

I didn't know they worked drugs and everything else.

I started doing research and I applied with them first because I was told they were the hardest to get hired by back then.

I never got a chance to fill out DEAs or the Marshalls or anybody else.

So it just kept going.

I would pass phase one and then it's lie lie detectors and physical fitness and then you pass phase two and then you get a slot as a new agent in Quantico.

Wow.

So I go to Quantico.

It's 98.

I leave the sheriff's office.

Are you married yet or anything?

No.

You have nothing tiny down.

Got a bass handle in the truck.

Okay.

I found out two months in that I was going to New York City.

I started meeting NYPD cops.

They're like, what do you drive?

I go, stick shift, standard cab, four by four truck with a shotgun rack.

And I got a bass hand.

I'm like, oh, you're not coming up here with that.

I go, yeah, I am.

So I lived right on the river in Jersey.

I was just north of the Empire State Building.

Back then, I smoked cigarettes and every night at midnight, I'd be out there letting my dog out, smoking a cigarette, and watch the lights cut off on the top.

Yeah, that's the view.

It's very surreal.

So I start working there and then I land this classified case and I get approved to be the undercover.

After about 30 to 90 days, I became the primary, which means now I'm there full-time.

They ended up writing me in for a specialty transfer because we didn't know how long this undercover was going to go on.

And that's how I got down to McAllen, Texas.

Once that was over, then I got a slot in the undercover school.

Okay, so over the years, you've been in over a dozen of these long-term, deep undercover situations.

Probably my greatest interest up until I was probably 30 was outlaw biker gangs.

I was obsessed with the Hells Angels.

I've read so many books about them.

And you went undercover with the Outlaws?

Yep, I'm right there with you.

I read them all too.

Three Can Keep a Secret if two of them are dead.

Hunter S.

Thompson one.

Yeah.

Okay, so the Outlaws, for people who don't know, that's real as it gets.

It's the Hells Angels and the Outlaws.

And those two have always been embroiled in probably the biggest war.

There's a large four, but they're at the top.

Well, the Varga?

It usually goes Hells Angels, Outlaws, maybe Pagans after that.

And I'm trying to remember.

I think Mongols are smaller.

Oh, Mongols, yeah.

I'm sorry, Banditos are huge.

It's probably Hell's Angels, Outlaws, Banditos, Pagans.

But nearly every time you read about a shootout at a casino, a shootout at Bike Week, the Outlaws are involved.

Could be.

They're for real.

I would say it depends on the chapter, but yes.

Okay.

That's fair of you.

Belushi brought one of his Hells Angels friends out on stage during when they say goodnight.

Oh, he also had Fear come on.

Belushi did a lot of weird shit, but he got the band Fear to play.

He also brought out Hell's Angels.

He was on an elevator going up in 30 Rock, and two outlaws got in the elevator with him and said, We don't want to see that on TV again.

That's like one of his stories.

That makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so tell me that.

I respect that.

Tell me that process.

Because my understanding of it is you got a probe for like a year in most of these clubs, right?

Usually the bylaws would say six months.

But because of law enforcement infiltration, I've heard of some say you got to be a hangaround for two years before you can even prospect or probate.

And then that's going to be a year process.

So now you've got three years in it before you're even wearing a patch.

Yeah, so how.

It was a different thought process because I am not knocking anybody who's gained a patch.

My ego wanted a patch.

Of course.

I would love to have that cut hanging.

But here's what I can tell you.

There have been hundreds.

of law enforcement officers who have patched into biker clubs.

1% are biker clubs.

And a lot of times the cases didn't work because you got to do enough to be in what's it mean what's what mean the patch so if you want to join the hells angels yeah you're going to be a probie for at least a year you go on all the camping trips like a rookie yeah you get your ass kicked you do all the work hazing and at the end of this experience they will vote you in or out if they vote you out they keep your bike and your and they tell you to get the out of town if they invite you in you get the patch and once you put the patch on if i'm at a bar and i want to fight at hells angels I have to say, please take your jacket off.

Because if I don't and I try to fight a guy with the patch on, I'm fighting the whole club.

Those are the rules.

I don't know why I'm saying all this.

If you go as far back in all the writings, I've read, just like you've read, 70s, 80s, you see that kind of stuff, but the patch is your cut.

So you're going to have a top rocker.

And that's going to say Outlaws MC or Hell's Angels MC.

And then the middle piece is going to be the death head for Hell's Angels, or it's going to be Charlie for the Outlaws, which is two cross pistons and a skull.

They refer to the skull as Charlie.

Then you have your bottom rocker.

That bottom rocker is generally your state.

So that's when you start getting into stuff territory-wise.

It's not your chapter, it's your state.

State.

Like Boston.

Boston was weird because Boston and south of Boston was outlaw territory.

Boston and north of Boston was Hell's Angels territory.

Right.

So you get in the big areas like that or Florida.

Florida has a mass.

California is a mass.

Yeah, it's a big state.

I mean, it's a great riding state with great weather.

Also, a good three-way for drugs and criminal activity.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of meth out here.

Supported all those groups.

Not saying they all do it.

I'm just saying.

So how did you get ingratiated?

What I ended up doing, and trust me, in the case, there were multiple chances to patch.

I was pleaded by certain members to, hey, man, just get a P.O.

box up here.

You come in here, man.

You patch.

This is me in the clubhouse on recording with the doors locked.

And I'm like, I'm very humbled by that.

That means so much to me.

I said, but why would I subject myself to six months of bullshit?

I'm not going to be sleeping.

I'm going to go around with my fanny pack with the go-kit, which usually includes condoms, tampons, cigarettes, riders, knives,

toilets, drugs, everything they don't want to carry.

You calling me at three in the morning to haze me to tell me to change the oil on your bike or go wash your bike.

And then I stand on this side of the bar serving you guys all weekend, not being able to drink.

And then when I do drink, I got to pay for it.

when I'm sitting here drinking for free right now.

And they were like, wait, and I said, listen, I'm not trying to piss you off.

This is what we did.

I came up with a legend.

The team agreed.

I'm a site survey specialist, parlaying off of my landscaping background.

I travel the country for investors looking at property to buy.

That's my legit reason for being there.

Then I start seeing their criminal activity and then I let them see me doing some criminal activity.

And they believed that I was a high-ranking member of an international theft ring.

based out of McCallan, Texas.

And I moved stolen goods to Mexico, to the cartel to trade for whatever even if it's just money but everything i was doing was factually based they could have looked it up i was working with texas department of public safety i was working with border patrol i knew how much dirty law enforcement officers were being paid five to fifteen grand to let a car go through everything i did was factual and then they were making money off of me so we were getting everything we needed for the case really quick how are you doing because this is one of my questions later but we're here you clearly have to do illegal to earn their confidence how is that sorted i can't say a lot because of tradecraft.

There's still undercovers out there trying to do that.

There are ways that I can partake in criminal activity.

Well, let's just use what we did.

They started reporting vehicles stolen.

So you're going to get your insurance money.

Now you got to get rid of the vehicle.

You sell it to me at a stolen price and you believe that I'm taking them south to Mexico and they believe that I'm doing criminal activity with them.

Right.

Because you are making shit disappear.

But then it becomes.

I got your trust.

Now you've carjacked a vehicle.

Now you're just stealing F-350s off of a lot.

So then they call me and and they go, hey, Tex, which is what they called me.

Not very original.

I'm from Texas.

They're like, I got a redneck accent.

Tex, hey, we got this hot car, man.

We got to get rid of it.

We just jacked this dude at gunpoint.

We almost killed him.

All right.

I got it, man.

I'll get rid of it.

That's how it all started playing.

What was the results of that case?

The Taunton chapter was pretty much disbanded.

And 12 to 15 went to jail.

How long were you in that one?

Two years.

That was my longest one.

Now, this is a weird question, but I feel like there must be an answer.

I'm a weird guy.

You did biker gangs.

You did a sheriff's department.

You did a bunch of white nationalist stuff, KKK.

And this one's got to be the most fun.

Yeah.

Right?

You got to think about it for a second.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I hope it wasn't the white nationalists.

Well, to get to that, why would you hope that

the shit Scott had to sit through is maddening.

When I'm reading about these dumb dumbs, you got to listen to talk about their conspiracy.

I mean, that sounds maddening to me.

At least the outlaws, I'm into this.

And I would be more afraid to have on my back having messed with the outlaws than I would be these weird sell white nationals things.

Because

you have tears.

You have 60-year-olds, 70-year-olds.

This is going to live on.

Yeah.

Is that a little more scary?

The way I usually answer questions kind of around that same realm as this.

Look, in law enforcement, it's what you do.

Let's go back to the county or the city you work in.

How many arrests have you made in a year?

They're already out of jail.

Are you not running into them at the grocery store?

Are you not running at them at Target?

So for me personally, my best defense has always been a good offense.

If I see you and I'm like, hey, holy cow, man, how are you doing?

Yeah.

I've never seen you in forever, man.

You on the up and up?

How's the family?

Things going good.

Do you ever feel guilty?

Yeah.

You had to have become friends in that two years with some folks.

There are a lot of people out there who know, and I cover it well in the book, that Scott Town, it is the closest relationship I've built with a possible target.

on any case I've ever done.

Scott is tied as the most famous FBI agent of all time.

With

the Donny Brosco undercover.

Okay, well, you're not going to say you're not going to take the conversation.

Jopa Stone is the very famous, he was Donnie Brosco.

And I think that movie did an incredible job of the heartbreak of having gained someone's trust who may love you and you love them.

I play a clip from that movie when I'm teaching just undercover stuff.

And it's the one where he's in the car and he's saying, if you're a rat and he takes the pistol on me, he goes, I'm the biggest mutt in the history of mafia.

I play that because that's when I get into the point of saying, what is undercover?

What do you think it is?

And I've asked some people, I mean, I'll ask you, when you hear undercover, what does it mean to you?

Gaining trust.

Yeah, some tricks.

With the ultimate goal of holding them accountable for something.

That's very good.

Usually I'll get like lying or you're playing a character.

You're acting.

I'm building relationships that I'm going to betray.

Yeah.

And you know that going in.

That's so hard.

And you need to be able to figure out how you can rationalize that in your mind and it not have an adverse impact on your psyche.

And it's not always easy.

And I'm human.

I've done the training.

I've been through the training.

I put on the training.

I've got mentors, peers, people that I've been blessed to mentor, but I've made plenty of mistakes.

You think you can compartmentalize

and you can for periods.

And then all of a sudden the doors open.

You're sitting somewhere and the compartment comes open.

I mean, this is what like juggling being an addict is like.

Literally, Saturday didn't happen.

We're erasing that from the books.

And three months later, all of a sudden you're you're immersed in that Saturday.

Yeah.

And this book, again, you got to dive deep.

All the interviews I've been doing, it's emotionally exhausting.

I bet.

I bet there's a lot of stuff you'd prefer not to think about.

It's not so much that because I am a talker.

I think the Lord put me here to fill silence with noise.

That's what I think.

When it's quiet.

When it's quiet, I'm like.

Anything?

Why is it so quiet?

Oh, my God.

One time Dax and I were at the airport and he was talking so much.

And then he finally stopped and he said, what else can I talk about?

And I was like, oh, my God.

We can't go five minutes?

Yeah.

No.

Well, I can pass the baton to you, but somebody better be talking.

Yeah, it's tough.

Well, hold on, though.

There's something interesting there.

Because one, there's just, you are who you are.

You kind of come out a certain way for sure.

But then also there's your childhood.

And so mine was, if I can control the temperature in this room, I can predict where it's going.

I'll feel safer if I have a role in what the temperature in this room is.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

And so dad had pretty bad depression.

That's actually what brought me to psychology.

That makes sense.

But I got to imagine as a young kid whose parents are getting divorced and both are struggling, your dad's really struggling, if you can set the tone in that room, that's preferred.

I've never heard it put that way.

That is a great way to say it.

And I'm probably going to permanently borrow it from this point forward.

But yeah, that's kind of what you're doing.

Now, I want to be clear because some people are haters might be like, well, if you look, every case you've arrested everybody, you set everything up.

