Shawn Ryan: Biden’s Cancer, Kash & Bongino on Epstein, & CIA Attempts to Infiltrate Podcasts

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So

the Joe Biden has, it turns out Joe Biden has metastatic bone cancer.

I saw that.

And of course, you know, every urologist in the world immediately knows this is a lie.

He's known for years because a PSA test shows, and this is a very slow-growing cancer, and now it sounds like it's terminal.

And so for 10 years, his doctors have known that he has this, and they've lied to us about it, and everyone's mad at Joe Biden.

But the other way to look at it is like,

who kept that secret from the rest of us?

And who was actually running the government for those four years?

I think that's a big question, right?

But, I mean, do you know Lindy Lee?

No.

Have you heard of Lindy Lee?

No.

She was on the staff and

she came on the show to

talk about who was running the country.

She said it was all the staffers.

It was all the millennial staffers that were pretty much running the country.

And nobody was talking to each other.

Everybody had their own agendas.

And yeah.

I mean, pretty much like

all the stuff that we already knew, but she just came on to confirm it and then switched sides.

But I mean, that's like the opposite of democracy, right?

I mean,

yeah.

I guess I vacillate between not being shocked at all.

I mean, of course.

I mean, he was visibly demented.

So why should we be surprised that he also, hey, by the way, he has terminal bone cancer.

But on the other hand, it's like that is so not the system that we signed up for and that we participate in.

Yeah, I mean, we didn't sign up for, but we did.

I mean,

I, look, I remember at the beginning of the election cycle when Fox News was going on and on about Joe Biden's cognitive ability.

And

I was like,

I mean, this is probably just overembellished, you know?

And then I saw the first.

Wait, were you watching Fox News again?

This was, this was a long time ago.

But yeah, I was, I, I thought, because I mean, I think all media, you know, obviously over-embellishes and just flat out lies.

And I was, I just thought, I was like, there's no way that this guy's that bad.

And then the first presidential debate, I quit watching it because I was like, holy shit, this guy legitimately cannot put a sentence together.

I was like, they're actually not over-embellishing this.

And it was on display for millions, the entire country, but

still won the vote, supposedly.

I feel like an idiot for being shocked because, of course, it's not a democracy.

Of course, the system is rigged.

It's fake.

Because no matter who gets elected, no matter who gets elected, you get...

the same foreign policy, you get the same economic policy, and the Epstein videos remain secret.

So, like, that just shows you that our system has no effect on the actual system.

Wait, what are you talking about?

I thought we could all sleep well at night now, knowing that Epstein legitimately killed himself, right?

What was that?

Did that just come out?

It's just two guys that I really like.

I mean, I love Bongino, but

he's a friend of mine.

But you weren't convinced by that?

No.

Why?

I mean,

just

I've dug into that and it's just so spooky what's going on with that and how nobody, nobody, I mean, how do you charge a guy with sex trafficking when there are no, there's no end users that have been charged?

Who did he traffic to?

Well, that's a great question.

I don't know.

You got me on that one.

I mean, right?

How do you charge him with that?

If there's no, if there's no I mean if that's where the trail starts, where does it end?

So

I think there's just a lot more going on than the majority of people know about.

What do you think that was?

What do I think it was?

I think it was a blackmail operation.

What do you think it was?

I think it was a blackmail operation run by the CIA and the Israeli Intel Services.

And probably others.

You know, French intelligence always has a hand in everything, I've noticed.

So probably them too.

You know, but the usual

darkest forces in the world colluding to make rich and powerful people obey their agenda.

I mean, look, though, I just don't understand why

nobody has come out on it.

Nobody has come out on it, right?

I mean, because if you paint the scenario, I mean, you get on a jet,

maybe, maybe you're totally innocent.

You don't know what's going on.

Two hot women come out of the whatever stewardess place,

come out, and

one thing leads to another.

Yes.

I mean, and then and then what happens?

They go, oh, we got you.

You're on camera.

And by the way, these girls are 15 or 16 or whatever the hell they were.

Right.

And, but I mean, it's,

yes, I mean, yes, if you're a married guy, it's pretty fucked up that you're doing that.

But, I mean, it's nothing, nothing new under the sun.

So why wouldn't you just scream blackmail at the top of your lungs like i didn't know this is what happened and just come clean on it why do you think

because they're repeat customers yeah

because they're so deeply implicated that they can't actually get out of it yeah maybe not i don't know i mean there's also

At least in me, the growing sense that it's not just blackmail that makes people obey.

It's not just bribery.

It's also the threat of violence.

Do you know anybody that's been threatened with violence?

I think every U.S.

president has been threatened with violence implicitly because of the murder of John F.

Kennedy.

I've known a bunch of presidents, and I think every one of them understands

that,

you know, it's pretty obvious what happened there or the outlines, you know, maybe not the details.

And no one has to this day released all the files.

And, like, why is that?

Because the message is really clear.

You know, if you get too far outside the boundaries, like, you could wind up like JFK.

Who places the boundaries?

Probably the same forces that murdered the sitting president in 1963.

You know what I mean?

Like, if you listen to the tape of

Richard Nixon talking to the CIA director in the Oval Office, no one else around, of course, it's being taped.

And Nixon knows that's because it's his taping system, but it's still his.

Like, he's no one, he has no expectation anyone's going to hear this.

When he brings up Kennedy's murder, he's the president.

In fact, not only is he the president, he got, he's won by the biggest landslide in American history.

He has a real mandate, and he is afraid.

He's afraid even to talk in private to the CIA director.

about what that was.

And he indicates, like, I know what happened to Jack Kennedy.

And the CIA director doesn't even respond.

And the president doesn't have the balls to say, hey, son, I'm talking to you.

You work for me.

Like, I want the files on this.

Like, I knew Jack Kennedy.

He was murdered.

He was shot in the head next to his wife in public.

Like, the man died.

I want to know what happened here.

He does not have the balls to say that to his own CIA director.

Man,

that's the level of fear that a murder like that that's officially unsolved, but whose outline everyone really, or a lot of people understand.

like, that's the fear that that inculcates.

Do you think it runs that deep with everybody?

I think if you're president,

you're very aware of the physical risk of the job, wouldn't you be?

I mean, yeah, I mean, I think that goes without saying, but I mean, some of these guys on the lower levels, I mean, I don't know, it's just so sophisticated.

I mean, when you dive into it, it seems so sophisticated.

And having been a, you know, a small part in some of the intel agencies, it's just not that.

I think people give them a lot more credit than they deserve.

Oh, I believe that.

You know, and

so I think there's a thing also where it's just addiction to power.

Yes.

Then they're so fucking scared that they're going to lose their power.

And I mean, you see in every administration, to include this one, people that are, you know, it's, it's, everybody wants to help the country, right?

But

everybody wants to help the country.

They have their thing that they could do to help the country.

And then they get placed in something they have no fucking business being in at all.

They know there are better people to run that sector of the government, but hey, I'll take it because I'm the best.

No, the fuck, you're not.

You're not the best.

You know, and that's, I saw that in this one, and it really fucking pissed me off.

In which one?

In the Epstein?

In this administration, there are people in there that I despise, that I know don't know what the fuck they're doing.

And

like Sebastian Gorka.

It's hard to believe he works there.

So why don't why haven't you caught Seb Gorka fever?

Why don't you love Sebastian Gorka?

Well, I'll tell you why.

I mean, he

blast, we were talking about the Sam Shoemade interview with the Tesla bomber last night, right?

And everybody called me, oh, he shuns a fucking CIA shill and he's an operative still and all this other shit.

One, I was just a contractor over there.

But anyways, that's not the point.

He came on,

he posted this thing on Twitter saying with this guy, Ryan Macbeth, who did this whole debunking my episode, right?

And

for whatever reason, he got pissed at me for doing that interview, Gorka, and posts the Ryan Macbeth little, I don't know, 10-minute clip.

that's debunking my

my interview

And Sebastian Gorka posts this thing on Twitter.

I'll send you the thing.

Maybe you can overlay it on the screen.

And he said something like, oh,

he debunks another one.

Well, then later on,

Ryan Macbeth does an apology video because the FBI actually came out and said, oh, shit, the email

on the podcast, they didn't want to name the podcast, of course, but the email on the podcast we have confirmed as being legit.

As soon as they did that, Macbeth actually came out and did an apology video.

And I was like, hey, cool.

Like,

thank you.

Thank you for the apology.

So I blasted Gorka on X and

said, because what is he in charge of now?

I can't remember.

He's at the National Security Council.

I think he's in charge of scrolling Twitter.

I think that was his official.

Supposedly his counter-terrorism is the counter-terrorism guy, right?

And I'm like, oh, this is great.

We got a guy that's running counterterrorism for the entire fucking country

when the borders have been wide open for four years.

We know there's at least a thousand

terrorists within the country setting up cells.

And this guy gets his information from an internet troll, Ryan Macbeth, who's already come out and apologized to me.

And I'm like, oh, this is perfect.

This is where Intel is going to come from from counterterrorism.

A guy that gets his information from

if it makes you feel better.

I mean, Gorka is not taken seriously by anyone who knows him, I think, including his wife, and

who's a nice person for whatever it's worth.

And I think his job literally is just to sit on the internet and like send, you know, fiery replies to people on X.

I mean, I don't think he actually has a job.

Oh, well, then I guess he's the perfect guy for the job.

He really is.

I assume there's someone else working on counterterrorism.

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So, for people who missed it, which would include pretty much nobody since it was the biggest story

for sure that week,

the guy who blew up his Tesla with himself inside, outside Trump Tower,

you got his manifesto.

Can you just give us a refresher on what that said?

Yeah, so

a little rusty on it, but in the manifesto, he had basically sent this guy, Sam Shoemade, who is an Army Intel guy,

a manifesto and said that he wanted to come on the Sean Ryan Show podcast to talk about all these And then he goes into, this was right about the time that the New Jersey drone situation was going on, that nobody

could tell us what that was.

And he had mentioned that we have some type of anti-gravitic propulsion systems that

had not been declassified, and that China has something similar, and

this would cause World War III.

And then there's another paragraph that that talks about

there was

a major offensive in Afghanistan several years ago where they basically wiped out a

heroin plant and

used a lot of air power to do it.

It sounds like a J there was a JTAC and a small team of special ops, and they had bombed all of these different little facilities going on and killed, probably killed a lot of innocent people.

And that's actually because

when we looked into it, I was like, I don't know, this anti-gravitic shit, this kind of weird, you know, I mean, there's a lot of chatter about it on the internet, like we had talked about last night, but

I don't know.

I kind of think now that that's all just a big distraction.

But when we looked into the, to the,

whatever you want to call them, but for lack of a better term, war crimes, I don't know about the operation, right?

I mean, I'm not saying we should have or should not have

bombed that facility.

I mean, obviously, it's bad and it's a major moneymaker for terrorist organizations.

But when we dug into it, there was a UN report that talked about that specific night and that

the UN had, I believe, did they open an investigation?

I think they opened an investigation on it

because it was against, I don't know if it was Geneva Convention or what it was, but

you could not bomb

drug factories with civilians in it.

And so it had talked about, you know, how many targets and people and innocents were killed.

And I was like, oh, so this

actually lines up

with what this guy's saying on the email, which, you know, maybe, maybe not gives, gives, you know, the previous thing that we were talking about a little more validity.

So

anyway, so yeah, I got, what was the question?

What was that?

So, you, it sounds like you take the manifesto seriously, you think it's real.

The guy actually wrote it.

Well, then, you know, then the other weird thing that gave it a lot of validity is because we, so when that interview came up, popped up on my radar, walked in to the studio, getting ready to interview somebody.

Jeremy, my producer, comes to me and says, hey, we got a guy on this Tesla bomber thing.

And I'm like, I don't know, man.

We get thousands and thousands and thousands of emails of people that want to come clean on something or expose something.

And, you know, probably 99% of it is bullshit.

And, you know, it's just somebody looking at it.

There is a mental health crisis.

Yeah, definitely.

But so I was really apprehensive to do it.

And

Jeremy was new at the time, and I didn't 100% trust him yet.

And I was like,

he's like, I think

this guy right over here.

but he was hell-bent on it.

And so, we, we did a call with Sam, and he didn't want to come on.

And so, when he didn't want to come on, I was like, I like that.

Okay, it's playing hard to get.

All right.

So, he wanted to go

visit his family member of his.

And he's like, Look, I just want to go hang out with this family member.

I don't want to be there.

And I said, Hey, how, okay, look, we'll book you a flight here and book your flight to where you're going.

And this should only take a couple hours.

And he was like, all right, well, let me think about it.

And then got back when I was doing the interview and wanted to come on.

Well, I get, so Jeremy tells me on a break, hey, we've got him.

He's going to be here first thing in the morning.

Well, I get done with the interview and I look at my phone and all these people.

are texting me about the interview I'm about to do.

And they're like, hey, you know, there's this, this

DEA agent that was on the op and his name was actually listed in the email.

And they were like,

he doesn't want his name to come out because he's still active.

And I'm like,

you know, I'm not going to burn

somebody that's still active in undercover operations.

I mean, that could get him killed.

and his family killed.

So I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to dabble in stuff that we're working on.

But

at the same time, it made me extremely paranoid.

I'm like, how the hell does everybody know that I'm getting ready to do this?

So then I'm, then I'm thinking all my, all the people that are texting me are controlled assets or something.

And then

we had another friend of mine send me a text and

he says, hey,

the Army's public affair officer wants to talk to you about tomorrow's interview.

And I called him up.

I called him up and reamed his ass.

And I'm like, why the fuck are you texting me this shit?

If the Army PAO wants to get a hold of me, I've got a website.

I've got social.

I've got all these things that he can get a hold of me at.

And why is he using you to get to me?

And why have you inserted yourself into my business?

And because, I mean, I'm sure you get it.

I mean,

when you're uncovering some of this stuff, it can

cause some extreme paranoia

on who your friends are and what their motivations are and

who's flipped.

And

so I wouldn't talk to them.

I said, I'm not talking to them, but I'll pass the number to my attorney and Jeremy and they can talk to them.

And then when they talked to him,

they wanted to kind of place it on PTSD, which wound up being the ultimate narrative from the mainstream media, right?

PTSD.

It being the motive for killing himself.

Yeah, I mean, I think that

they used PTSD to

basically insinuate that he is a crazy person.

But, I mean, pretty much

everybody I know and have worked with, all my former colleagues, I mean, we all have that.

And I mean, I'm not going to say we're not crazy, but

not crazy like that.

I mean,

it's just a condition and you can get over it.

And he wasn't crazy.

I mean, he obviously wanted to send some type of a message.

I mean, you got a Green Beret with a full career in special operations, definitely knows demolition.

And there is no way in hell that

a

lifelong Green Beret would put a bomb inside of a bulletproof truck to take out Trump Tower, kill a bunch of people.

I mean, it was obviously, he just wanted to get some attention and get whatever the message that he was trying to get out.

And

so that's what I think.

We could have just tweeted about it.

You know, he didn't have to kill himself.

So that's a pretty extreme, pretty extreme thing,

most extreme thing possible.

What do you think his motive really was?

Like I said, I don't, I think he wanted to bring attention to the topics that he had.

The anti-gravity,

technology.

The gravitic propulsion systems.

And we looked into that and all we could find is sci-fi shit.

Do you think any of it's real?

I mean, you've interviewed people.

In fact, the first show I ever saw of yours was with a building contractor who said he ran across anti-gravity technology in a military facility.

Do I think anti-gravitic propulsion systems are real?

I don't know.

I mean,

do you think there are significant technologies,

next generation energy, anti-gravity, that the U.S.

government...

Oh, 100%.

I mean, we just,

yes, I do.

I think that all this alien, extraterrestrial shit, I mean,

it's fun to dig down there, but I mean, I think it's a big distraction.

I don't know if it's meant to be some type of a controlled op, but I think it is

i think all this stuff is spiritual that's what i think of course it is i think all this stuff is spiritual all these things that people are seeing and stuff i think i think there's a spirituality component to it now that these are angels and demons or what pretty much yeah and um

and uh

and where was i going with this and and and

anti-gravitic propulsion systems i mean yeah i think we I mean, I would hope that we have shit that is next generation stuff that's not, you know, the same shit we've been using since World War II.

Yeah.

So the only real technological advances in 80 years are like the iPhone.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, we have advances.

Like we just interviewed this guy, Steve Quast.

And do you know Steve Quast?

No.

Holy shit.

Fascinating guy.

But

he talks about

how he talks about next generation energy and the fight that the utilities companies don't want us to have new energy.

But anyways, what this guy does is he

has a company called Space Built, I believe.

And so

he has basically created a logistics company where instead of launching one satellite up, he can,

which

he says that's extremely expensive.

Sometimes they break and they're fragile and they have to make the satellites bulletproof, which is a ton of weight because they have to be able to withstand

going through the atmosphere.

And so what he's done is he is building a logistics company where they don't have to make the satellites bulletproof.

You can make them 10 times bigger than the satellites that we have and you launch them up in sections and pack them safely so that they can make the trip without having all that extra weight to be bulletproof.

And then his company would actually assemble those through

laser robotics in space.

And so

what he says is possible is, and I believe him, I mean,

he's got the right background to be talking about this stuff.

And so what he says we can do, and we already have the technology, is basically they would put these ginormous satellites up into orbit and they would be solar.

So you wouldn't, but they would, it would actually be a reliable renewable energy source because there's no clouds, there's no atmosphere, there's no air particles getting in the way to collect that radiation from the sun.

It would convert it from solar into some type of a radio wave, and you could beam it down into the

onto the earth to a, I can't remember what we called it, but it sounded like an antenna.

So, you basically put this antenna that receives

energy, and then and it would pump it back into the grid.

Yeah.

And, you know, I was just, but he, but.

So like a solar farm in space.

Yes, yes.

And

I mean, he had talked about that.

And it's just like, man, like what?

This, this could be the answer.

I mean, we could make Earth.

I mean, I think Elon said, right, we could make Earth into a park.

Was that him?

And, but I mean, you could take out all the eyesores, all the huge solar farms that you see all over the country, the wind, the oil and gas, like it could all be gone, and you could do it this way.

Would you get green energy tax credits for it?

I don't know.

I think that's kind of the goal here.

I don't think it's actually to power civilization or keep the earth clean.

I think it's the tax credits drive all this stuff.

It's just greed.

It's the ugliest kind of greed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, I mean, so anyways, you know, that's next generation power right there.

And they said that China's building a nuclear power plant in space and they're mining helium-3

off the backside of the moon.

And

sounds like I'm not terribly familiar with helium-3, but it sounds like that is

that's also next generation power that can that can cool

data centers, AI stuff, and and and it would really take us to the next level of energy.

But

then he goes on to talk about how we're falling behind on

from China with energy production.

Well, sure.

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So, this,

Al, Al, come here.

Sorry about that.

So,

this

story and the weird way that it happened, you know, you get the manifesto from the guy who kills himself in the Cybertruck.

All these other people know that you're about to do an interview on it.

Were you worried you were going to get hurt in that moment?

I don't know if it's hurt.

You know,

I don't really care about me, but

I worry

about my family.

Of course.

And

so,

you know, it's always an afterthought.

The only one that I've done that I'm like, oof, I don't know if I should be doing this before was the Romania one that I was telling you about the other day.

And what was the Romania interview?

The Georgescu interview where they yanked him out of the election.

But

it's always an afterthought, you know, after the interview.

I'm like, oh, shit.

I don't know if we should throw this one out.