That's not what I mean by controlling the room.

If you're committing criminal acts and you're predicated, I'm not coming up to you not knowing you and going, hey, I know you're broke.

I'll give you 40 grand if you carry this kilo across the street.

That's entrapment.

Yes.

You can't do that.

Yes.

But when I tell you, they go, where are you from?

And I go, McAllen, Texas, right on the border.

No shit.

How much can you get a kilo of cocaine for?

That's the next sentence on your head.

Yeah, yeah.

Well,

as a matter of fact.

Now that you ask.

But yeah, I think some element of it is looking for safety in all the many ways that means.

Well, think of it this way.

And I've permanently borrowed this term from a buddy of mine, Terry Rankorn, phenomenal undercover.

He's retired as well, too.

Helped certify me, actually.

But he says, look, we're playing chess.

People think, oh, I'm just out there gifted gabbing and I'm drinking.

I'm flying first.

I'm doing whatever.

No, man, it's a chess game.

We are trying to stay four moves ahead.

You're reading the room, and it still doesn't work all the time.

That's how I ended up in a basement at gunpoint.

Please tell Monica that.

I'm scared.

I was too.

I guess that's a universal fear being in a basement with a gunpoint.

Wow.

But yeah, how'd that happen?

As I say, a lot of times when I'm teaching, I go, I would much rather have heard that story about somebody else and go, man, that sucks.

And be standing there naked going, this sucks.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

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So I told you a little bit of the backstory with the outlaws.

They've carjacked stuff.

We've now covered dope deals.

The case team's up on wiretaps, which is not like TV, by the way.

You don't go, I need to be on this phone in five minutes.

No.

We're talking like 80-page affidavits, weeks and weeks, not months of prep.

Anyway, all that stuff was happening.

So now we're at a point in the case a year and a half in, and these are my friends.

Scott Town's a great friend.

Brian Dela Vega, Clothesline is a good friend.

Yeah, you're going to kids' birthday parties, I imagine.

Joe Doggs is the president of the Taunton chapter at that time, and he's a friend.

And everything after that kind of trickles down.

But we are now to the point they've been hounding me about dope.

We've laid out breadcrumbs.

They have now seen my truck drivers come on multiple occasions to pick up stolen equipment, take it somewhere.

They think we're taking it to Mexico.

We're actually taking it to a warehouse somewhere.

And we decide as a case team, United States Attorney's Office, all of us, okay, now's the time.

They've been asking about it.

We've got the predication, this, that, and the other.

So let's lay out.

My story was that, yes, I did used to be involved in a dope game because they know I have cartel contacts.

And they know that the reason I never got cut out as a gringo, the white guy, is because I'm the one with the contacts at the port of entry and the checkpoints.

So without me, you can't get your stuff through.

That was my story.

So I lay breadcrumbs and let them know that, yes, I did used to be in the dope game, but some of my people were getting popped.

Heat was getting close.

I pulled chocks.

Then we laid it out that my contacts reached out to me because they wanted to take dope into Canada, but their contacts up there had felled through.

And essentially, we're going to do a drug exchange from one truck to another truck.

We did have 40 kilos of real cocaine.

We had a thousand pounds of real weed.

And this is 2017.

40 kilos for my car.

Yeah.

Now, can you imagine?

Do you think there's a SWAT team overseeing this?

Do you think there's snipers on the roof?

Yes.

Because we cannot let 40 kilos walk.

We cannot get ripped if the bad guys decide to go even more bad and say, 40 kilos, let's take it.

Well, how are they getting it?

The government seizing all this stuff.

What's already been seized?

They have warehouses.

They have these fucking burns down in Texas.

Yeah.

That the government owns.

It's heartbreaking.

Imagine watching them shovel eating cartier watches into a bonfire.

It's so amazing.

How dare you?

To each their own.

Look at this contraband being burned.

We'll save one sample.

We're going to do the deal.

And the U.S.

Attorney's Office, of course, we want to gather as much evidence as we can of who's going to be helping and get the recordings and all that stuff.

So I go to the clubhouse the night before the deal.

A weird exchange happens at the beginning between me and Joe Doggs because he's the one that told me to come.

And then I get there and they're still having church.

And for the listeners that don't know, especially in your 1% or clubs, there's usually a mandatory meeting once a week and they refer to that as church.

It's kind of a cute rebrand.

It is cute.

It's still going on.

And I'm like, like, well, why'd you even tell me to come?

So I go, get something to eat, come back, and then I go in.

Well, what I don't know is that because we have upped the ante to do this big deal, it made it all the way to the top to the national president, who was Milwaukee Jack at that point, of the outlaws.

And he sends it back down.

Wait a minute.

Why is this deal happened?

Who is this guy?

Has he really been checked?

I find out again later on that Clothesline and others were like, yeah, I mean, we've done like eight jobs with this guy.

Carjacking, stolen vehicle here, moving this here.

None of us are in bracelets, meaning handcuffs.

We think he's good.

Doesn't matter.

Do what you do.

So I didn't know that.

And I show up to the clubhouse, wired to the hilt, because I'm trying to get evidence.

That's what we do.

So you have a little camera somewhere on you.

Somewhere I've got video and audio, and then I have a backup audio, and then I have a transmitter.

Oh, no.

Hey,

no, now I'm out.

I like hanging out and maybe doing drugs.

Yeah, well, here's the thing.

So we're talking again, 2007-ish.

Just think of how much technology has changed between now and then.

Oh, sure.

I mean, look how small.

I mean, just think now everyone's carrying a phone.

That thing could just be recorded.

You could probably do it with icons.

That's insane stuff, though.

Yeah, fucking glasses.

I don't want to give anyone any idea.

I know.

But I'm just saying.

People think generally we can do more than we can anyway because of TV.

But technology is way better now.

So let's just say I had technology of 2007, right?

Yeah.

Oh, no.

So I go into the clubhouse and I'm cracking jokes, but what I don't see is when I'm cracking jokes, if I'm leaning this way and I'm looking down the bar and I'm doing my normal shtick and I'm cracking country-ass jokes in my accent and everybody's like,

we're all laughing high-five.

And when I would turn my head, they would go complete stoneface.

Because they know what they're doing.

Their whole meeting was about bringing me in and checking.

I didn't pick up on it.

And there was a false alarm.

They took me down into the basement, but I'll just get to the part.

They carried me down.

Clothesline, who's supposed to be my second closest friend, says, yo, text, you got a minute.

And I said, yeah.

He walks me through this door that I've never been in, even though I've been in that clubhouse, I don't know how many times.

It's the only door I hadn't been through.

And it leads into a very tight stairwell down into a, if I call it a basement, that's being generous, because I couldn't stand up straight.

It's more of a crawl space.

Yeah.

And I could touch the wall probably on both sides.

I see rope.

I see that they have both brandished their pistols.

One outlaw follows me and he stands on the steps with his pistol and he's watching.

And Clothesline proceeds to tell me there's a lot of shit going on and it's my job to take care of my brothers because I want you to write down your full name, date of birth, social security, everything.

And I need you to take all your clothes off.

I need to check you for a wire.

I hate this.

Yeah, me too.

And there's no one in a van across the street.

We'll get to that.

Okay.

But really quick, also, you have to be playing the game in your head where you're like, okay, so I'm not wired.

I am the guy.

What's my reaction?

I would love to say yes to that answer, but I was shitting gold.

I was having an adrenaline dunk.

It's the fighter, flight, or freeze.

Yeah, mid-brain is in charge.

And then you are hopefully doing what you've trained or rehearsed in your head, and that's what I did.

If I had not seen me do these things on the video, I would have never known I did them.

But just like I can show you cops and military first responders and shootouts, they have no idea how many rounds they shot.

They have no idea that they did a magazine exchange behind effective cover.

They just do it because they've trained it so much.

It's instinctive.

So in the undercover world, okay, now I'm down there.

I'm trying to write my name down.

If you've ever been through a traumatic incident, whether it's a car wreck or whatever, everything just slows down and your auditory exclusion, everything's going whoosh, whoosh.

What I'm hearing is like, Scott, I need I've even had sight get minimal.

So that happens.

You're getting the tunnel vision and everything's time dilation.

It's in clicks.

It's like in frames, right?

You go click, click, click.

You can hear and feel your heart beating through your entire body.

Palms are sweaty.

I'm starting an Eminem song here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to talk and I'm trying to write my name and I forgot my middle name.

I've been this dude forever.

I know,

I know I'm Scott Caller.

But because of the stress, I don't even know.

And I was blessed enough to put this training on to some Navy SEALs.

And one of the SEALs caught it and he said, man, if you look, your hand's not even shaking the entire time.

You're trying to remember your name.

And I'm like, well, my insides were shaking.

And I yell back.

I'm like, and what else do you need?

I don't even know I do it.

And he's like, what?

I go, my name and what else?

It didn't sound that clear though.

Because I'm crapping myself, it sounds like, and what else do you need?

My name and what else?

I'm not even enunciating.

He yells up and I hear, what do you need for that website?

So I'm like, okay, they're going to Google search me.

There was a whoosarat.com.

There was things like that.

And I go, okay, I'm cool with that.

Then I remember my initials were SAC because that is the head of an FBI office.

And I thought that was funny because I know I'd never be one.

So I made my initials SA.

A little humor for myself.

But I remember Scott Andrew Calloway.

So I write that down.

I take all my upper clothing off.

I probably was layered because it was cold.

I take my boots off.

I pull my underwear and jeans down to my ankles.

So from ankle up, I'm naked.

And it was cold.

Sure.

And you were scared.

Wasn't your best showing, is my guess.

I'm not attracted to you.

I feel like I'm possibly getting ready to die.

In the terms of a Seinfeld episode, that was a whole different level of shrinkage.

Oh my God, we're dealing with a woman.

My thought name is an FBI agent.

It's a woman.

I know.

I don't care what I look like right now.

I just want to get out of here.

So I take all my clothes off and he checks everything.

I'm trying to talk.

I I know clothesline for a year and a half at this point.

Even though my words aren't saying it, my face is saying, tell me I'm okay.

And his face back to me is kind of like, look, it's just business.

However, he doesn't know that I'm an FBI agent undercover who's wired to the hill.

He's probably like, don't be that worried.

And these are his words exactly.

I think they even quoted it in the press release after the takedown.

He said, trust me, if somebody accused me of being a Fed, I'd probably smash them in the effing mouth.

And I said, I'm not happy.

And he said, I wouldn't be either.

And I tell him, you guys asked for this.

I did not come to you.

You came to me.

If nobody wants to do shit, nobody has to do shit.

Those are my exact words.

Not as clear as that because I'm crapping my pants.

And all the gear is in your clothes somehow.

Some, yes, some no.

Tradecraft, I won't say where.

You can't say, but you aren't exposed currently.

They're not

C.

They're not C.

Yeah.

Correct.

I think I'm done.

And then I'm pulling my pants back up.

I'm putting my boots back on.

And then he grabs a particular piece of clothing.

And when he grabs it i'm like oh when he grabs it he goes hey i'm not going to find anything here i don't want to right like some naked pictures of an old lady and he goes

and my laugh is like

you know yeah yeah and i even say i hope not now i'm sitting here up against the wall my head tilted and i'm watching him take this piece of clothing and go through it we call this kneading he's kneading it with his hand

and he's feeling it

i'll just say this technology wise in 2007 had he grabbed that part of that clothing he would have felt something and he gets close and he even looks directly at a camera and misses it when he's doing that i have no idea i do it but you can hear clear on the recording me watching him and i go

yeah it's a verbal side yeah because my insides are saying it's over

yeah he misses it he hands it back to me and i go right into business but it's just nervous chatter joking even though i'm a jokester anyway it's definitely a self-defense mechanism i feel like i can't breathe ptsd's kicking in.

And people ask all the time, hey man, what would you have said if you had found it?

And I remember it like it was yesterday.

My first response probably would have been something funny.

If he would have said, what is this?

I might have said, I don't know, some naked pictures of you, old lady, to try to buy me some time or to laugh it off.

The only other response I had is the gig is up.

I'm an undercover FBI agent, and I can walk out of here and we can see each other in court.

or all hell's going to break loose.

And here's the kicker.

That would have been a bluff on my part because up until that point, to my knowledge, my cover team for whatever reason thick walls bad equipment they could never hear me in that clubhouse what but you didn't know that yeah i did you would just have to be betting on the notion that they're gonna assume they're watching yeah currently and if you don't come out now they've got a fed murder you always try to plan contingencies contingency plan a b c d four or five moves ahead but he didn't find it he hands it back to me and that night my adrenaline dump just turns into anger i end up going out with joe dogs in scott Town.

And luckily, they didn't take it personally or anything, but I took it personally.

And I shouldn't have because I'm just undercover.

But

I was pissed.

Now that adrenaline's coming down, I'm like, you know what?

Tomorrow, if y'all do show up, I'm stripping you naked in the parking lot.

How's that?

Come prepared.

It's going to be chilly.

That's good because that's what you would have.

done if you weren't undercover.

Well, it's also hard to know.

You're just modeling these scenarios.

I'm mirroring.

What's annoying about some of these docs you watch where the cops come and they're like, he wasn't acting like someone whose wife just died.

It's like, how the fuck do you know how someone acts when they're wife?

Like, that's bullshit.

That's what you saw on TV.

That's what you thought of in your head.

Nobody knows what anybody does until it's happening.

Yeah.

That's the same thing I would have done at Scott Payne.

Who do you think you are taking me into a damn basement?

Even though they were right, I wasn't covered.

Right.

Yeah, you didn't have the moral hydration.

But that's what we all do.

We justify things to ourselves.

Even if we know we're wrong, we can find a way.

There's some crazy things about that story.

There's great training principles to everything that was going on because what I found out when I handed off my equipment that night is is that they did hear everything.

The main case team was an FBI agent named Tim.

He was a good buddy of mine.

We actually went through the academy together as new agents and we were really close friends through that whole process.

He helped me find my apartment in New York City.

So Tim's now the case agent.

Two task force officers, Sergeant Higginbottom with the Massachusetts State Troopers and Detective Joe Cummings out of Brockton PD.

That was the main case team.

We had a DEA counterpart, Nancy Morelli, but that was pretty much it.

You might get some bodies here and there, but everybody trickles off.

It's just, that's the core team.

That night starting the shift, it was Higgy and Joe.

And that first interaction that happened between me and Joe dogs at the door, they were like, something's not right.

And they pulled in a place to where they could hear me.

And they were listening to everything.

They radioed back to everybody else that was starting the shift in Boston and said, they got Scott in the basement.

They're stripping him and he's wired.

To what I was told is everybody's haul and tell with blue lights and sirens down the highway to get to me.

They listened to me, even though they could clearly hear I was scared because they knew my baseline.

They were waiting for something to break back.

They knew the insides of that clubhouse because they'd been there on law enforcement activity.

They knew how fortified the door was.

It was dead bolted.

I think it was a steel frame.

They definitely had welded metal hooks and a steel bar across the door.

So it's heavily fortified.

Their plan was they suited up, vested up, got their gear, and they were going to drive the van into the cinder block wall beside the door.

to breach around the door versus the door.

But they listened to me and I make it out.

The other thing that if I get personal, because I'm very transparent and I always say my life's an open book and literally it now is an open book.

At that point in my marriage, our youngest daughter was around one, so three and one years old.

I got two daughters and I'd bought my wife a burner phone, which is common these days, but back then they didn't call them burner phones.

But I'm basically buying a phone that I pay by the minute, comes back to nothing because I don't want to call her phone from an undercover phone.

You don't want to call an FBI phone from an undercover phone.

That's terrible operational security.

So I bought her that on that outlaws case.

I would call her every night.

I don't care if it was four four in the morning, seven in the morning.

I'll be like, hey, babe, I'm half lit.

I'm driving home.

Just want you to know I'm good.

I'll call you after I wake up.

Sometimes we talk.

Usually it was, okay, honey, love you, love you too.

That night when I called her, the first thing she said was, are you okay?

And I said, yes, why?

Barely.

And she said, at such and such time, I was in McAllen driving with the girls in the car.

She said, I got this overwhelming feeling.

And I pulled over on the side of the road and I started praying for you.

So I mashed it up.

It's when I was in the basement getting scripted.

The spidey senses were traveling across the universe.

Holy Spirit in my world.

I was in Boston.

Look on a map, Boston to McAllen.

That's a long way away from each other.

She felt it.

I believe that.

Yeah, it was insane.

That's just one of the many things that happened.

Was that the gnarliest if you had to give one a number one?

Man, there's been several.

I did joke with her after this book and doing these interviews and stuff.

I go, I feel like I need to have a couple more life-threatening experiences.

I'm running out of standards.

She's like, like, no.

And I'm like, all right.

Well, that was fucking incredible.

People are going to have to buy the book to hear about the KKK.

The one I do want to talk about, though.

So you wrote this book with Michelle Shepard.

Yes.

And she's got an incredible podcast.

I really urge people to listen to it.

It's great.

Season two is you.

Yeah.

The original one was six episodes, White Hot Hate, that covered the group, the bass.

That's before we ever met.

She didn't know me, but I heard it because people were sending it to me.

And she kept hearing him and all this court testimony, but just not knowing who this name was.

So when I retire and then I get the chance to be interviewed by Roland Stone, Ashley Mack and her crew back in Canada were like, oh my gosh, this is him.

This is the guy we've been listening to.

And she thought she was going to do one episode of season two with Scott.

That's what she was shooting at.

And fell in love, as people do with you.

We got six episodes called White Hot Hate.

Agent Pale Horse, but I will say it plays like a documentary.

It's so well produced.

Yeah, like CBC, that's Canadian.

Yep, Canada Broadcasting Communication.

I don't know what the last thing is.

They do a damn good job.

It's a really good podcast.

They actually interview Higgie, this task force officer who was sitting outside and observed me.

And he said, hey, man, what can I say?

I said, you tell him the truth.

I know my experience, but I want to hear yours.

And it was surreal to hear him.

He's basically the guy that just heard there's inbound nukes.

Do I hit deploy nukes?

That's literally what's happened.

Yeah.

Do I blow up this two years?

What a fucking decision to have to make.

Yes.

Because many times he has to be your friend.

Fuck this case and fuck these guys.

We're going in right now.

I don't give a fuck.

But it could have also backfired because if they heard sirens up, they could have just killed you.

Could have.

A lot of people ask, what do you think would have happened?

I'm like, I don't know.

If you ask them now, they'd be like, oh, nothing.

We found out that's a normal M.O.

from them.

We found out from other people who were victims, females, they brought down into that same crawl space and held a knife to their throat and threatened to kill them.

People have been killed in that crawl space for sure.

Probably.

Who knows?

Don't sue me, outlaws.

I didn't see plastic on the floor.

I did look for that.

Anyway, I'm sorry to get off on a tangent back on the outlaws.

But explain the base.

Sure.

And this is big teaching stuff now because even in law enforcement, when people hear white supremacy, they might know Aryan Nation.

They might know KKK for sure because it's been around for so long.

But that's not this.

They're neo-Nazis, so they want Hitler's Germany back.

They want the white race on top.

The rundown goes like this.

The Garden of Eden, the story in the beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve, you got one tree you can't eat the fruit from, the fruit of the forbidden tree.

Eve is tempted by the serpent, aka Satan.

She takes a bite of the fruit.

She gets Adam to take a bite of the fruit, and we're sinners from then on.

Christian Identity takes it and says, same story, but the fruit of the forbidden tree is a sexual act, and the serpent is actually a man of color, a.k.a.

Satan, and they have that sexual act, and she gets pregnant with Cain.

Once Cain is born, they consider that the mud race, non-white, mud race, all the way down.

But Adam and Eve did procreate, and that's Abel, and that's the pure white race.

I mean,

this is what he's got to sit.

When I talk about him sitting around having to listen to these guys tell him him how the world works, how fucking maddening that would be for me.

Pour me another drink.

I'd way rather have a lot of scary outlaw biker experiences.

How old is that theory?

Because it sounds like they stole it from Harry Potter.

No, it's older.

As far as I know, the real push came with Reverend Butler, and he was the leader of the Aryan Nation.

And that was back when the Red Ray Fair and all those days, they wore their uniform.

It was Church of Jesus Christ Christian, but they take in Twisted, much like a lot of your newer age accelerationists, which I'll talk about here in just a second.

They're taking paganism and they're switching it.

I've got plenty of close friends that are pagans.

They have the pagan belief.

I mean, you see, I got Viking stuff all over my arm.

They're reeling Norse stuff.

Yeah, and so was Hitler.

But they take that and twist it.

They're not doing a traditional pagan blot.

They're doing horrific white supremacy stuff.

Yeah, but it has changed.

When I was a kid and I was in the punk scene, there were skinhead Nazis.

Yep.

They all looked the same.

But it's not that now.

It's these fucking schlubby, nerdy.

Could be.

It's evolved.

There was a whole movement called, and it's still out there.

It's called Entryism.

And that's where you see clean-cut white guys, no tattoos, suits and ties, but they're acting like they're trying to infiltrate government.

There's like Proud Boy-y type stuff.

Proud boys just like to beat people up.

Proud boys, not white supremacy.

Proud boys are anti-government, pro-gun, and they like to fight.

I've done a lot of militia cases I didn't put in the book because I didn't know if they were still going.

I didn't want to jeopardize anything.

Nor would the FBI have approved it anyway.

So accelerationism goes like this.

They do not believe that there is a political solution to save the white race.

They believe that that society is going to collapse on its own or from man-made events, and they want to speed that up through like guerrilla warfare tactics like poison a water system, derail a train, take out a power grid, start killing anti-fascist belief people, start killing lefties, and definitely killing Jewish people and ridding the world of non-whites.

Good luck to finding that, but yes, good.

Yeah, I know, right?

Yeah.

By the way, a lot of these white supremacy groups I was in,

there was no 23 in me being done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I wouldn't be.

Big Easy, what was the dude's name?

Big Siege.

And his name's Yusuf something, as it turns out.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, that's curious.

He didn't tell everybody his name was Yusuf.

Okay.

Thank God.

But accelerationists, they don't like any government.

It's almost like dark white supremacy meets militia anti-government because we're out there training with machine guns, well, sub-machine guns, not fully automatic, and pistols, doing firearms and tactics training, hand-to-hand combat, how to live off the land to prepare for what they were calling the Boogaloo.

Not exactly the same Boogaloo that's in the militia movement, but close.

Boogaloo is basically D-Day.

It's the start of the race war, and they are building kits to do that.

A lot of them didn't have jobs.

I have read some responses.

It's like, my kid had a job.

Yeah, he worked on and off for you.

And he hated it.

He told me for seven months he hated it.

He didn't have an arsenal.

He only had one gun.

That's BS.

He had plenty of guns.

I was with him when he sold them on arms list to other people and bought other guns.

But let's not just talk about the guns.

Let's talk about plate carriers.

What are plate carriers?

So this, your bulletproof vest.

Oh, uh-oh.

But the the plate carrier the plate stops rifle rounds so they're ordering cry precision plate carriers it's the same thing fbi swats wear oh my god and i'm like that's some expensive literally i could have taken my fbi rig that i'm going out to make an arrest on and just take the fbi stuff off and i would have walked in there and it'd be the same stuff a lot of them are wearing the gun belts everything so they're preparing for d-day and there's not a lot of forethought or afterthought as you kind of commented on so we take over a region of the appalachian mountains while another section of the base is taking over a region of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, while another region of the base is taking over Pacific Northwest property.

And we're going to create our own ethnostate because clearly, if we make it all white, everything will run smoothly.

Obviously.

When you're sitting around talking to these guys, do you ever go like, so who's going to do all the work?

All this work that none of the white people do.

Who's doing it?

I'll tell you what I did.

My sense of humor.

I've got to have

something.

So I'm like, so we're neo-Nazis.

Hell yeah, man.