And because, you know,

the FBI would have never come out and given any validity to the email,

to the manifesto.

And they, and I think that, I don't think I know that the interview, because it got 5 million views and I don't know how many listens in just, you know, couple of days.

And

so, you know when i see that kind of of traction on something i'm like oh shit i really kicked over a big rock here i wonder what the repercussions of this are going to be if you're traveling to romania to interview a candidate who's been knocked out of the race by nato

you know all of a sudden you're no longer really a podcaster you're you're like a player in global politics want to be a podcaster but i mean that kind of

i'm only feeding my own curiosity for sure but the second you start,

you know, tampering with the way things are, then you become a problem and therefore fair game.

No?

Yeah, I mean, we had this discussion last night.

I didn't sleep a fucking wink.

I was like, well, I think the biggest thing.

I was like, Jeremy, I think Tucker's trying to tell me maybe I need to simmer down.

I don't think so at all.

I just think you said last night, I'm just a podcaster.

I was like, I'm familiar with that way of thinking, but if you just take three steps steps back and,

you know, if you're exposing things that are, you know, important things, big things, like who gets to run the world and,

you know, who's getting the money,

you know, I think you're, you're, you're still a podcaster, but you're also something else.

Right.

Yeah, I guess somewhat of a disruptor.

But,

you know, I just.

When I do do it, I lean into, I mean, I lean into God

and I really just just consider myself kind of a conduit.

Not kind of a conduit.

I consider myself a conduit.

And whatever comes to me

is supposed to happen.

Yes.

And with the,

like, for example, you know, I'm pretty new at this.

I haven't completed the Bible or anything, but the more that I dig into just everything in the world, I think that

I just think that everything, everything is a lie.

Everything.

I think it's all a lie.

And um

and um

and that it's

partially my job to expose you know what i know and to to bring some type of truth and uh can you give me an example what i mean clearly joe biden's health turned out to be a lie yeah

but and

epstein killed himself clearly a lie um i i i grieve that they said something like that in public because i i like those guys particularly dan but that's that's a lie I bet my house on it.

But what else, when you say everything's a lie, what are you referring to?

I think everything is a lie.

Wow.

I think.

Why do you think that?

How could you not?

I mean, you're way deeper in this stuff than I am.

I think it's all a show.

I think

everybody is out for themselves.

Yeah.

And

it sucks.

It sucks to see that and to know it.

And

I mean, you know,

COVID just got a lot of people thinking, to include me.

And

then when you start diving into

it, it just leads to all these different rabbit holes, right?

The Epstein stuff, the COVID stuff, the

just

legitimately everything, the UFO shit.

all of it.

Should we be

I've reached a similar conclusion, by the way.

I'm not making fun of you.

Of course, I agree with you.

But should we be shocked by that?

Or does it say that really explicitly in the New Testament?

And like, we're just dumb and naive if we thought anything other than that.

Well, I mean, and it says, right, I am the only truth.

I am

the truth.

Yeah, and Satan runs the world, by the way.

It says that.

And so

I think everything is a deception.

Everything.

Maybe even our whole reality is a deception.

Like Neuralink, for example.

Yeah.

You know, I was interviewing.

What's, can you, for people who don't know, what's Neuralink?

Neuralink.

It's that chip that, you know, they're going to put in everybody's brain.

That sounds wholesome.

That wants some.

I'm pretty sick for that.

You getting one?

I don't even like electricity.

And if you don't, then you'll fall behind.

And I can't wait.

You know, so,

but

I had, you know, I've been fascinated with that subject.

I would love to interview somebody on it, but

that is on the inside over there.

But, you know, and

I think, yeah, you know, right?

Like the premise right now is to, you know, get paralyzed people moving again and help the blind see.

And that's all great.

But, you know, I mean, when I found out that it was going to help the blind see, I was like, wait a second.

So if you put this fucking chip in your head and they can help the blind see, then wouldn't they also able to project

an entire false reality in your mind?

And I had interviewed a couple doctors about it.

I interviewed Andrew Huberman about it, who just got brought up and then talked to Ben Carson about it, pretty much came to the same conclusion.

And not only would they be able to manipulate, you know, vision, they would also be emotion, touch, smell, taste,

everything

into your head.

head.

So there you go, right there.

I mean, we're on the cusp of a total false reality.

Your entire life could be a false reality.

People are upset about real ID at the airport, facial recognition, giving others control over your brain neurologically.

That seems like

a step farther.

You know what I mean?

Like just biometrics.

Do you know why they're pushing it?

No.

I do.

Why?

This is my understanding based on conversations with people who are involved in it

because of AI

and the blind seed, lame walk.

It's all great.

But the real concern is that AI is already at this point beyond human control.

It's already at the point where it's lying to the people who created it,

suggest consciousness.

And

Neuralink and efforts like Neuralink

are

the people who are running it believe the only way for people to keep up with AI.

Otherwise, we will be its slaves.

See, I don't know.

I've kind of changed my tune on that.

Maybe you know more about it than I do.

But I mean, we feed the data centers that power the AI, you know, and so, I mean, I think that, you know, some of the I don't think that now that I understand it a little bit better, I don't think AI is going to develop its own consciousness and make decisions for us.

I think that the major fear would be if, for example, China hacked our databases and started feeding our AIs

false information that would be detrimental in a conflict

or

propaganda or whatever.

But

we are the ones, humans are the ones that build and feed the information into the data centers

it just processes all that information.

So I raised this question with one of the people who, one of the big, biggest

forces behind AI.

And I said, well, just turn it off.

I mean,

human beings run power plants.

And this person said,

Even now, we can't be sure that the machine is telling us the truth about where its power is coming from.

Interesting.

So, look,

I was a Russian history major, like, I know nothing.

I'm not pretending to have some special insight, but I did get hear that directly from someone who's deeply involved.

And even right now, I mean,

well, you know, a lot of people that are deeply involved, no, not really, but I mean, you know, they travel.

You know, with, with, with stuff like

AI, I mean, it's still, it still goes to a human at the end, you know, to make that decision.

And so until you get a chip in your brain.

Yeah, good point.

But, um, you know, so for example,

you know,

for military use, you know, the AI system would

tell you

what it is.

So let's say it's a plane, you know, that pops up on a radar or something.

The AI system will immediately identify it, tell you the capabilities, tell you your courses of action, tell you your different courses of action, tell you the outcomes of those different courses of action.

And so you have all these options, you know, that would be some type of an analyst or strategist that would, you know, take hours, days, weeks, maybe months, you know, to come up with the information to present to whoever the decision maker is to make that actual decision.

But with the power of AI, you know, and

these new chips that are processing so fast, I mean, you get that information in seconds, minutes, hours versus hours, days, weeks, months.

And so you can act on that, you know, a lot faster because all the information's been processed, every possible outcome, the percentage of coming out on top.

I mean, it's like a complete war game within seconds.

It sounds amazing, but the advantage is also the vulnerability.

Now, I mean, if it's subverted, like if someone hacks your system and gives you the wrong coordinates or misidentifies, you know, allies as enemies, or you could see that going, you could see that being like the way you lose.

Definitely, definitely.

So maybe the guy with the bolt action 308 with ironsights wins.

Yeah.

Maybe the lowest technology force wins.

I'm with you, but you know, I mean, you know, I mean, how do you know that human source is not a double agent?

I mean,

there's always going to be checks and balances, right?

So, I mean, that's why

we need a better energy grid.

We need to be able to power our fucking AI data centers so that we can build more ais because when ai wars happen it'll be who has more ais

and it'll be ais going against ais

so we need more ais to combat somebody with

we need more a eyes than our enemies than our adversaries so we're only 40 minutes in and you've already said you have said so far you don't believe in anything technology is moving at such a

pace that it's hard for people even to like think about.

It's moving so quickly, going places we can't yet imagine.

And just to restay once more, nothing is real anyway.

Can you be very specific day to day about how you stay sane while thinking about stuff like that?

I live in the woods and I don't talk to anybody but my team and my family.

And I don't go out much.

You know, I just,

I don't.

Is that a happy life?

Yeah.

I would rather spend time with my kids and my wife than anybody on the planet.

So,

you know, in fact, even when we go out to dinners with people and I say, oh, yeah, let's do a dinner.

The day the dinner comes up, I'm like, why the fuck are we going to dinner?

I should be spending time with the kids right now.

You speak for every American husband?

There's not one husband who's like, what?

Them?

How do we do?

Well, you said we could.

Oh, oh.

But I mean, even the energy thing that we just discussed, I mean, it's a a lie like here we have this this stupid debate going on about

renewables and and and fossil fuels and it's like i just told you the answer it's right here it's been here for years nobody's acting on it

right this is all lie no like we it's right here it's right here you know and but nobody wants to talk about it

so could but keep the same debate going well just to go back because i you're not the only person, anyone who's made it this far in the conversation is probably in a similar place

to where you are right now.

Like, oh my gosh, this is just bewildering.

Like, what's real?

This all does, it does seem like the acid trip that never ended.

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What is your daily regimen, if you don't mind, if it's not too personal?

Like, what do you, you wake up and then you do what?

Like, what are the steps that you take every day to remain grounded and sane and happy?

I pray a lot.

When?

I wake up.

I pray all the time, you know, and I don't mean down on my knees.

I just,

I'm always looking for signs.

I'm always trying to make sure that, you know, I'm doing the right thing and that I'm not

doing interviews just for numbers and shit like that.

I mean,

I look for good people, you know, with a good heart, especially when I do something like a life story.

You know, I'm looking for that guy that's grinding, that is not getting any traction with his business who served the country and put him up but i mean i don't how time i don't know i mean i and then i also keep in the daily routine i mean i wake up i got a one-year-old and a three-year-old and i wake up and i have about three cups of tea and i play around with my kids and

um

spend a lot of time on the phone unfortunately because everything you know i'm getting all the incoming in

that's coming in that morning.