Hell yeah, yeah, man.

So we want Hitler's Germany.

Yeah, man.

It's basically socialism because we're getting everything for free.

I didn't word it that way.

But what I do is at the end of it, I go, so who's going to be Hitler?

And the faces go blank.

And I'm like, you hadn't thought that far?

Who's it going to be?

It can only be one.

Just to mess with them.

Sure, sure.

Because there were belief systems.

I've listened to them go on for hours about concave earth, Hitler still alive, and hollow earth with it's not a Garthens.

There's something else.

I'd just start tuning it out.

How do you learn the lingo?

Well, sometimes I'll let them teach me.

Let that ego roll.

Like, say you're questioning me and you're pressuring me.

Well, where do you live?

What are you doing in Texas with a New Jersey driver's license?

What are you are you and i'm like man what are you doing writing a book i don't know i just met you right look i mean you seem like you're a nice guy but i'm not ready to invite you over tea and crumblers just yet but then i just turn it what's that bar on your collar mean oh that means i'm a lieutenant i thought you said you only been here for like a year yeah you made lieutenant in a year how that dude's talking for the next two hours yeah well let me tell you about how it's done when i come in and just let him

i'm a talker and i know that so in order for me to be better at my job as an undercover i've got to shut the f up or else i'm talking over you giving us evidence the base was huge on recruiting a lot of these accelerationist groups are huge on recruiting and they do it by flyering or stickering or postering it's like we go down the street and on the way back one spray in the glue you're slapping it on there and it'll be like join the base save your race save your race join the base it'll have a picture of a swastika and like a ss and then a helmet and maybe like a skull face and then there'll be a qr code you scan that qr code it takes you straight to a bit shoot site and it's a recruitment video of us and i'm in a lot of them like us doing the trainings in Georgia or it might be training up in Bad Axe, Michigan.

And it's gun shooting and music playing and running to recruit.

Like the Al-Qaeda videos.

Yes.

And here's what's funny.

The base in Arabic is Al-Qaeda.

Wow.

When I was being interviewed to join the group, they laid out their ideology.

And that's when I learned the whole accelerationist view.

Huge, they call it siege culture.

There's a book out there called Siege.

Don't go by it.

It's been out long.

Yeah, don't go try to buy it.

James Mason wrote the book.

It's a lot of interviews and articles just shoved together, but this dude idolized Charles Manson.

He's interviewed him several times.

Because Manson ultimately thought there would be a race war as well, and he was trying to accelerate that.

Yep.

And that's where you start seeing the ideology of acceleration of them: don't do Charlottesville.

Don't go out there and stand on the corner with picket signs screaming.

Number one, you're making yourself a mark.

Number two, you're not doing anything.

Let's go behind the scenes.

Let's start mowing this down.

Let's start killing people.

Let's do this to cause the collapse of society.

And chaos.

Terrorist principles.

Let's get an oversized reaction to something we do.

Kill a hundred, scare thousands.

Yeah.

Kill thousands, scare millions.

Yeah.

But if you looked at al-Qaeda, it was three to five man sales.

I've got a country accent, C-L-L, sales.

They wanted three to five-man sales all over the world, ready for that phone call.

So as I'm being coached by the leader and creator of the base, he says, we want three to five man sales all over the world waiting.

And I mean, we had members from Norway, South Africa, Australia, the UK, Canada.

You just keep going.

These heroes, these heroes are the ones in New Zealand of the Saints.

All these assholes, 27 at Walmart, nine at a mosque.

The massacres.

It's an active shooter, but it's an active shooter with the ideology of setting off the race war.

It's the saint leaderboard.

Usually in the tactical world, we never say their names.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, good.

Yeah, yeah.

Because we don't want to give them credit.

The Christ Church shooter, he's not at the top.

The one that did the Norway shooting is at the top.

It's like 77 and O.

And then you get Christ Church.

It's this and O.

And then you get down to the Tree of Life.

So sick.

The Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh.

Then you get Charleston.

Once you see that these are all related, it gets quite scary.

Very, if you're viewing them as individual acts of crazy people, you're kind of like, how do we account for crazy people around the world?

But when you see no, these are all related.

This is a syndicate.

And then it says at the bottom, what are you going to do to make the board?

Stop it.

Yeah.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert.

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While I was infiltrating these groups, I've watched an active shooter event happen and the kid only got one shot off and then his gun jammed.

And the ridicule that you read on Telegram and these dark channels, Discord, 4chan, 8 chan, 12 chan, you name it, Wire, Threema, whatever else is out there now, they are blasting them.

What an idiot.

He didn't know how to handle his weapon.

He could have killed so many more people.

Now, see, in America, though, you can blast that.

That's the First Amendment protective speech.

You can say, I hate any racial slur you want.

You can say, I hope any racial slur dies.

That's not against the law.

That's where our work, my peers, mentors, people I've mentored, first responders responders on that front line have to stay vigilant.

So let's just say you make it into one of those groups and you're looking at thousands and thousands of the most vile posts you can think of.

You're trying to figure out who's serious or not.

Who's going to pull the trigger?

How on earth do you delineate?

You just got to stay vigilant.

You hope that people out there cliche, but if you see something, say something.

You know what this reminded me of a little bit in a weird way is domestic abusers.

They beat their wife twice.

You know statistically, okay, okay, well, eight times more likely this guy's going to kill her.

When you're in law enforcement and you're just watching the pattern and you're trying to figure out, okay, well, he's on the road.

When are we allowed to intervene?

We have to wait till she gets killed?

Yeah, I know.

A lot of times people that will want to argue against law enforcement will be like, oh, why are you pulling me over?

Why aren't you working murders?

Well, there's an old theory called the broken window theory, and it's we start small.

If you're a disorderly walking down the street drunk, and I lock you up for disorderly, maybe I stopped you from getting behind the wheel of a car and killing somebody in a DUI.

Maybe I stopped you from going home and murdering your wife or having that 15th division.

This is in Malcolm Gladwell's book.

This is cracking down on jumping turnstills on the subway.

This is cleaning up graffiti.

You take away the opportunity because you never know what's going to happen.

And all that stuff, and look, I'm in the middle of all this, but when your environment is sending you signals that no one's looking, people act differently.

And another friend, an acquaintance of mine, he's actually a great instructor, speaker, former law enforcement in London, UK.

We were having this conversation.

It's like, man, why is there more of this stuff happening?

We can dive down rabbit holes and stuff and conspiracy theories, but I've been around guns my whole life.

It's not that.

And then Jerry Radcliffe, he says, Scott with his cool accent, he says, we have to take away the opportunity.

And I go, whoa, I do remember even going back to working a side job as a cop at a fun park where they got put, putt, and go-karts and video games.

If you saw kids, congregating on the side in the shady area, not spending money, you go bust them up.

They're coming up with something nefarious to do.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be over there.

In the shadow.

You know, and you just go over there and go, hey, how's it going?

What are you doing?

Hey, man, you guys should go rather just busted up.

You're being observed.

Yeah.

Okay, so you do get embedded in that group.

And this Canadian who gets outed in Canada goes on the run.

He gets outed.

Common term is doxxed, D-O-X-X-E-D, which basically means outed.

And this is the huge battle between far left and far right.

I infiltrated the far right.

So I say we, not that I don't have the belief system, but I'm in there with them.

Yeah.

When we're doing these videos, we're double checking.

Hey, pale horse, you can see your tattoo.

Oh, man, my bad.

I'll pull the sleeve down.

Or I go cut black socks just so I can cover up that because the sleeve's too short.

Hey, your ponytail's hanging out.

Hide that because they're so afraid of getting doxed and being out.

What the far left is really good at is once you are doxxed, they will show up at your house.

They will protest at your work.

Well, Antifa started showing up.

Yeah, they're good with that and they get funding for it.

I'm not going to dive down that rabbit hole on this one either, but they don't have money, but they're being paid by somebody because they're getting arrested in five different states for the same damn thing and they don't live in any of them.

Hate begets hate.

It goes back and forth.

I violate never is resolved.

Right.

So I'm in the group.

I'm gaining their trust and I'm learning more.

And we as the FBI are learning more.

Do you have to fake your skill set?

This is what I was thinking.

I did.

Because he's a marksman.

He can't show up in the training thing.

I'm imagining you would be shining a light on yourself if you were as good as you are.

Well, and we don't want to lead anything.

Right.

Am I in the KKK and I bring a black person to the rally?

Yeah, right.

Look at what I found.

Yeah.

Did I just start that and lead it?

That'd be very bad.

But with them, I was just a country guy, former biker, former skinhead.

And yeah, I've shot, but I would throw.

I would let them tell me.

God, receiving instruction from these dumb nuts.

Well, it was good instruction, though.

Oh, okay.

A 19-year-old kid led, I mean, it wasn't the best, but I walked away from that first meet and training.

I was like, this is not good.

Yeah.

Where did you get the training?

Because you didn't go in the military.

You're only 19.

Internet?

Gaming.

God, video games.

They're so realistic.

No, they are.

They're realistic.

They're so scary.

Hop on there and cut your microphone on.

It's an 11-year-old kid telling you to clear the hard corner

and handing your butt to you.

And then his dad took him to a range and he practiced and practiced and got quicker and quicker.

And he was probably on the internet looking at a lot of stuff.

But I was happy to see some safety because I was really concerned with that.

When we first started shooting, I stood at the back.

Well, this fucking scenario with the goat.

Yeah.

You could have been killed there.

So this is what happens.

I've done a couple of blots.

The first pagan blot I did was actually pretty legit because the guy that led it, even though he was a member of the base, was also an Asatra guy.

And it was more legit.

And I got to ask a lot of questions about it because I'm learning.

Just like when they're teaching me tactics, I'll go, what did you call this again?

Slicing the pie.

Oh, okay.

So when I'm slicing the pie, now I'm using the verbiage you gave me.

Yeah, yeah.

We do a couple of those.

And on those blots, I mean, they would take wood and carve runes and swastikas and other hate symbols.

And you cut yourself and bleed on it and set that on fire.

And we pray to our gods until the fire goes out.

It's so weird.

It feels like it's such a hodgepodge of things.

It's very Viking.

It reeks of searching for masculinity and validation for masculinity.

You're 100%.

From my experience, you're spot on.

They haven't earned it through a job and a career.

They haven't earned it through a marriage and protecting their children.

They're outcasts.

They have been bullied.

They can't get a partner.

This is the only way in their mind, at least, that they're going to achieve that.

You found a group that'll accept you.

We do those blots and we're doing training and I'm hearing all the crazy ideology.

Other than the Canadian who ran once he got doxxed.

He absconded illegally in the United States.

We were looking for him hard.

There's a case agent, Rashid, out of Baltimore and a U.S.

attorney, Thomas Wyndham.

And they were phenomenal.

The stuff they did, tracking phones and finding stuff, they were able to figure out that they knew he was in the country.

I was helping them.

And then Seattle had the main case and they were working the poop out of it too.

But there were divisions all over the United States working this stuff because if there's a member living in your area, when the LA has got to open the case on it.

Now we get to the point to where we find the Canadian.

He is actually down at the farm.

I pull up there for a weekend training or something.

I'm counting the cars.

I know whose cars are what, and I'm counting the heads under the awning of the barn.

And I'm like, there's an extra person there.

And I go walking up and it's bushy red hair and beard by this point.

But as soon as he starts talking, I'm like, that's a Canadian accent.

And then he introduces himself.

I didn't miss a beat.

I hugged him and said, welcome to the United States, brother.

And then we start training.

And now you're getting into more crazy ideology.

Like when the Boogaloo happens, and I'm talking about crying while you're saying it, I'm going to have to shoot my dad in the back of the head, and I'll do it.

Because they're saying

because in their belief system, stupid mind.

Obviously.

When the Boogaloo happens and D-Day starts, if you are not fascist, that automatically makes you anti-fascist.

Oh, my God.

And the penalty is death.

Even if you're white.

Oh, yeah.

You just keep raising the purity test.

The fundamentalists are on a trajectory to outdo one another's fundamentalists.

There is no, you're home safe.