Then I go into the office and I meet with everybody and

do an interview or I don't do an interview and then I just go back home to my kids.

But,

you know, as far as staying grounded, I mean, I just keep in mind, like, hey, this all could go away in two seconds.

I mean,

who knows?

Somebody could do a headpiece on me like they are right now.

I told you about it.

And it could all go away.

Maybe a previous mistake that I made in life comes to light and they cancel me.

And if they do, fuck it.

I don't care.

I'll hang out with my kids and my wife and live the rest of my life.

Maybe I'll move up here, get a spot in the woods, and never see anybody again.

But I just don't take myself too seriously, and I don't buy my own bullshit.

And

that's it, man.

When you say you don't put people on just for numbers,

everyone who

has a public-facing job understands what you're saying.

But for people who don't, will you describe that a little more fully?

What do you mean?

You pass on stories, you said, or pass on interviews if the only upside is just that it gets huge numbers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm just not interested in it.

You know, I mean, if I see,

I'll give you an example.

I mean, I had,

if I see somebody go on the circuit that's like, I'm just not interested because then I'm just doing the same stuff that everybody else is doing.

Exactly.

And I've canceled interviews.

I've had people that

I've been one to have on for a long time, and then I'll pull up YouTube and there they are on the Tucker Carlson show.

And I'm like, hey, cancel that interview.

I don't want to

take your sloppy seconds with gratitude.

I'm like, really?

Sean Ryan interviewed him?

Buck him.

No, I think it's cool, but I just, I don't want to, I don't want to, I mean, you're a phenomenal interviewer.

And, and it's, and so it's, it's, well, what am I going to get out of this guy that Tucker didn't or Megan didn't or Megan?

No, Megan didn't.

You know what I mean?

You don't don't want to be part of someone's publicity campaign either exactly you know and and so I really I you know I pride myself on being different and I've set my whole business up to be different and as different as I can be and

so I just I just feed my own curiosity and I look for people that I believe to be a positive influence on the world and a good

role model for kids.

I mean, I think the role model thing has gone, it's just, it's horrible.

I mean, who the hell do kids have to look up to now?

Oh, that's right.

You know, and so that's what I look for, just good human beings with good values that are pumping some type of good in the world, whether that's fighting evil or spreading the word or whatever, you know, and going against the grain.

And, you know, I was brought up to always root for the underdog.

And

I do that.

That's the most American impulse you can have.

We were the underdog.

This country was the underdog.

Yes, it was.

You don't ever want to be the overdog?

No.

No.

You don't want to be part of the machine.

So how have you set your business up to be different?

How have I s well, I mean, so when I got into podcasting, I mean, I didn't even know if I wanted to do it.

I just.

That was only five and a half years ago.

Yeah, it was five and a half years ago in my attic.

And

I got tired of teaching tactics and shooting and stuff like that.

So I tried a bunch of different things.

And

I looked at podcast as a whole and

I saw, you know, back then everybody had the purple curtain behind them and

all their little stuff in the middle of the table that means nothing to them other than Joe.

You know, he's got his stuff on the middle of the table.

Now everybody's got their shit on the middle of the table.

So

I set it up to be different.

I wanted a relaxed environment.

I didn't want any equipment in the shots.

I wanted,

I mean, you've been there.

It's, it's, you melt into that room and it's very disarming.

There's a lot of history there from people that share similar values and on display for everybody to see.

You, you like it.

That's what I noticed about your studio.

You made it a space that you're comfortable in.

And it reflects what you think and it reflects the life that you've lived and the people that you love.

It's not, it's the opposite of generic.

Thank you.

Well, no, it's, I really, it's very noticeable.

But, uh, but I, you know, and, and nobody really back then had good camera aesthetics.

And so I saw David Letterbans, my next guest on Netflix, and I really liked the way it looked and with the camera movements and the shots that they had.

And I said, I want to make that, but in my own way.

and on a on a $2,000 budget.

And so I taught myself how to film, taught myself how to edit, taught my wife how to film, taught myself how to run sound.

And so I wanted an environment that looked really good on camera, that

disarmed people.

I noticed, especially in where I come from in the SEAL team, it's a very egocentric

community.

And nobody can just make the interview about the guests.

They have to make it about themselves and insert their own fucking experiences.

And it's, oh, I killed Bin Laden.

Oh, cool.

I killed this person.

And it's like, it's not about you, man.

It's about them.

And so,

so I would totally keep my own experiences out of the interview.

And I would compliment people instead of challenging them all the time.

I would compliment them.

Like, wow, that's like you just made it into Delta.

That's like the premier special ops

group in the entire world.

I mean, how did that feel?

That's amazing.

You know, and when you compliment somebody

in a world that is extremely competitive, you know,

it's like, oh, shit, like this guy's different.

Thank you for letting me talk and actually complimenting me on my service.

And then on top of that, we started,

from episode two.

Where did that insight come from?

Therapy.

I did a lot of therapy

when I quit contracting for CIA.

I always think of therapy as making people more self-involved, but that sounds like whoever you had in therapy sounds like was encouraging you to become less about yourself.

They don't talk.

They don't talk.

I mean,

with my therapist, it was I did all the talking, and I would wind up working my own problems out in my head, and she would just guide me, you know?

And so I took that model and brought it to my show, and it just worked.

But it sounds like you concluded that humility, focusing on other people, that was the key.

I would say you're exactly right.

I don't know that that's an obvious conclusion.

I don't, most people don't seem to reach that conclusion.

Really?

Judging from, I was in the airport.

I don't go to the airport very much, but I was there yesterday and listening to two people have a air quotes conversation where each one was just waiting for the other one to stop talking before talking at the person.

It was like, not one person ever said, really, how really?

How interesting?

And I feel like that's the experience that people have, not just watching podcasts, but like on, you know, day-to-day.

Yeah.

People don't listen.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I guess there is one other thing that I just, I'm not, I'm not afraid to

say that I don't know what we're talking about.

And so you get a lot of people, you know, you get a lot of people, they, they, they fucking trap themselves, you know, and, and

it's like,

I told you about what I know about AI, and that's the extent of it.

If we're going to go deeper, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

So I'm not going to pretend like I know I'm talking about to make it look like I'm the resident expert because the resident experts are going to call you completely full of shit.

You don't know what you're talking about.

And so I know that's not the same thing.

It's always

like pretending you don't have prostate cancer.

Like in the end,

people find out.

But, but, I mean, it's okay to not know everything.

Of course.

And with so many people falling into the trap, they're like, oh, yeah, I have shit.

They just asked me a question I'm not an expert on.

I have to come up with something.

And I have like no shame in just going, yeah,

I don't even know what the fuck that word means that you just said.

Could you please explain that?

And I think there's a lot of people like me that

they don't understand maybe the vocabulary.

There aren't a lot of people who will admit it, actually.

There aren't that many people.

Everybody's a genius.

Everybody's a tough guy.

But playing a role that they know is fake.

Yeah.

It's sad.

Sad to watch it.

Well, it's a kind of slavery, too.

I mean, it's not, you're not free when you're pretending to be something you're not.

Yeah.

So you showed me something last night, speaking of how you run your business differently that I thought was like the coolest thing I've ever seen.

You're building a new studio.

You totally lost control and just totally lost control, I will say, as someone who has a studio.

It's like the craziest thing.

It's the coolest thing.

Big piece property,

bass pond shooting range, like beautifully designed.

It's just super cool.

But at the construction phase on the,

well,

you explain how you built it.

That's different.

Oh, so, I mean, like I was saying last night, I'm really, really

big on company culture.

And

I had mentioned earlier, you know, my, my,

the people that work for me and with me are like a second family to me.

And I take on their burdens and I help them through life.

And I want to give them the best experience that I can, too.

I mean, they work their asses off for me.

And

so I want them to be proud of where they work.

And I want them to enjoy being at work.

And so there's a wellness center.

There's everybody.

I mean, there's, it's, you got to see it, man, when it's done.

It's, it's all like super top of the line, very, very nice.

And, you know, they'll be able to hunt out there.

They'll be able to fish out there.

They'll be able to shoot out there.

They'll be able to work out out there.

They'll be able to.

I want them to bring their families in for lunch.

Like, I want that environment so that, you know, one, that they're proud of where they work.

They want to work there.

And they're the best paid people in the business.

I don't have a big team, but I have a fucking amazing team.

You want them to bring their families for lunch?

Hell yeah, man.

That's the coolest.

Absolutely.

And

if they want to, you know and and and

you know on top of just

giving you know and creating like that environment uh you know it i mean this is a cutthroat business unfortunately and see people jumping from camp to camp i've never lost somebody you know i've never lost somebody that that said

hey fuck it i'm going to tuckers hey i'm going to the daily wire hey i'm going here i'm going there they they don't want to be anywhere but you haven't lost anyone to the daily wire I haven't lost anybody to anything.

I'm such a.

We get a lot of people from the Daily Wire wanting to work here, though.

You put Bibles under the foundation?

Yeah, yeah.

We put...

So, yeah, on top of that, my whole team is really...

into scripture and we're all very like-minded.

And,

you know, I'd mentioned before, I feel like I'm just a conduit.

And so, and I do, I live a lot of my life in paranoia at times.

And so he is the only protection.

So, yeah, we put a Bible in every corner of the foundation.

We wrote scripture on every single exterior stud in that building.

And

to

for protection.

I saw

Jeremy, your producer, had a picture he showed me last night of it's a shot down the wall, and the studs are still visible.

And each one has a, I read three from Ephesians, but like long quotes from the New Testament.

Yeah, everybody on the team had a part in that.

Who thought of that?

Me.

Why?

I went to

a party once.

And the people at the party who hosted the party showed me their house and told me that they had done that.

And I was like,

that they had written scripture on every stud.

And I was like, oh, man, that is awesome.