You're white.

You're this.

They keep moving the goalposts.

Yeah.

All these movements.

So I will say, this is a whole nother thing, but just to tie it into current time, whether you love Trump, hate Trump, whatever, this kid that just killed, I think it was his dad and stepmom or mom and stepdad.

He just killed them and he was on his way to apparently do an assassination attempt.

Well, the first reports that start coming out show that he's reading the ideology I was just telling you about, and it mentions 09A.

09A is order of nine angles.

That is a, let me say it this way.

From what I found working it, infiltrating it, working it as a case agent, developing sources who are in and all around it.

If you scratch the surface long enough at an accelerationist group, somewhere in there, you're going to find an 09A member, or there's some other groups that are very similar.

It is a extremely, extremely dark, satanic white supremacy group.

Still same thing, believe in the the collapse of the society but they are huge on rape sexual abuse and pedophilia it's as dark as you can get the sentence of they're big on rape and pedophilia is like yeah yeah case happened very fast paced eight months you were there seven i think but it was 24 seven and as i said it kept growing and growing the more people that we identified it got to one point where once a month we would get all case teams on the phone call there's over a hundred people on the call so we do this halloween hate camp in 2019.

I show up and a guy named Eisen is going to be leading the block.

Younger kid clearly doesn't know his paganism stuff very well.

And again, they're twisting it.

So I led hand-to-hand combat training that day and this wicked cold front came in, the first one of the year.

So you have not been acclimated.

You're freezing your tail off.

I go to charge my phone.

I fall asleep.

Because the heat's on.

You know, I'm like toast.

I'm defrosting tonight.

And then I wake up to pounding on my window.

Bell horse, bell horse, man, you got to get up.

Where do you see this?

Where do you see that?

I'm like, what is it?

They go, do you hear us talking about the goat?

I'm like, uh-huh.

And they're like, we got it.

So I get out and they have gone not that far down the damn road to a place that only had like three goats, jump the fence, steal the goat, almost get caught.

It could be a ram.

Ram goat.

It's very close.

It had horns.

I walk out there and one of the members who went by the name Dima is holding the goat in the back of one of the other members, Can't Go Back's truck, and it's pooping everywhere.

And Dima says, he goes, man, this thing's shitting all over the place.

And I said, well, hell, I would be too.

Exactly.

With a bunch of Neanderthals and fleck tarn camo and balacravas with machine guns just jumped in my backyard and jerked me out.

It's not a surprise birthday party.

Right.

Now I'm watching Aizen work this goat.

He's praying to it.

He's talking to it.

He's showing it love.

And I walk up and I say, is it bad that I feel sorry for the goat?

And he said, don't let the goat hear you say that.

And I'm like, okay.

And he said, this goat needs to know it's loved.

It's being sacrificed to Odin.

It's going to Valhalla.

This is a good thing for the goat.

We are showing it love and we're sacrificing it to Valhalla.

And I remember thinking, I don't think that's what the GOATs think.

Yeah.

Might not know about Valhalla.

I don't know if he's heard of it.

I go over to my listening device.

When you're out, you should have a cover team.

So if I'm out four days straight on a farm, they're going to be pulling shifts and rotating because you got to have a quick response to me, which how quick can you respond to me on a 100-acre farm?

If the crap's going to hit the fan, avenge my death.

Especially when it happens.

Unless I'm still hanging on when you get there or everybody's dead, and I'm standing there when you get there.

I go to my listening device.

I'm running through my head as a senior investigator, as a senior FBI agent, as an undercover coordinator, knowing all the policies and all the red tape.

I'm running through my head.

I'm going, do I need approval for this?

Did we do this?

I lean in and I go, listen, if you guys can hear me, I said, I'm pretty sure we're getting ready to go down here and sacrifice this goat at this ritual.

I know they stole the goat, but is it a misdemeanor?

If any of you do not want me to do this and you want me to stop it or pull chocks, I need to know.

Send me a sign.

And I sat there and I waited and I got nothing, no phone calls.

And I said, okay.

Valhalla it is.

Yes, we're going to Valhalla.

We go deep into the woods to the holy site where we've done stuff before.

And that's when they go to sacrifice the goat.

Aizen does a speech about.

We're starting the wild hunt.

So in Norse mythology, the wild hunt essentially is Odin and a bunch of other gods go out in the middle of the night and just slay all their enemies.

But in the twisted ideology of the white supremacy accelerationists, it was going to be the start of the wild hunt, which basically meant cleansing the planet of anti-fash, non-white Jews.

So Eisen goes to kill.

We're in a circle around the goat.

Everybody's kind of on their knees.

I'm not sure how I ended up at the back of the goat, but that's where I was at.

And he has a machete type thing.

He does his speech.

We're starting this.

This is the wild hunt.

This is going to Valhalla.

He even named the goat Gar,

G-A-R, short for Garfield, which was his middle name and also the first name of his grandfather.

So we've got a connection to this goat now.

He goes to kill it.

And for whatever reason, I don't know if the blade was dull.

I don't know if this backstrap was thick.

Let's just add it's his first time ever trying to do this.

Yeah, but he brought it with force.

He come down, wham, and I'm holding it, and it was just a thud.

And all you hear is the goat go,

you know, and I'm like, oh, damn.

And I'm like, this is going to get bad so fast.

And somebody said, do it again.

And somebody's like, the neck's too thick.

Somebody says, anybody got a gun?

Well, we weren't supposed to bring any weapons but the one guy who was least qualified to be handling a firearm had it hands it to aizen so eizen chambers around points to the goat's head and then turns away oh my and we're all still in the circle so that's when the instructor comes out you hear it clear on the recording like whoa whoa man hey what are you doing i said look at what you're shooting at man we're in a circle so he comes up to it boom even on the recording you can hear the goat hit the ground

it kicks for several minutes i tell Eisen, I say, I want you to put another bullet in it.

I think it might still be alive.

No, I'm pretty sure it's dead.

I said, for the love of the goat, we're trying to make this a peaceful current.

For Garnar.

Yeah, for Gar.

For Garrin.

Let's put this thing up to Valhalla peacefully.

So they put another one in it, and then somebody even says, oh, now it's definitely dead.

So you think you're done?

No.

Now they slice the throat of the goat.

They fill up a cup with his blood.

We're all in a circle, and Aizen brought acid.

Of course, I did not partake in the acid.

Maybe a couple others didn't partake to help with the shiman, which is to kind of get you in the spirit world or get high.

That's called like

me.

I'm going to like young guys in the spirit world.

But as we're going around, I'm holding the flashlight for Eisen.

Eisen's tearing off a tab, putting it in the mouth of the base member, and then they're chasing with the blood of the goat.

So we keep doing that all the way around, and it gets to me.

And now it's my turn.

And by this time, I look down at the cup and it's all coagulated.

It's clotting.

Oh, God.

So gnarly.

This is horrific.

And I'm looking at it and I'm going, man, I really don't want to turn this shit up.

You'd be shocked at some of the things I would do instead of drink that.

Yeah, right?

I'm thinking the same thing.

I would have to take the acid.

Yeah, I know.

But I looked and I said, I think pestilence gave me an out because I'm like, I'm looking at it.

It's just chunky.

And I just don't want it bouncing off my lips.

This is horrible.

So I stick my finger deep into the blood, pull it out, suck all the blood off my finger.

And then they commenced to cutting the whole head of the goat off and we carried it around for the next four days.

There's all kinds of photo ops.

There's videos.

It made it all over.

It was on BBC news, everything.

Us holding the goat's head, giving the sig how, holding the base flag.

Of course, the next day was completely shocked because they were still high on acid.

But we went back to training and that Saturday night, we did more filming.

We went back to the holy site and set a bonfire.

We're burning holy Bibles.

We're burning American flags while everybody's screaming, F, your Jewish God, death to America.

You see, you got to understand, if you hate the far right, I'm not saying extreme right, like white supremacists, I'm just saying politically.

It's like, oh, well, this white supremacist, these people don't like anybody.

That was my thought when I watched, and I'm not conflating this group with these people, but when I was watching the Capitol Six riots, I'm looking at this crowd.

You'd be tempted to think there's some kind of monolith ideology there.

There's not.

Read that sign.

That's in contradiction to that sign.

There's so much hodgepod shit.

Their ideology is not the thing that actually is uniting them or making them similar.

Correct.

Were there people there with some nefarious plans?

For sure.

For sure.

But I just think the thread was, I've been excluded from this system, so I hate this system.

So to put a pin on this, this did end with 11 arrests.

Yeah.

After that weekend, I gained more trust and they started including me on what we found out were numerous murder plots.

The Canadian went back up to the Baltimore, Delaware area and was with a sale up there.

I was good friends with both of those sales.

The sale up there thought that the Second Amendment gun rights rally that was going to be in January of 2020, they thought that might be the kickoff to the Boogaloo, maybe fire some shots.

Militia people think it's somebody else, cops think it's somebody else, and that could be the kickoff.

And if you could see some of the stuff they were spewing, the conversations they were having, like, let's go break out the Charleston shooter.

Let's go break out the Saints.

Let's start shooting cops.

I got a thermal scope.

Cop stops a car at night.

We pop them.

What do you get automatically?

You get another gun and bullets.

You get a bulletproof vest.

You might get a radio.

It's just crazy stuff.

So we uncovered all that.

The timeline was crunching and we were able to successfully take down everything.

That was incredible.

You gave us so much time.

I had a couple of just really rapid-fire questions, just your kind of opinion about some stuff.

So have the numbers increased or decreased over the last five decades?

And And if so,

how do you explain the growth or the shrinkage?

It seems like it's growing.

Is it the internet?

Is it the political climate?

Is it unemployment?

Is it directionless young dudes?

What would we attribute this to?

And has it increased?

It ebbs and flows, and sometimes it is political.

So like when Obama was in for eight years, your militia started growing again because they were worried about their gun rights.

And then when Trump came in, it kind of died down because they weren't worried about it.

And then it kind of ebbs and flows.

The white supremacy thing, the quickest way for me to answer it on an extremist level is what I've been talking about is far-right extremism, white supremacy.

There's some militia stuff in there too, anti-government, because I infiltrated it.

But I've got mentors, peers, and people I've mentored that are working the other side and radical jihadists or black separatists or far left.

There's a lot of people being radicalized online.

And especially with AI these days.

So go back to what I said from what I saw.

This isn't the be-all end-all.

Every situation is different a case-by-case basis, but I saw a lot of somebody who's an outcast, has a hard time belonging, can't get a partner, probably been bullied, and they want to belong.

And then they dive on these phones at night and they go down these rabbit holes of hate.

I don't know if Gab's still in or not, but you could go to Gab and go to a group that's called 14 words.

That is white supremacy.

They're referring to the 14 word coined by David Lane, synonymous through white supremacy.

Or you could hop on whites only.

I wonder what you're going to find there.

And they will take some real stories and they will do propaganda videos to suck you in.

And then you start meeting like-minded people.

And I'm telling you, the stuff that they blast is vile.

And I know people that are working the other side and it's the same thing.

So it goes kind of back to me.

See something, say something.

I understand parents having blinders on because that's their kid and they don't want to believe it.

But you think it's a phase?

when your kid barely has a job or hardly ever has one?

Father of one of these base base guys, I was getting so frustrated listening to him talk.

He's like, you know, he went through a lot of phases.

And she asked, what was it?

You know, it was some Nazi stuff.

It's denial.

That guy came down and drank with us and the apple doesn't fall far.

He's dropping N-words and this, that, and the other.

And I get it.

He loves his son.

He loves his daughter.

That's cool.

But your son has the skull of Gar, which has now been cleaned with swastikas and other white supremacy stuff and runes on it.

And on one side of the skull is Meyen Kampf, Hitler's book, and on the other side of the thing is Siege by James Mason.

That's not a phase.

When you've got grown men showing up all the time and training on your 100 acres, wearing flectar and camouflage because that's the German pattern, drinking Jaegermeister because that's German.

And you hear what they're saying.

It's tough, but go ahead.

That was a long answer.

No, that was important.

That's good.