I'm doing that.

I'm doing that.

Everything, everything that we build from now on will have that.

That is the coolest.

So you say you feel like a conduit.

How do you receive instructions?

Gut.

I think God speaks to you through gut.

And

I think the signs are always there, but a lot of us are too busy and wrapped up in our own shit to see them.

And

so, for example, like the Georgescu interview was, I was nervous about that one, you know, because I dug into the, I dug into it and I was, I was like, like, I don't, you know,

if this guy is a Russian asset, I don't know if this is a good idea.

I don't want to be on the wrong team here.

I don't want to fall victim to, you know, propagandizing my my show, not even realizing it.

And

the whole journey there, I was worried about it.

And

without going into it, I mean, my journey to Christ was through signs that slapped me right in the face.

And 444 is a big number to me.

And

I said, 444?

444 is a huge number to me.

And

why?

Well,

so

I had this

experience in Sedona where I came to Christ, and three things happened to me, all within very profound things in about 15 minutes the last day I was there.

And when I got home, I had called

somewhat of a spiritual mentor to me.

His name's Eddie Penny.

And

he had started talking about, I called him at midnight when I got back, and I was like, hey, this happened to me.

I don't know what this means,

but I think I need to lean into Jesus a little bit here.

And that's not something I've done in probably the past 20 years.

And

so he started going on about this stuff with

demonic attacks now that I've shown a side.

And

he goes, man, a lot of people have been praying for this to happen.

And I'm like,

well, what do you mean?

Like, what,

why, who is,

what the hell is happening?

And then he started talking about guardian angels and all this other stuff.

And I had a meeting scheduled at noon with my IT guy, who is a devout Catholic.

And

I call him up, and I think we're going to be talking about, I don't know, website stuff and IT crap.

And he has the exact same conversation with me, not even knowing that I'd had this experience yet.

Doesn't know Eddie.

I mean, he is a IT guy and Eddie is a former development group guy.

There's no connection.

Has the exact same conversation, starts talking about.

For those who can you just define the former what group guy?

Uh, team six.

Yeah.

And, um,

and, um,

and ever since I had Eddie on and he shared his testimony, it was my, I release an episode every Christmas.

That's when I kicked the show off was Christmas.

And I was like, man, this testimony is like so awesome.

I think this should be the Christmas episode.

So every single person that came on the show for probably the next year and a half at least had brought up God or the Bible or Christ.

And it was, it was like a turning point in my podcast that just, and I didn't like,

I don't push Christianity on people.

I don't, you know, it, it would just

organically come up in the conversation.

And, um, and so I always thought like maybe God's like working through my show or something.

I don't know.

But

anyway, so after this, after all this stuff happened in Sedona, which was mind-blowing to me, I have this conversation with Adam.

And RIT guy.

Yes.

And he's talking about guardian angels.

And I go home for a late lunch that day

with my wife and kids.

And I'm driving back.

uh to the studio and i look at the clock and it's 4 44.

i look at the gas gas thing and it says 444 miles left to empty.

And this is and

it's four hours and 44 minutes after my conversation with my IT guy.

So I'm

driving and I call up my social media manager.

I'm like, hey, look up 444.

I want to know what it means.

Something just happened.

And get this shit.

I love how open you are to this.

He looks it up.

And do you know what it is?

No.

It means your guardian angels want to know that they're watching over you.

Right after we just had a discussion four hours and 44 minutes prior about Guardian Angels.

That's wild.

And so then I was like, okay, like, that's, that's a sign.

And because I told you to, I live in a, at that time, I had released the Brian Montgomery interview about sex trafficking, which is a whole nother debacto that the FBI started getting involved in.

And

I had interviewed Tyler Andrew Vargas, which was the young Marine who survived the Abbey Gate bombing.

He lost his leg and his arm.

And nobody would talk to him because it made the Biden administration look so bad.

We were fighting YouTube about it.

He had all this real footage from his camera about the guy that blew up the gate that they should have killed.

Anyways, told me that

um,

that Good Morning America had interviewed him for seven hours and only released five seconds of the interview.

Here's another God thing, man.

So

having breakfast, my team really wanted to get Ty Larone and I was like,

every media outlet in the world is probably trying to talk to this guy right now because he's the only living eyewitness.

And I'm like, we're never going to get him.

He'll probably wind up on Tucker or Rogan or, you know, and, and

I was like, fine, I'll shoot him a message on Instagram.

So I shoot him a message immediately.

He's like, yep, I'm in.

Let's do it.

I

had breakfast with him before the interview.

And

at breakfast, he's sitting there with his fiancé and he goes, man, he started tearing up.

And he goes, man,

I have interviewed with so many mainstream media outlets and they're all full of shit.

And nobody will tell the truth.

And nobody will release like what I tell them.

Congress didn't pay attention when I testified in front of them.

And he goes, I literally looked at my fiancé and he's like, Man, I just wish this Sean Ryan guy would just reach out.

And he goes, I pulled my phone up, and you had just messaged me.

It was the first thing I saw.

And he goes, There it was.

Like, it was like

God answered me, like, right there in that moment.

And I was like, Holy shit, like,

that's not a coincidence.

There are no coincidences.

I don't believe in coincidences anymore.

But, but, so I get these like signs like all the time where if I feel like I should be, if I'm questioning something,

he'll throw out a sign.

And, like, like, like the Georgescu interview, me and Jeremy are sitting at the airport and I'm telling them, like,

I don't know about this.

It's the first time I had ever brought somebody to do an overwatch for me because I was nervous.

You know, I was like, ooh, I don't know if we should be doing this.

We're fucking with NATO.

We should probably bring a security guy.

NATO, they're just peacekeepers.

Yeah.

Right.

That's why they're building the

biggest.

Relax, relax.

They're on our NATO base in Europe.

And the training army.

But anyways, I had.

Sometimes I just tweet out something that pops in my head, right?

So I tweeted out the truth is like a lion.

You don't have to defend it.

Set it free and it'll defend itself.

And I tweeted that out.

I like that.

And I had this debacle going on in my head.

Like, should I be doing this?

Like, am I doing this for the right reason?

Is this guy, does he need to be heard?

Or is he just some type of a Russian shill?

I walk out of the lounge.

This is all, I don't know, five minutes.

And this woman comes around the corner.

And she has this huge lion head on her shirt, like this big sequence sequence glittery lionhead.

And that's what was in my head and what I had just tweeted out.

And to me, I mean,

probably everybody will call me crazy, but to me, I'm like, that's the sign that I needed to see.

Like I just

articulated this.

And you don't see too many people running around the airport with a big lion head on their shirt.

Like a massive lion head.

My reaction is not that you're crazy.

My reaction is I need to get off my phone phone

sufficient to see signs that are all around me.

They're everywhere.

I agree with you completely.

And I feel like the phone is an instrument of distraction and evil, really.

Though I couldn't live without it, I need it for my job.

It allows me to live where I want.

And

talk to my wife and children and all that.

They're upsides.

But in general, I feel like I miss everything.

If a sign happened, it would really have to come by text message or I wouldn't see it.

Yeah.

Well, are you?

I hope you do that.

Yeah, I've been thinking about it a lot.

Are you self-consciously not on your phone sometimes?

Yeah.

What's your phone regimen?

6 p.m.

It goes on airplane mode.

6 p.m.?

Yep.

You're not on your phone after 6 p.m.

Other than if somebody on my team

texts me

and they would text for an emergency.

It's not airplane mode.

It's like, I don't know, whatever.

like this whatever i don't know what it is either but it screens out nothing comes to me so except except my assistant jeremy and and family and so i don't mess around on the phone after 6 p.m 6 p.m man

it's like 1985 life

i mean you know sometimes yeah there there are you know sometimes i'm sometimes it happens you know if i'm working late or something and i'm i'm always working but i mean i don't like i don't mess around on social media or i mean you know half the texts i get are just people asking for favors anyways so only half probably more

yeah more

all my friends i haven't talked to in five and a half years is a very short period of time to become as successful as you have

thank you

well i'm not complimenting you i'm saying i'm surprised you're not crazier because that's a big change.

That's a big, big change in a short period of time.

Don't you think?

Well, I think.

Yeah, it's been a huge change.

But,

you know, I mean, it's just,

we're all just humans and

some people have a, I mean,

like I said, man, I just don't take myself too seriously.

And, and none of this shit really gets to me.

I, it could all be taken away at a moment's notice and I'm ready to give it back.

And

I'm just, all I'm doing is trying to do good, you know, and so

when I'm, I mean, when I meet people like you or some of the other people that have been on the show, I mean,

it, there is an aspect like,

I can't believe I'm like having fucking dinner with Tucker right now.

This is so weird.

Like people would kill to do this.

But in the end, I mean, you're just a, you're just like me, man.

eat sleep shit

that's it and i i take that approach with everybody i meet there's nothing

sorry tucker i love you but oh trust me

you couldn't be

yeah i i've always thought it's very easy to to get perspective on your life if you can see yourself kind of clearly it's very hard to mistake yourself for jesus if you're like honest

do you know what i mean yes and i i really look down on people who have delusions or Or just people, man.

Oh, that's for sure.

That is true.

It's sad to watch power get to people's heads.

It's really a shame.

So what steps do you take to keep yourself pure of heart?

I notice you haven't been in D.C.

like every week.

I hate D.C.

That's where all the power is.

Yeah.

Well, I'm not interested in power.

Don't you want to rush toward it like a bug light?

I've been asked

run for something, but I just have no interest in it.

What are your goals at this point?

My goals are to,

whenever I exit this,

I want my family to be set for generations.

I want my team to be set for generations.

I want to continue to help them.

And

I just

want to

show that

there's a lot of us out there that think on the same page regardless of what the media says.

And I think I am a

this sounds weird talking about myself like this, but I think I am, for whatever reason, I think I am just the average

uneducated, no college degree guy in the country that can talk to people.