When you say say something, can you be specific?

Report it.

To the police.

Yeah, that's what your joint terrorism task forces are out there for.

That's what your local cops are there for.

On joint terrorism task force, because that's what I ended my career on.

I was a criminal guy for the majority of my career, but that's where that call comes in.

And a lead is typed up.

Some of them are crazy.

Lady says she was kidnapped by ISIS and they replaced her eyes with alligator eyes.

And you're like, what?

Yeah.

I got to go find this person now and interview them.

How do you do that interview?

Hey, Dax, can you look at me?

But you can do that.

And then they'll get a lead and maybe just going out there and knocking on the door saying, hey, a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world right now, but somebody's reported that you're putting some radical stuff out there.

I just want to make sure you're not really planning on hurting anybody.

Maybe that scares them out.

Maybe.

Or maybe it gives me an opportunity to have them call me if they see something crazy.

In the book, I talk about that guy in the case.

It was other white supremacists that reported that guy because he was so radical.

They're like, hey, man, I'm a white supremacist, but this dude.

He's really crazy.

This dude wants to shoot up a synagogue.

Oh, yeah.

I knew you would probably have felt very close friendships with some of these people and that that would be heartbreaking.

Did you feel bad for these guys?

Some of them.

I think we grew up in an era too where I saw kids get destroyed.

They came in as just kids showing up to school and they got destroyed.

That's heartbreaking to me.

It worked out for me and didn't for some people.

And I'm not saying I like what their solution to it is, but I also see so much of this is born out of just a horrendous experience on

tough.

I'm 100% believer in, I don't have to believe it.

I've seen it, product of your environment kind of thing.

I bond with a lot of these people, and it's not far from what I grew up around, or it's exactly what I grew up around, or it could have been my relative.

Imagine looking at some of these guys and going like, oh yeah, you're a thousand hugs shy of being here.

Yeah, or second chance, or a fifth chance, or a 20th chance.

No one's winning the whole thing.

I can give you one that wants second chances.

Oh, yeah, let's hear it.

Love a success story.

It's sad that there hadn't been a lot in my 28-year career.

You always hear people when they're getting arrested and they're getting ready to do their time.

They're like, man, I'm never doing this again.

I said, remember where you're at.

Also, let's be real.

What do you plan on doing when you get out?

I'm going to cut hair.

My uncle was a barber.

It's a great profession, but I want you to understand something.

A barber's salary is not going to allow you to walk into the Dodge dealership, pay cash for a brand new challenger with your own custom-made rims on it.

So be prepared.

Yeah.

But do that.

Success stories, they are out there.

And I have, even in retirement, let the U.S.

Attorney's Office know.

I didn't have to, but I'm like, hey, I've talked to this person.

We got put in contact with each other.

I helped put this person in jail.

For their sentencing hearing, I'm going to do a letter for them, a character letter, but I wanted to let you know so you're not blindsided.

They're like, man, thank you so much.

I said, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to type it.

I'm going to send it to you.

You let me know if you have any heartburn with it and we'll discuss.

And then I do a character reference letter, and they only got probation.

Even through my church, small groups, some of my best friends were meth dealers.

Yeah.

And they had to go due time.

But hey, man, I'm here for you.

As long as you're doing the right thing, I'll do whatever I can to help you.

To some degree, you must certainly have developed some acute spidey senses where I'm sure you can kind of tell who's capable of that second chance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And empathy.

Amy, you must have an abundance of it.

and it's an incredible book code name pale horse how i went undercover to expose america's nazis with michelle also the podcast is fantastic this has been radical scott i appreciate you having me on yeah this is incredible all right be well brother all right peace

i sure hope there weren't any mistakes in that episode but we'll find out when my mom mrs monica comes in and tells us what was wrong

I know this doesn't interest you, but it continues to wow me, and I'm going to keep telling you.

Okay.

Well, first of all, when's the last time you bought a pound of ground beef?

It's been a minute.

But you can visualize in your head about how big that is.

Yes.

Right.

Small-ish.

Well, I would say it's like this big.

It's like the size of a small shoe.

You don't like that.

You don't like that.

I think it's sure.

Well, here's my point.

Yeah.

I think a pound of ground beef is a significant size.

Okay.

And

I weighed myself last night before bed.

Oh my god, Dax.

I can't.

Yeah, you got to.

Because I listened to astrology in the pit yesterday.

You love astrology.

I don't love astrology.

You have it tattooed on your body.

So 205.2 last night.

Okay.

Many pee-pees in the night.

Okay.

Very big deposit this morning.

198.8.

So

I lose seven pounds in 12 hours, 10 hours.

That's a lot.

Picture seven pounds of ground beef.

I want to.

That's what you must picture to be impressed by this.

Okay, yeah.

Like, where does it go?

Like, well, I know where it goes.

It goes in the turtlet, but no, just picture seven pounds of ground beef on that table, and then I go, I'm going to lose that tonight.

Maybe it's more than just the pee and the poop.

I mean, I don't air.

Air is not very heavy, but how much is air?

How much is air?

Oh, I want to tell this.

I saw a very cool video.

I'm mad I didn't send it to anyone because you know, the only way this is how I save videos really in my mind.

I see a video I like on Instagram and I send it to someone.

Yeah, sure.

And then a month later, I'm like, all right, I remember I sent it that because how else would you find it?

Well, you can save them, but yeah.

Oh, you can?

I don't know how to do that.

I'll start doing that.

Okay.

Okay.

It was Richard Feynman.

And you know, people love

all smart people are obsessed with Richard Feynman.

Yeah.

Like consistently, it's every smart person's favorite smart person.

Okay.

He's a physicist and he worked on the Manhattan Project.

He could tackle anything.

He was just so curious and fun.

So I watched this video of him and he said, you know, have you ever sat and looked at a tree and wondered, where does the structure come from?

I think it's normal to assume all of that comes out of the ground.

Like the building blocks for a tree and this huge tree trunk and all the leaves, it's like coming out of the ground.

And he said, in fact, that is not where it comes from.

The tree is built from the air.

Because the air has carbon dioxide in it.

And the tree, with the help of the sun, it breaks that apart.

Wait, the tree?

The tree and the leaves.

I thought the tree didn't exist yet.

A little sapling comes up.

From where?

A seed.

Okay, so you're saying, okay,

you're saying there's a seed.

There's a seed, then there's a sapling.

Okay.

Then everything that grows above that, 100-foot redwood.

That's not coming from the ground.

Okay, I see what you're saying.

I thought you meant like, I thought you were getting very

heady and like, where do things come from?

Well, it is a little heady, but it's not metaphysical.

So the air is full of carbon dioxide.

The tree, with the help of the sun, it breaks apart the carbon dioxide into carbon and oxygen releases oxygen we breathe the oxygen it uses that carbon to construct the wood the tree

so the whole structure of it is just taken out of the air by the tree by car so it's all carbon it's all carbon trees are all carbon yeah As yeah, as are we.

We're like carbon life forms.

But I mean, how do they, how does the wood itself, like, how does it create the texture of wood?

Well, that's how it assembles the carbon that it pulls out of the air.

It assembles it into that shape.

You told it to do that.

You got to let me get to the punchline of that.

So that right there is mind-blowing.

I think I've always looked at trees and thought all that wood came out of the ground somehow.

And he said, sure, there's some minerals and stuff that are coming out of the ground.

And then the other thing that's coming out of the ground is the water.

Trees are made up a lot of water.

Yes.

He said, but the water doesn't come from the ground either.

The water comes from the air.

Sure.

Well, that's true.

So the structure of the tree and the water all comes from the air.

Yeah.

He said, and then when you cut this tree down and you cut it into logs and you put it in the fire and you add fire to it, what it starts doing is rejoining the oxygen and the carbon.

And that's the flames you're seeing.

And you can think about the flames you're seeing are really just the flames from the sun that have transferred into the flames of this fire.

It's all the same

energy.

It's pretty rad, isn't it?

It is really interesting.

Yeah, and I'm like, I'm so impressed someone figured out why the tree.

You just, you might just go, yeah, they're there.

I'm not going to overthink it.

That's what most people do.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's what everyone does.

Except for Feynman.

That's magic.

It just comes out of the air.

But like that structure.

The root system.

The water's in the air, but it's also in the, it like comes down.

It starts in the air, it's created in the air.

It comes down to the ground.

And then it comes down to the ground.

I mean,

groot knows all about this groot is the living proof of this process yeah yeah i saw him recently you saw him after you found out about the big yeah and i gave him a squeeze did you he was wearing pajamas yeah he has so many cute pajama outfits i'm so he has he has um

he has a uh a safari outfit yeah he's got every kind of look

Yeah, like what most people think about their American girl doll, like when you buy it, you do.

You like buy all the beds and the things and the accoutrement.

That's what Groot has.

I like hers, though, because it's more scrappy.

There's no like, they don't make these clothes for him.

So she's like aggregating all these from different sources.

Yeah, me too, me too.

Yeah.

Really cool.

And when we were in Hawaii, we went into a store and I told them they could each get one thing.

And I meant candy.

Like they could have one candy item.

Uh-huh.

And then Delta decided to trade her candy option for she found a tiny outfit that was supposed to go on some other creature.

And then she's like, I think those will fit perfectly on Groot.

So we left with an outfit instead of candy.

I had been saying, I'm, I, I'm jealous of my own kids.

Like, I wish I had their childhood.

But I think I want to be ultimately Delta's child.

I think if she has a child, that child is going to be fretted over.

Yeah, I hope not too much.

Oh, we don't want to spoil them.

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

Yeah, or Munchausen's.

It's a fine line.

Really fine line.

But I've already established she doesn't want attention for it.

Like, Munchausen's would have been, she would have come up to me and said, you know, Groot is disabled.

Right.

You're right.

She's known he's disabled forever.

And I just stumbled upon that.

She is going to be such a good mom.

She's very loving and attentive and thoughtful.

Yeah, she's making me a scarf right now.

Yes, she is.

And she wanted to know how long you wanted it.

It's so good.

It's so well constructed.

She's knitting it from scratch.

And I, I was looking at it and I thought,

this little baby I used to hold, her little

tiny hands made this.

I can't make this.

Me neither.

She can, that little baby made that.

Yeah, they start doing things you can't do and it's really something.

It's so overwhelming.

I don't know.

I'm at a bit of a crisis state.

I mentioned it on the last fact check.

And then some pediatrician said, yes, you got to stop talking about your kids.

Now, I'm not going to take that to too much credit, like just because you're a pediatrician, you have no actual

psychologist.

But what's what's seared into my brain is that I know Howard at one point stopped and his daughters ended up being very upset at him, I think, with that he would talk about them.

Yeah.

And so now I tell my kids what I say.

Yeah.

So it's not like there's any secrecy going on that's kind of how i've been telling myself but all to say yes i probably need to stop okay and then i was like what do i i don't have anything else in life to talk about virtually i think our best conversations yeah are our

debates conversation yeah they're not just the i mean stories are fun i love a story yeah you have a lot of good ones i have so many good ones but they're there to spark a conversation yeah between us.

I just, you know, there's my free time is what I'm going to draw on.

Yeah.

Anything that's going to happen to me.

Like I went to, I didn't go to Monster Jam by myself.

You know, I took my kids.

Yeah.

And you didn't take Groot and lose him.

She did.

That's right.

And so I was just sitting in bed, I think, last night going like, I don't think I have

a life.

If they're not a part of the conversation, then I have almost nothing to talk about.

And I guess it's pretty standard for parents.

Yeah, I'm sure.

I had this the other day

when I was watching you, So Much You.

By the way, I got to the measles section that was referred to in the Laurie Ingram.

Congratulations.

Yes.

And

I had spent the day watching TV and working.

And then the next day, I

realized I hadn't spoken to anyone the day before.

Oh, you went a whole day without talking?

Yes.

Ah.

And it was.

Did it feel good or bad?

it felt the realization felt bad i don't know why yeah um the experience didn't feel bad i didn't even notice

also because i have so much chatter in my head i never really feel alone yeah yeah i never feel alone do you think that's normal yeah i mean i'm almost never not thinking of something yeah unless i'm meditating and in truth only for half a second six minutes of the 20.