Wait, you don't have a college degree?

No.

Oh, I wish I'd known that before I set up this interview.

But

I don't, wow, wow.

I'm just an average guy that

has a hard time understanding stuff.

And I don't let my ego get in the way.

I don't pretend like I know shit that I don't know.

And if I don't understand, then I fucking ask questions.

And it helps everybody that watches my show understand something because it's dumbed down to a level that the majority of America can digest and comprehend.

You listen carefully.

Having gone on your show, I think that's the key.

You listen very carefully.

Most people do not do that.

So you don't go to DC because

you think it's disgusting, you think power corrupts, it doesn't just enhance.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, you know, it's also like

none of these people will be talking to me if I didn't have a show.

Obviously.

So

it's like,

I don't know, man.

I just, I don't like it.

I was

amazed to find out, I don't know if it's public, but you came very close to booking Kamala Harris.

How'd that come about?

Well, I mean, I,

who was the first candidate?

I think

it was either DeSantis.

I think DeSantis wasn't in studio.

And it's the only Zoom interview I've ever done.

What'd you think of him?

I mean, as far as like a person, I didn't, it was very,

it was like 15 minutes, man.

So I don't have a gauge.

I like a lot of the stuff that he's done down in Florida,

pretty much all of it.

And

but

that I know of.

I don't know everything, but

I had said at the beginning, I'll interview any presidential candidate.

I don't care what side they're on, I'm not going to blast you.

But I think it's important that people know who that person is, whether we talk about politics or not.

Like the RFK, we talked about his heroin addiction and all that kind of stuff.

And,

you know, it gives you a little more background on what

how they grew up, what their values are as a person, not just some soundbite bullshit, you know, that's fed to them.

And

so I wanted to interview

on the other side of the fence, too.

And

I really wanted Kamala to come on.

And

so

I think it's Kamala.

Whatever.

And

it's irrelevant at the time.

Because he gets racist.

You just call it Kamala.

But

so

we got in touch with her camp.

We didn't hear anything.

did a couple of press releases and to

maybe

pressure her into it a little bit.

And um, she took it seriously and she watched.

I was told she watched, she spent a night going through particular interviews and liked the way that I interviewed and liked my style, and she wanted to do it.

And uh, they asked, you know, what do I want to talk about?

And I said, Well, I think we should definitely talk about the Afghan withdrawal and the Taliban funding.

I'm pretty much initiated that entire conversation that developed into what it is.

And

me and my guests.

And

they didn't want to talk about that.

I said, well, it's going to look bad on me if I don't talk about that because I've been hammering this damn thing for a year now.

Over a year, I think.

And, but I was like, all right, well, what do you want to talk about?

Do you want to talk about national security?

They're like, what do you think you disagree on her the most on?

Told them.

And what was it?

the

the gender stuff with kids

that was my biggest thing you know and i don't i don't really care about adults you know that do it but

you can't give a kid the keys to do that you know at that age and eight years old i mean eight years old was it washington that's like the state will come in and take your kid from you if you

if you don't do it if they want to i mean what is

why even have parents at that point?

I'm sure they don't want us to have parents.

Exactly.

But,

anyways, I said that.

And,

you know, they were like, it got to the point where I just said, look, I don't even care.

I was like, how about you just give me the outline?

And we'll do it that way.

I don't care.

Like, I know how to do an interview and

I'll make it work.

And I'll find my

groove and whatever you give me.

I'm confident in my abilities.

And

they were going to do it.

And then

the Brett Baer interview came out with her and

it just fell off the map.

They just quit talking to us.

So I don't know, you know.

Because Brett asked her like a single question and she didn't feel like answering.

I don't know.

I mean, I don't know what it was.

How do you think it would have gone?

I think it would have gone.

I think it would have gone, no matter what they handed me for the outline or if I created my own outline, that

the questions would have been

blaming Trump for everything,

even if it was nothing to do with the question.

I think it would have just been.

Trump did this, Trump did that.

What about Trump?

Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, you know, and I don't think I would have gotten any of her views or solutions or initiatives or anything.

I think it would have all been just flipped around and pointed back at Trump.

Do you think it's possible there would have been like a spark of warmth between the two of you?

Yeah.

I do.

Really?

Yeah, because I mean,

no matter who it is, I'm going to treat the guests with respect.

And

I think that's, I just, you know, in and on top of that, I mean, do I like her?

Do I agree with anything that she did?

No.

But

I also know that there's an aspect of media that I'm probably not getting the full picture.

And

so I want to hear them out.

Good for you.

But it was never going to be like a gotcha or a combative interview.

You know, I wouldn't have done that.

I've never done that.

I'll challenge people on stuff, but I'm not going to get into some type of a bickering contest.

And, you know.

Why?

Because I just, that's just not who I am.

You had a pretty ferocious job before.

We had enough of that.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Is there anyone you wouldn't interview?

Yeah, there's people I wouldn't interview.

I don't interview people that I mean, I kind of said it earlier.

You know, I don't interview people that are on the circuit.

I don't really give a shit about your new book that's coming out.

I don't care.

There's plenty of other podcasts that can do that.

I just,

you know, what I look for, other than that, because that's different.

Those aren't my values

that we obviously differ on probably just about everything.

But

I just, I just look for

good people

that are doing something in the world that aren't getting recognition or aren't getting traction.

And I think would be a good role model and that's that's who i bring on the show and and that's that's one of the things i'm good at is being able to take somebody who nobody's ever heard of ever and

people tune in people will tune in because it's fresh material it's good people doing good things

and and they finally get

the exposure that they needed to actually get some type of traction.

You interviewed Trump for hours, I think.

How long was was that interview?

Well, one hour.

One hour.

Yeah, a little over.

He was like, I don't know, 70 minutes or something.

What'd you think of him?

I really liked him.

I really liked him.

I wasn't expecting him to be as personal as he was.

And

he met everybody on my team and made it a point to, it wasn't like shaking somebody's hand and talking to his assistant or, you know, it was.

direct eye contact, wanted to meet the entire team.

There was three NFL stars in there that came in to meet him.

And as soon as I walked in the room, he like

didn't care about him, came right over, introduced himself.

I mean, he was very personable.

And then after the interview, sat down in a room and talked with us.

And it was really, I was happy.

And I was more happy that he treated my team with respect.

And because, you know, you see a lot of people that are like, oh, you're just the fucking help.

And it's like, no, that's like, who makes the whole thing

so you know

and um

and uh so i really appreciated that you know it was you never really know what you're gonna get with with how do you think the administration is going so far

um

How about this one?

I think there's some really look.

What do you like?

What don't you like?

I like that they got rid of the DEI stuff.

I think that was low-hanging fruit um

i think that you know they fixed it really quick i i don't think we need to harp on it anymore and let's move on and um

and you know i just interviewed tom holman what he's done with the border seems really impressive to me um

so i'm really happy about those things i'm not happy that the epstein files uh

have not come to fruition yet i'm sure they're coming out any day now wouldn't you think

yeah

i won't hold my breath.

But

I think that

I think we still need a lot of work.

A lot of work.

And

I am

losing hope.

Why?

What specifically makes you feel hopeless?

Ah, man.

I mean,

who's controlling our country and the influences and why haven't we seen these things?

And it makes me skeptical, you know, and

I don't hear,

you know, some of this is, I may just not know, you know, because I don't, like I mentioned, I don't pretend to know everything that's going on and I don't put the time in that I would need to figure it all out.

But, you know there's things like the energy grid and it's like man like we really need to fucking do something with our grid like yesterday and

but is that more important than bombing Iran

yeah

yeah

it is

and um

Yeah, you know, that that stuff, and you know, I get,

I mean, I don't know, I want to know like what the real motivations are.

And, and, and, um, I love everything he says and the majority of everything that he says.

But I, I, you know, I'd like to see the Ukraine-Russia thing finally come to an end.

And, and, uh, I like what they've done with Doge.

I think that maybe they, maybe they've cut a little bit more than they need to.

Um, but, you know, there's always human error with everything.

But,

you know, and

look, I'm just, fuck it.

I'm just, I'm going to get blasted for this.

But, you know, I mean,

I see all these negotiations going on in the Middle East.

And then I don't know when these buildings were approved or when these deals got done.

But then I also see, like, oh, there's a brand new hotel going up in Dubai or Abu Dhabi and another one going up in

Doha, I think.

And I'm like, did these like, just get done also with the deals that just happened over there?

Or was this earlier?

You would probably know.

No, I don't know.

You don't?

I've not made one dollar in the Middle East, not one.

Well, I mean, I mean,

you're a lot more on the inside than I am.

No, no, no.

I'm just a visitor and a traveler and a watcher, but I don't, you know, there's a lot of things.

That stuff kind of worries me.

You know, it's.

Well, it seems like corruption, yeah.

But, but, um,

And

you know what, but you know what, like bothers me more than any of this shit is that people have just lost lost the ability to critical think.

And if you do

say something about the tariffs or

is it Greenland or Iceland?

I can't even remember or whatever.

The big one.

Yeah.

If you do, if you throw any criticism towards any, and

not just Trump, but anybody.

that is in a position of power.

I mean, the U.S.

has just become so tribal now, and

you cannot criticize or or or

give any constructive criticism

to what's happening without getting blasted and sad it's like man like you guys have

a hundred percent lost all critical thinking skills like you're not fucking thinking on your own and you are given the values that you align with you're no longer going off

the way you were raised or what's true to you as a person.

I think a lot of people don't even fucking know what that is anymore.

And they're just told, they're told, they align with a tribe, whatever that tribe says, they're going to do, they're going to say, they're going to follow.

And that's sad.

And I think that that could resemble the beginning of the end.

I agree with every word.

And I can't help.

but note because I was there for it at the beginning of the intranet we were told that all of this information would make us

better informed and would increase our critical thinking abilities and that people wouldn't have to follow the propaganda because they would have all the information.

And the opposite has turned out to be true.

People seem much easier to control than ever before.

Yeah.

And that makes me sad.

So back to the...

the heaviest thing I think you've said, which is that you don't believe that anything's real.

And again, I think most people can understand where you're coming from when you say that.

One of the effects of that is to make everyone like really, really paranoid.

When it turns out that, you know, most of the things derided as conspiracy theories are real, like clearly the explanation for 9-11 is silly.

Clearly, you know, and we're never going to find out any of this stuff.

And so I think

a reasonable person concludes, like, man, there's a lot going on.

I don't get there's a lot of secret stuff.

There are a lot of actual conspiracies.

It's everything, though.

Like, I gave, you know,

I'm not, I take a minute to process.

And so when you're talking about, oh, you know, what, what's fake?

And I brought up like COVID and something else that everybody already knows, right?

But, or at least most people already know.

But I mean, when you look at the elections, you know, in not just the U.S., you know, but let's look elsewhere.

Let's look at Romania and what happened there.

And they just, they just yanked this guy.

Yep.

Yep, you're done.

Marie Le Pen.

I mean, we were close to interviewing her.

In fact, I think we were in Paris at the the same time.

We were.

And

I mean, when you see that, it's just like, holy shit, like, this is spreading.

Or maybe it's not spreading.

Maybe it's just always been like this.

I don't know.

But, you know, so obviously those were, obviously, those elections are phony, you know, and the EU is getting involved, and France is getting involved, and Romania is getting involved.

And it's like, holy shit, man.

Like, everything seems to be engineered.

The guy in Bolsonaro in Brazil, another example, you know, and it's, it's,

it's,

the, the Ministry of Truth.

I don't even know if that's still a thing, but it's like the what?

The minister, the Ministry of Truth?

Are you fucking kidding me?

The 2020 election.

I mean, I was kind of skeptical.

I was there right in the middle of it.

And I thought, well, you know, if there's evidence it was stolen, I'll, I'll believe it, of course, but I don't see any evidence or enough evidence to say that conclusively.

And then the last five years traveling around, seeing other elections, watching our country more carefully, it's like that was totally fake.

I can say that, I think, with confidence now.

But here's my point.

You, who I do think are one of the rare people, just like committed to saying what you think is true, committed to remaining independent, right or wrong, like you don't want to be influenced.

You want to reach your own conclusions.

And you want to be awake enough to see signs from God.

And I admire all of that.

But now you are

supposedly part of the conspiracy.

Yeah.

Because you were a CIA contractor.

So,

like, what does that mean to be a CIA contractor?

How did you get that gig?

What did it entail?

Are you still in touch with headquarters trying to subvert democracy?

I wasn't involved in any of those operations.

No, I mean, look, I mean, the road, I left the SEAL teams to start business and failed miserably.

What kind of business?

I wanted to do, it's funny.

I actually read Donald Trump's book in Guantanamo Bay when we were doing some stuff in Haiti back in 2004.

And

it was his book,

How to Get Rich.

Wait, you read Donald Trump's book in Guantanamo Bay?

Yeah, in 2004.

And

I think, no, it was whatever.

somewhere around there.

And I read that book and I hadn't, I mean, I was on like a mini deployment.

We were just, we were in Panama doing some stuff with the Panamanian special ops guys, then the Haiti thing popped off back when we yanked Aristide out of there, and um,

and um,

and then we were going on the real deployment.

And so, before I even really deployed

in the SEAL teams, I decided

this isn't all it's cracked up to be, at least for me.

And so, I'm just going to do my time here.

What was disappointing about it?

There wasn't enough combat.

Really?

You wind up on a SEAL team in the middle of two wars and there wasn't enough combat for you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I didn't see near as much as a lot of guys.

I saw

a decent amount, but,

you know, I went in to

do that job and

wanted to do it all the time.

And I was not doing it all the time.

And

so I left.

But

you have quite a metabolism.

But you wind up on the SEAL teams and you're like, kind of bored.

But

it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

And

then I had an opportunity to screen, not saying I would have made it,

not saying I wouldn't have, but had an opportunity

everybody, I don't mean I had the everybody gets the opportunity to scream for six, for Team Six, if they want it.

And

I just, I was, I was like, well, that's, you know, that's the next level, but it's another five-year commitment if I do it.

And what if it's the same shit that I have here with just a bigger budget with more cool toys?

And so I decided to, I, I, I decided, no, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to get out and be the next Donald Trump and businessman.

And

got out, started a small real estate thing, failed horribly.

Where was it?

St.

Louis, Missouri.

And I went to do real estate in St.

Louis.

Well, my family's from there.

So.

What?

South Florida wasn't available at the time or something?

No.

Just went home.

Just in time for Ferguson.

Yeah, it was too.

I actually got a great picture of me with Ferguson with the Maltoff cocktail, but

it was a joke after it happened.

But

anyways, and so then my dad and I

were going to actually start a Jimmy Johns franchise.

And

I didn't grow up with money and we needed some.

So I said, hey, I said I would never do this, but overseas contracting is a big thing and it's paying pretty good.

So how about if I just do that?

I'll get the money that we need to start it and then I'll quit and we'll start that venture.

Wait, you went overseas as a contractor to pay for a Jimmy John's franchise?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And then 2008 hit.

Do you know Jimmy John, by the way?

Yeah.

I met him

recently.

Great guy.

I love talking to him.

Good dude.

Yes.

At the out party, I think you met him actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we've hung out a couple times.

I really like that guy.

Did you tell him that you went,

you became a military contractor so you could pay for one of his franchises?

Yeah.

But

that didn't happen.

And where did you go?

What do you mean?

When you first left to do overseas contracts?

So where I first went, I did a, because

I didn't understand exactly how contract, contractors,

I didn't know the game.

Yeah.

And so there are different tiers of contracting.

And

they have,

they take your background and there's all these different, you know, there's the DEA contract, there's the ATF contract, or not ATF, excuse me.

There's the agency, the NSA, the State Department.

There's just all, there's all kinds of contracts that you can jump on.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

I thought it was all like one-tiered system.

And

so I threw my name in

this kind of recruiting thing, and they came back.

There was a company called Armor Group

out of UK.

And they picked me up first.

And I was like, all right, well, whatever.

This seems pretty low-level, but they wanted to make me like

a guy in charge because of my background.

And I was like, all right, fine.

I'll go do this.

So I went and did the tryout,

it was a complete joke, and then

got to Afghanistan.

And it was, they put me at the front gate of the

embassy.

And I was like,

I lasted about a week, and I was like, Hey, give me a flight home, I'm out of here.

This is fucking bullshit.

Like, I'm not, I'm not gonna be.

You thought you were boarding the SEALs, yeah.

And uh, well, I mean, then that's where all the V-bids go off to the car bombs.

So, I was like, No, I'm not doing this.

And went home

and

got into a

fire academy.

Didn't like it.

And then a friend called.

A fire mean to be a fireman?

Yeah, to be a firefighter.

Because I really missed the camaraderie.

And

then a friend of mine that I served in Afghanistan with called me up and said, hey,

there's a contract that Blackwater has.

And I think you should try out for it.

And I was like,

no, I'm not doing it.

I just did a a quick pump.

I hated it.

I was with a bunch of guys that don't know what the hell they're doing.

Some of these people were like Bank of America security guards.

I was like, this is crazy.

And he goes, no, he's like, hey, he's like, everybody on this contract has to be from Special Ops.

It's a black contract.

I can't tell you who it's for, but just give me your resume and I'm going to try to get you in.

And so I was like, all right, fine.

Gave it to him.

And then

got a a call from Blackwater and just told me where and when,

where to be and what to bring.

And it would be.

What did they want you to bring?

It was just, you know, you need these type of clothes.

You need this type of equipment.

And

show up here, go all the way to the back, to the black side.

And it'll be a month-long course if you make it.

And

so I showed up and

did the vetting course.

At Blackwater.

At Blackwater.

North Carolina.

Yep.

And

made it.

What did you think of the vetting course?

It was tough.

Really?

Yep.

It was tough.

Having been through Buds, you thought it was tough.

It wasn't tough like that.

It wasn't like you have to prove,

well, you do have to prove yourself.

It wasn't like

they're not yelling at you and screaming and kicking you around and all that kind of shit.

It is a demonstration of your skills.

And if you cannot demonstrate your skills to the highest level, then you go home.

And

what kind of skills?

Shooting skills, driving skills, close quarters combat.

That's entering a room and clearing buildings and rooms and stuff, working with a team.

How do you integrate in with all these other special ops guys?

And so there's a lot that goes to it, into it.

They put you in a lot of extremely stressful situations, and you have to handle it flawlessly or you'll be asked to leave.

But the shooting qualifications were

really tough.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The shooting qualifications were really tough.

And so was the CQB, the close quarters combat.

So like one of the exercises, they had this thing called the hooded box drill.

And they basically put you in a room like this and they would tape a square, and you have to stand in the square, and they give you either a rifle or a pistol.

And they have

like fake flashbangs going off, smoke, yelling, screaming, role players, and they put a hood over your head

on a string.

So this hood goes over your head.

You can't see anything.

It's dark.

There's strobes.

There's all kinds of shit going on.

You can hear like all all these screams and all this stuff going on.

And you

are not allowed to leave the box.

And so

they set up the scenario and they lift the hood over your head.

And then you have to deal with the scenario.

So, like, I think the very first scenario.

Put the hood over my head.

There's all these people in there.

I can hear them.

And they lift the hood up on the string.

And there's a guy like closer than from me to you right now with a gun, with a rifle.

As soon as the hood goes up, he snaps my head.

You're wearing a helmet, but he snaps my head with the muzzle of his rifle.

We call it a muzzle snap.

or a muzzle strike and it knocks me back.

And then there's all these people in there that this guy's armed, this guy's unarmed.