You can do six minutes in a row.

Yeah, I can have six minute chunks where it's like I have no thoughts.

I can't do that many.

It's so hard.

It's like 30 seconds max for me.

Yeah, I meditated in the evening.

You're supposed to meditate for my meditation, TM.

You're supposed to do morning and then evening before dinner while your stomach's still empty.

And I don't do the nighttime one,

but I

did do it a couple times recently.

And I did realize, I almost wonder if I'm prioritizing the wrong one because in the evening, I'm not, my brain isn't nearly as

rambunctious.

It's like when I wake up, I just have a flurry of like, this is what you got to do.

And this is what happened yesterday.

Yeah.

Evaluate my whole life.

It's morning.

In the evening, I'm kind of like, yeah, whatever.

We did, we're alive.

We did it.

And then I, I can get, and an evening meditation, I can get sometimes like 15 of the 20 minutes are just blissful, no thoughts.

interesting but then but you don't need it as bad i should do it though because i what i want is that 15 minutes of bliss it is really

euphoric yeah when i get it nice okay great yeah well then i wonder is it just helping like the fact that i do it every morning and is it you know is my overall

calmness

live wireness diminished a little bit i think you're mellowing out uh-huh losing my vitality

Losing your will to live.

That's kind of happening.

So Chris and I went for two days to this conference up north and I danced.

Sure.

I love to dance.

You love it.

But I'm a little out of shape dancing.

As it turns out, so I was jumping a lot in my dancing.

It was Snoop Dogg.

Okay.

Snoop D-O-D-G.

And so I was dancing.

I was jumping.

I was jumping.

It was fun.

Probably danced for like an hour.

Went back to the hotel room.

I was walking barefoot in the bathroom in my gnarly comb over toes.

They were like, uh-uh,

you can't do, you can't jump anymore for a half hour.

Okay.

My foot was like, oh no, we can't do this.

It was, it was gnarled up.

And you did it make you sad.

And no, yeah, I was just like, are we at the end of, you know, these things are going to start popping up.

Can't dance like I used to dance.

I have been having a lot of thoughts about

life

and age.

We had a 30-year-old guest on yesterday.

Like, did that do anything to you?

No.

I don't imagine her.

I don't think of her.

As 30.

As 30, and I don't think of me as 37.

There we go.

That helps.

So you're both 35.

I feel like we're both like 34-ish,

you know, in that zone.

She might be, she might be, like, 32, and I'm 34.

Okay.

Sometimes I'll get, I mean, I guess it's like the meditation.

Sometimes I'll just get minutes, brief, brief minutes of, I think what are, this sounds braggy, enlightenment.

Okay.

Like I can, I can hit it for a second where I really.

You feel content and at peace.

But I understand,

I really deeply understand that nothing matters.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

In the rest of life, I can tell, you know, I can tell myself and I can understand it intellectually and I can try to live a life that reflects that.

But there are times where I am like embody, I feel it.

That really the purpose

is

is to

love.

I wish I could choose to have that more, but it's also overwhelming.

It's a really over after.

It's an overwhelming feeling to

really

understand

that

we're all, none of this matters.

None of anything we're doing.

And I don't mean like, obviously helping people is great.

And

feeding yourself is imperative.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't, it's hard to explain, obviously.

That's why.

Well, when I kind of like tried to get really specific about what's going on in my meditation, when it works, and what I realized is and this is not novel or proprietary people everyone knows this but the racket is either thinking about the past or thinking about the future yes exactly and really the the absence of thoughts is just being in the moment you're in yep Because there's really nothing to think about in the moment you're in.

That's what's crazy.

It's like you're constantly preparing for what's coming or you're processing what already happened.

But in the second to second moment, you don't really need to do shit.

There's nothing to do or to be afraid of because there's no, nothing's attacking you.

Like, yes.

It's just being, I know this is fundamental, but

it was just very clear to me.

It's like, oh, really?

The goal isn't even not thinking.

It's just, if I'm not in the future and I'm not in the past, I won't be thinking.

It's like how you,

how we don't know if you're seeing the same colors I'm seeing.

Yeah.

I want to know

if other people have

this like

constant.

There's no time

at all that I'm awake that there isn't a conversation happening

or a monologue happening.

And I assume that's everyone.

I just assume that's how humans are.

But I read a statistic about this.

That people don't.

I won't know the right number, but I want to say it was something like low, but like 20% of people don't have that.

I want to try it.

Like, I wish there was a way to try it for a day.

GLP1, I'm sure it'll fix that too.

I am very curious about the GLP ones

because of so many people we've had on that are saying it could be good for this.

It could be good for this.

Yeah.

But

it's obvious it works for

weight loss.

Yeah.

And it's helping so many people.

That's proven at this point.

But these other things like dementia, addiction, potentially, addiction potential.

Yeah, there's all these potential benefits, reducing of inflammation.

And I like kind of want to try it.

But I

don't want to not eat food.

I don't have an opinion whether you should or shouldn't.

All I'll just add is it's dose dependent.

Right, but even I know.

Like you can be on a little or a lot.

You could have zero compulsion to eat food or you could have some.

It's variable.

Well, I know, but I know people who are on like

basically the tiniest dose.

Yeah.

And they,

their eating habits are completely different.

And I don't,

I have a lot of issues, but I don't have food chatter.

Right.

Right.

As one.

Yeah.

So my worry a little bit is like,

I just won't, I just won't eat.

Sure.

And then also you, I would would say, more than others needs to consider the muscle loss aspect of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I have been doing my farmer's.

Farmer Carrie's on the way to get my wine.

Well, don't make it like that.

You should be proud of me.

I am.

I'm very proud of you.

Also, it's my job to tease you.

I know.

And I haven't been doing them this week.

Because if I can't talk about my daughters and I can't tease you, I really, we need to wrap it up.

Actually, maybe we should comment on this episode

because Dax will read the comments.

If you want us to debate about something specific.

Oh, okay.

It's kind of fun, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then you can look and see if there's anything worth us having a debate about.

Yeah.

Okay, I do have a sort of update-ish.

Okay.

So the person I was speaking about who

went to Saturday Night Live.

You're in love with.

Yes.

Apparently,

a lot of people are in love with this person.

And I didn't know that.

You didn't.

You didn't.

You knew?

I assumed immediately.

He was cast for a reason.

Yes, I think he's broadly appealing.

Well, yeah, but like.

You feel a little bummed that other people.

You know what I feel?

It's so old.

It's so old for me.

Yeah.

But it's like, oh, well, then that's gone.

Like, if other people...

I would argue you already knew that, and that's why he's there.

Why?

No.

Why?

You don't think that's a good idea.

I don't think it's a continuation of

the quarterback.

In my opinion, this person is not that.

He's not the archetype of a quarterback.

The quarterbacks now aren't the quarterbacks.

They're Timothy Chalaming.

Chalamay.

There's, so you say, there's a bunch of people that are at the peak of the pinup world, and they're not that anymore.

And this guy is in that group.

He's a very sought-after, that person doesn't cast her love interest willy-nilly.

I think I actually

kind of zoned in on this person

because I didn't think that.

I was like, I think I found like a gem.

Oh, uh-huh.

And people

aren't going to overlook him because he doesn't look like Brad Pitt.

Right.

But

I find him so attractive.

Brad Pitt.

Turns out, I guess everyone does.

But no, I didn't do that.

I don't think you consciously did that.

What?

No one's even been talking about him until recently.

I think he's a very, very high-value target.

Well, just because he's a famous person?

No, for all the reasons he was in that movie, being sexy and being appealing.

Well, obviously I'm going to be attracted to someone who's appealing and sexy.

It's not an accident that he was chosen to play that.

I'm right about this, that he has not been on people's radar until recently.

Okay.

And now he's kind of blowing up.

Right.

And

now people are like, oh, I love him.

I was like, I've always loved him.

Yeah.

For at least

for a long time.

10 months.

No, like a really long time.

And

now he has all these options available.

And I guess in your head, he's always had all these options available.

He has.

And that's not me saying you shouldn't like the person because there's too much competition.

That's not what I'm saying.

That's not what I'm saying.

But the illusion that you were the only one that liked him is bonkers.

That part, I think, is bonkers.

Should you pursue him?

Are you capable of landing him?

Yes.

That's not what I'm saying.

I'm just saying he was always a high-value target.

Okay, but you're saying I picked him because

I knew I couldn't have him.

Which is

getting complicated.

Yeah, you're telling me you can't have him because now everyone likes him.

Yeah, and you're saying that.

So that's your reality.

I picked him.

Right.

That's your reality.

Your reality is now I can't have him because everyone thinks he's hot.

That's the one you just introduced to me.

So that's the reality you believe in.

Right.

And I'm arguing your subconscious always knew that.

Because I know the feeling in my body

when

two things happen.

One person told me, like,

yeah, I think he's the person everyone can get on board with.

And I was like, oh, I was really surprised to hear that.

And then, like, soon after that, another person was like, oh my God, yeah, the ladies love him.

And I was like, what?

And the feeling in my body during both of those conversations was of heartbreak

and of disbelief and of despair.

But I think you intuitively know that any male that's the lead in a sexual movie,

you know the reality of that.

You know that that's a movie star that's been picked for that.

But

it's more,

he is becoming one.

He wasn't at that time.

No one was talking about them.

They were talking about another person in the movie.

Yeah, that's great.

You don't think you just across the board could say anyone that's a lead of a movie making out with a hot person probably has an appeal everyone agreed on?

Yes, obviously.

And I'm not saying that.

I know.

And so you do know that.

Yes.

Yeah.

So your subconscious knows that this is an attractive person because they wouldn't have put him in the role.

Sure, I know he's an attractive person.

Yes, but in your conscious mind, you thought you were seeing something no one else saw.

I thought I was

early in

on a person.

Right.

Where I was like, oh, oh, this guy is

really

has something.

Yeah.

And I guess you're saying the casting director also and the filmmaker and the co-star all thought that too.

Well, I don't know.

We don't know about the co-star.

I don't want to speak for it.

Well, the co-star definitely was in charge of who got cast in that.

I don't know what to say.

I just, I, I, you think it was.

Do you see the point I'm making, though?

That, like, you,

you had two things happening at once.

One is you know the reality of casting someone in a movie.

Yeah, I know.

You're making it about something so specific.

Like, I, yes, I know that

probably only an attractive person, a likable person would get that role.

But I didn't, you know, people were like, ooh, like.

you thought they missed him.

I don't yes.

Yeah,

and I guess they didn't but also

I in my own circles like I know about people

Being talked about.

Yeah, and I don't hear this person's name come up a lot right until now it's really taken off and I

Like when I imagined being at SNL,

I didn't think,

oh, I

I'd be too scared to talk to him or he's too good for me.

Right.

Now I do.

And that sucks.

Because you've

acknowledged there would be a lot of competition for this guy.

In your mind, you've accepted that he has a lot of options.

Yeah.

And so, and in your mind, then this is where the baggage comes in.

If there's a lot of competition, I can't have it.

If he has choices, I'm not going to be the pick.

Right.

Yeah, I feel that way.

But you must acknowledge this very arbitrary thing happened that changed your mind, which is you were going to be as appealing to him as you're going to be to him, period.

That's it.

Well, if I'm the only option.

You heard other people like him, so you like reverse engineered what now he would think.

That changed how he would think about you.

Well, that's the hiccup in your thinking.

No, I want to talk to you.

I want to be real.

Okay.

We've had this.

This has happened in some way before, sort of, ish.

There was somebody on this show

that showed some interest,

got my phone number.

Then there was

ghosting.

Yeah, yeah.

There was ghosting.

Yeah.

And you said to me, well, yeah.

This person is at the point in their career where they're getting a lot of options.

What I think is the most important part, which is you said, well, he didn't actually like me.

And I said, well, no, it doesn't mean that he didn't actually.

He actually liked you.

He asked for your phone number and he liked you.

And then he got to New York and there was someone else there that he also liked.

That was my, my, that, the whole point of that was to stop your train of thought that he, no, he now, I told you he didn't like me.

And I was saying that's not proof that he didn't like you.

He wouldn't ask for your phone number if he didn't like you.

He liked you.

And he met five other people in the next two weeks that he also liked.

Right.

So then if that there are options, I'm not getting picked.

No, if you're in front of a guy at Saturday Night Life Party and he was going to be attracted to you, he'd be attracted to you.

Now, are you going to go with him everywhere and make sure no one else is, he's not meeting anyone else?

Are you going to lock up in a relationship?

You know, look, what's going to happen to confront the reality of this person's life?

But just the core thing, does someone like you or not?

Is really independent, I think, of whether or not a lot of people like them.

Well, more than do they like you, it's are you an, are you an option for them?

Or is anybody an option for them?

Like for the previous guest we were talking about, I said nobody's an option for him.

He's not settling down right now.

Right.

But I don't think you ghost someone completely who you even want to like kind of hang out with.

If you want to kind of hang out with them, you got to keep them on the hook a little bit.

Well, I guess that's that.

Here's where you and I are different.

So I meet Kate Hudson.

Kate Hudson has every single option.

I think she's just broken up with Owen Wilson.

I think she dates.

professional baseball players after me.

Right.

I go into it going, she has every option in the world.

She's going to to have a lot of distractions.

She is

the competition is fierce.

And she'll like me.

Right.

But she'll like me or she'll want to be with me.

These are different things.

Like she'll like me at a dinner.

She'll like chit-chatting with me or she will want me.

Yeah, she'll want me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, that's

different than yeah,

that's right.

That's the big difference, I think, between your and I's approach.

But that's also different between this previous guest, what you're saying.

Like, yeah, he liked you,

but

he didn't want to be with you.

Yeah, I mean, you need access to somebody, clearly.

What do you mean?

You need access.

You have to be in front of the person you're sure that you can make like you.

You have to have access to them.

Well, we did.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you, I think you, when you find out that the other person that everyone likes them you then say well i can't have them

and i go yes here's the reality of their life and i can have them i can go get them

i just want to i want to determine who i'm pursuing by how many other people like them and it sounds like you're saying you you've made it that that would be a uh

a factor in whether or not you pursued somebody well it feels like i'm setting myself up for failure right

yeah i think that is your fear And then

where you and I differ in our approach to life is,

great, I'll fail.

I won't have her.

I still don't have her.

So there's nothing.

I'm risking nothing by trying and failing.

Yeah.

Oh, they'll be in the same position I'm already in.

Yeah.

Like I, whatever, for whatever reason, when I do that math, that emboldens me

to go, like, there's nothing at risk.

I mean, so much of the way we operate is based on

our

experience.

You've been valid, you've been validated many times,

which obviously makes you feel like...

You end up going after a ton of girls that rejected me.

And it's just like acting.

I want to act.

I don't care how many times you reject me.

I'm going to keep trying until I can act.

Right.

You go into it knowing, oh, I'm going to fail

99% of the time.

But I want the thing so bad.

I always deal with the rejection.

That makes sense.

All right, well, let's transition into some facts.

Okay, great.

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Okay, some facts for Scott Payne.

Number one, he's a stud.

He's so cool.

What a cool, scary

life.

It's rare I hear someone's whole career, and I think, yeah, I would have also really liked that.

That sounds so up my alley.

You're acting.

Yep.

You're having to meet groups of people and get them to like you,

get them to trust you.

You have to be good at moving in different kinds of, you know.

You say in the episode, and I think it's right, like, I don't think your tolerance go for the stupidity.

Yeah, there's a, you have to listen to a lot of crazy shit.

Almost exclusively.

Yeah.

These organizations are not the winners' club.

They're like AA.

They're the losers' club.

No, AA are people trying to be better.

But we call it the losers club.

I know, but I don't think

it's that way.

Yeah, but to have to listen to these bozo conspiracy theorists who are racist, like the things they believe.

I know.

Oh, it would be so.

That is

just so disturbing.

Yeah.

I'd also hate to see someone kill a goat in front of me.

Okay, well, let's start with that.

Okay.

The difference between a goat and a ram.

Is a ram a boy goat?

A ram is a male sheep, while a goat is a separate species of animal.

Also often kept on farms.

They are distinguished by their physical characteristics, such as the shape of their horns, tail, and general body structure.

What's a male goat called?

It's not called a ram?

I think it's like bull and cow.

You know how these names, they're gendered names, but they are, they transcend species borders.

But a ram is a sheep.

But a bull moose, a bull cow, a bull elephant.

They call a lot of female animals cows.

No, a male goat is a buck or a billy goat.

Oh, a buck or or a billy goat buck also a male name sure deer females are called does or nanny goats and baby goats are called kids you know the thing i've noticed goats do that sheep don't tend to do they love getting on tall rocks oh that's or they stand i've had friends who have had pet goats and they just stand on top of their like a dog house that they're they sleep in they just are up there they want to be as high as they can be maybe to see predators come in yeah it kind of creeps me out you don't like that yeah i think that's a fun part of them.

Okay.

They're very agile.

Rams are larger than goats.

Okay.

Some breeds of sheeps and goats can look similar, so tail shape can help differentiate them.

Male goats can have stronger, more noticeable odor than male sheep.

Both male and female goats have beards.

Oh.

I'm sorry, ladies.

They like it.

Yeah.

You know, Aaron had a sheep at his.

Well, his dad had a farm.

And he had one of all these animals, which is silly.

Like, they weren't in the farming business.

No one's going to reproduce.

Right.

But they had a sheep.

They had a goose.

They had a duck.

They had a pig.

And I've told you this.

And they, and a turkey.

And they'd all walk in a line all day long.

Oh, my God.

And the goose would be in back going, right, back, like, yelling at all of them.

Oh, wow.

But the sheep, they just love to hit things with their head.

They just do it over and over again.

So what the sheep would do is if you set the wheelbarrow up, you know how the wheelbarrow has like the long poles that come out that you're holding?

Yes.

It would just run as fast as it can into the end of that handle and knock over the wheelbarrow.

And then we'd set it back up, and he would do it again and again.

And he loved it.

It is so male.

Like, I'm going to run into this stick.

Well, they got to do it to get some ass.

No, no.

Yeah, they do.

That's how they get ass.

It's attractive.

For sheep, it is.

The women's sheep love it.

Yes, that's how they compete for dominance.

And then he gets the sheep.

God.

They love it.

Those sheep are so horny when they see

some ramming, some head-on-head collision.

Oh, God, I hope Chris doesn't know about it.

CTE.

CTE.

They don't get CTE.

Yes, they do.

All these sheeps have CTE.

It's no wonder.

They don't.

What does CBC stand for?

Canada Broadcasting Corporation.

That makes zero sense.

Sorry, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Yeah.

What do you mean?

It's CBC.

How can the C stand for for incorporation?

No, corporation.

Corporation.

I thought you said incorporation.

No, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Oh, broadcasting corporation.

Because

you said broadcasting corporation.

I said what it was.

You didn't hit the G, the Ng.

Oh, my God.

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Did that sound at all like incorporation?

Okay, sure.

I'll give you that.

The four large biker gangs.

He got it right.

It is

the big four refers to the Hell's Angels, the Outlaws, the Banditos, and the Pagans.

He got that right.

Good job.

He knows his stuff.

Okay, he said the owner of Flat Rock got

in some trouble.

Oh, yeah.

Hit and run.

Yeah, that sounds

Harley Rusty Biddle.

Oh, my God.

They threw it at a

third great name.

He was using a neighborhood road as a cutthrough to avoid traffic.

Ooh,

I don't want to hear the rest because I can imagine you got hit in a neighborhood.

Okay, we won't keep reading.

That reminds me of ignorance.

Yeah, ignorance is bliss.

But it does remind me of one of my favorite, I think you should leave, sketches,

the baby pageant.

Oh my god.

And the bad boy, Bart Harley-Jarvis.

And they go, fuck you, Bart Harley Jarvis.

They hate that baby.

They hate it.

Hating a baby is such a funny idea.

A woman runs on stage with a knife to kill Bart Harley Jarvis.

Oh, my God.

So funny.

I'm going to see Friendship this weekend.

I can't wait.

At Vista?

Yes.

Yes.

I'm excited.

Ding, ding, ding.

Yeah.

I went and saw Sinner yesterday or Sinners.

Saw it?

Sinner or Sinners?

Sinners, I think.

Sinners and IMAX

at City Walk by myself.

Wow.

Yeah.

An adventure.

How was it?

It's awesome.

It's really awesome.

I really want to see it.

There's a sequence in there where they're

kind kind of incorporating all these different black music traditions.

And it's like, you're in it.

It's a time period movie.

Yeah.

Set in, like, I want to say 1932 or something.

And I don't want to give anything away, but it's just like the way it's all blended together and the power of it and recognizing like this through line that exists through all this music and this human experience that all these people have shared.

Yeah.

It's crazy powerful.

Like I was goosebump

all over my body.

And then

I just had this deep curiosity.

I wanted to ask the guy.

The theater was mostly black folks.

And there was a dude next to me.

And I was just, I got kind of curious, like, like, I'm looking at that.

A, I can feel it and sense it.

And I've experienced it in so that I've experienced that music and it's made me feel ways.

And then I was so curious, like, does does this young guy

feel a connection to that

or is he on the outside of it as i am because it's like historic and it's from another period and i'm sure he feels a connection to it yeah i just was wondering like i wanted i wanted to talk to him about that i wanted to know like what is the experience my hunch is you can That's all in your

history.

It's a genome.

Like, I think that's all in their body in some way.

Yes, I think think so.

And I was just, I was very happy

for everyone in the movie theater.

I'm really happy that this director has the power that he has and that he could tell this story in this way that was just so undeniably authentic and rich.

That's how I felt at the Beyoncé concert.

Cowboy Carter is a look on America

and what it really means to be a country person.

And

it's really deep when you start thinking about it that way.

And you're looking around at this.

I mean, obviously, that's a very, it's a diverse audience, but a lot of

black people who are, who, yeah, it's in, it is in their body to connect to these things she is saying.

Yeah.

And

for her to be shining so bright as an example is so powerful and beautiful.

Yeah.

And then, and I was also like, fuck,

you know, it's just so hard to like look around at the beauty and the joy and think like these people were

enslaved.

Yes.

Like it is.

And the music was always the reprieve.

Like I took a jazz history class in college and it was like those, all those blue notes and the things that were developed in the cotton field as an escape

from this horrific life.

is like it is deeper than chords.

There's something wild going on that is carried through way beyond.

It's still there.

Yeah.

I know.

It's a, it's, it's a beautiful thing.

Um, well, I think that is it.

That's it.

A sinner's review and uh

cowboy carter.

I loved him.

I loved him.

He was so he had a sweetness.

He did.

And an openness and an ownership of his point of view all at the same time.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Oh, and if I think we talked, we talked about this on a previous fact check where I was talking about Malcolm Gladwell's

return to the broken windows theory from tipping point.

Yeah.

That comes up in this episode, Scott Payne.

So, you know, piece it all together.

Put it, stitch it together.

Yeah, stitch it.

All right.

Love you.

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Hi, I'm Monica Lewinsky.

Welcome to Reclaiming.

I would define reclaiming as to take back what was yours.

Something you possess is lost or stolen.

And ultimately, you triumph in finding it again.

Miley Cyrus, welcome to Reclaiming.

My 2013 is your 1998.

I lost everything during that time in my personal life because of the choices I was making professionally.

Chelsea Handler, welcome to Reclaiming.

I did have a teacher who instilled in me that I was going to do something special.

And she was like, you're going to have an impact.

Sophia Bush, welcome to Reclaiming.

You went all the way.

You committed.

and if it wasn't for you, you had the courage to tell the truth and get out.

And I had to say that to women in my life, and I had to learn how to say it in a mirror to myself.

This last decade for me has really been what I consider my own reclaiming.

My own journey, my own reclaiming story is in the bones of this show.

Please listen to Reclaiming on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.