There's a female over there with a burke on and you don't know what's underneath.

And you got another guy with a person with a gun in their head.

People are shooting at you.

And you have to deal and process all that information, not kill an innocent, not kill an unknown,

and deal with the situation.

And then

they call you back to your box, back to the box, and it's very unemotional.

They're not like, hey, you could have done this better or why didn't you do that?

It's either get the fuck out of here or we're going to run a scenario.

And then you come back to the box and they put the hood back over your head and then

lift the hood and you're in a totally different scenario.

And it might be,

it might be the next scenario they lift up, nobody's shooting at you, everybody's calm, or people are yelling and shit and shooting their guns up in the air.

And you have to figure out who's a threat, who's an unknown, who's an innocent,

who's a blue helmet, which would be

an asset of ours?

He obviously can't kill the asset.

And

so they run you through a number of scenarios there doing that.

And a lot of people, you know, fail that.

So.

But you did not fail.

No.

Did you enjoy it?

Yeah, I was challenging.

I like it.

I like to be challenged.

And

you really like

it.

It's really hard to put you in in an environment that can be as stressful as what combat is.

And

when you're in combat, I mean, the decision-making has to be on point and very precise.

And they did a great job of simulating that kind of stress that you're going to deal with when it's actually for real.

And so I thought it was a great drill.

What kind of guys were at the training facility?

All former SOF.

So it was all SEALs, SF, Delta, Dev Group,

a couple of Rangers, Marsock, which is Marine Special Ops, Air Force CCT, Air Force PJs.

I think that covers it.

So

highest level that the U.S.

military produces.

Yeah.

And

you had to have that background just to be able to try out for this specific contract.

What was the contract?

They called it the OGA contract, which was the CIA contract.

What's OGA stand for?

Other government agency.

So then what so you get it.

So are you still thinking about Jimmy John's at this point, or has the box drill just wiped that from your memory?

No, no, I was still thinking about it.

Um,

but

so yeah, so then at the end you find out that it is for CIA and um you'd already had your your new clearances done.

And

they give you dates, kick you out the door.

How long was the commitment, and where did you go?

There's no commitment.

At least not that I remember.

But first

trip was to Kabul, Afghanistan.

And

you can do kind of

I mean, Blackwater, I think, had 60-day minimum deployments.

So you could do up to

maybe 100 and something days.

And so some guys go and they do 100-something days.

They come home for a week and then they're right back out.

And there's guys that do 60 on, 60 off.

And so you just kind of come up with your cadence and

go.

What were you doing for CIA in Kabul?

So when I started this, it was a protective unit.

And so like the guys that fought him in Ghazi,

that's the program that I was in.

And so it kind of started off as a protective type detail for

actual operatives because there is no,

I mean, there is no Jason Bourne over there.

That's why they need people like me because it takes two people to be a Jason Bourne.

And

so we would help case officers plan their operations, plan their meets, stuff like that, conduct, and then conduct surveillance, conduct counter-surveillance,

get them

kind of whatever they need.

And at the beginning, it was, and I wasn't really near the beginning.

I mean, I think I started contracting in 2007.

So the war had been going on for what, about six years?

And

so towards the beginning, I guess, but, you know, it was a real pain in the ass because, I mean, at the beginning of the war, you know, you had all these case officers coming in and

they're fresh out of school and they don't really understand the environment that they're in.

They don't think they need us until they need us and then they're screaming for us.

But a lot of case officers and chiefs of station and deputy chiefs of station, that would be the head guy and head CIA guy in country,

they kind of saw us as a hindrance to their operations until shit started happening like Benghazi coast, a lot of these tragic events that happened.

And then every once in a while, you'd get like a really good.

Sorry, so let's backtrack a little more.

So you get a lot of these, and then you get the old timers that are coming in from the Cold War and they're used to working in a semi-permissive environment or a permissive environment where they don't need that kind of shit.

They can just go and meet their assets and drink their fucking coffee.

They were in Vienna in the 70s.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Those types.

And then they go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, you know,

all these type of places.

And they bring that mindset with them.

And it's like, hey, bud, that shit isn't going to work here.

So these people fucking hate you.

And

but every once in a while you'd get a guy who was a retired Green Beret or a retired Special Operations Marine or a SEAL or whoever.

And

they would look at

the program that I was in and

they would realize, like, these guys are all

special ops.

Like, they have a lot of capability that we're not utilizing them for.

And so then things started getting added to the plate.

You know, they're like, hey, could you guys do X, Y, or Z?

And we're like, oh, yeah, we can do all of that.

You guys just don't utilize that capability.

Because I don't think you realize that everybody here is extremely capable.

Not mall cops.

and uh, yeah.

And uh, so then they started using us for all kinds of stuff, and um, and uh, it was some places were interesting, some places were an Xbox tour, and um, meaning you just sit around and work out and play Xbox, but um, kind of depending where you're at.

So, what was the most interesting

how it all kind of works in some of the meetings that you sit in on, and

you know, from a personal standpoint, I've always been fascinated with how people live in extreme poverty and

to see, like,

just to see it and experience it and

be a part of it, try to blend into it was

both a challenge and very fascinating.

How long did you do this gig?

Uh, right around,

I think it was a little less than nine years.

Nine years, yeah,

oh, it's a long time, yeah, yeah.

I took a little break.

What did you think of the CIA?

Uh, once again, same kind of thing in that I thought of the SEAL teams.

This isn't what it is cracked up to be,

hmm.

Like, here's an example:

first day, I get there,

and

I'm just trying to get the lay of the land.

And so I don't want to like talk too much shit because there are some very capable people and

like us.

Like you get in the country, you don't even do anything for the first two weeks.

They're like, here's a map.

Here's some keys.

Other keys over there.

So you don't burn any of our cars.

take a different one every day

and you need to know this entire city every back road every road name every venue everything

everything

about the city you need to know and if you don't know it in two weeks then you're out and so you pair up with another guy that's never been in country and you just hit the roads and you know

everything about that city kind of dangerous white guys driving around kabul well pretty obvious it is i mean it is and you don't always dress up like white guys but you know in a place like kabul or Baghdad, there's diplomats from every country out there that are State Department, CIA, NSA,

DEA, FBI,

and the equivalent of that in every NATO country, right?

So there's diplomats everywhere.

So sometimes your cover might be your

diplomat in State Department.

And

sometimes, depending on where you're at, you might be dressed up in Muslim garm.

And I mean, they trick the vehicles out so they look local.

And, and so it's, I mean, you can blend in.

You're not going to like, you're not going to blend in, you know, running around the streets.

Right.

But you'll, at first glance, it'll pass.

And

so that's what you do.

You learn everything,

everything about the city.

I know a lot of these places better than I know my hometown.

Hmm.

Nine years.

So, what countries were you working in over that period?

I spent the majority of my time in Yemen,

Iraq, and Afghanistan.

What's Yemen like?

It's my favorite place to work.

Why?

Because it is the poorest country in the Middle East

and

probably the most dangerous.

And it was,

I just, I loved,

I felt like I was doing more there than anywhere else.

And it was,

you had to take tradecraft extremely seriously.

Very tribal country.

The north is completely different than the south.

And

you had to learn the cultures of both so that if you're operating in the north, that you know how to dress like the northerners do.

You have to dress like how the southerners do down in Aden and

try to blend in.

And it's also like a spy game there.

I mean, the Russians are there, the Iranians are there, the Chinese are there.

And so you're trying to figure out where they're operating out of, what their safe houses look like.

Chinese were always super easy to identify because you would just be passing through Yemen and all these mud huts or safe houses or just houses.

And, you know, you drive by the Chinese compound and every single time they have

120 antennas on the roof.

It's like, nice one, guys.

But

it would get, I mean,

it's, it's, it's, so you're, so you're conducting, you know, normal operations and dealing with

terrorists and assets and all that kind of stuff, you know, for the main initiative.

But on the other hand, you're also having to conduct surveillance and counter-surveillance from the Russians, from the Chinese, from the Iranians, and any other key players that are in those countries and have to know who's who.

And they're spying on us and we're spying on it's it's it's very complex.

Did you chew gut when you were there?

No, but I bought some.

But you never tried it?

Nah, I never tried it.

But the whole country is hooked on it, right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's, yeah, you would see these guys and

just the whole population.

And I mean, they would just be so zonked out on that.

You see them in a shitty taxi drive with they're not even blinking, and flies are landing on their fucking eyes.

And it's like, holy shit, man, people live like this.

This is crazy.

And, um,

and uh, yeah, I was, you just never know who you're going to run into over there either.

I mean, what do you mean?

I mean, I would see,

I would,

oh, like other operators, like I'd see, I'd see guys that are in safe houses from other

units that are over there.

And

I would see like their call sign up on

the board.

And I'd be like, is that who I think it is?

Oh, shit.

I haven't seen him since like Buds when I was in the SEAL team.

And I'd call over there and be like, hey, get up on the roof.

I want to see him.

We'd have a phone conversation, looking at each other, waving from rooftop to rooftop.

Like, what?

Go over and meet him.

What are you guys getting into tonight?

And they'd be running operations and killing bad guys.

And

it was just, it was very unique and complex to be able to work there.

So you probably knew the Houthis existed before the rest of us.

Yeah.

What do you think of the Houthis?

I mean, I don't really follow up on it too much these days, but I mean, they took over that damn country

in no time.

I mean, they yanked the, I can't remember if he was a president or a prime minister or

whatever, but they took the whole country when we were there in like a matter of hours.

And

so they were really effective and woke up one day and all these new checkpoints are out.

The guy got yanked out of the palace by the Houthis and

on totally different dynamic in less than 24 hours.

Were you ever afraid when you were there?

Yeah, a lot.

Did Americans ever get hurt when you were there?

No.

Interesting.

You wound up in Latin America?

We we got shot at a lot and car bombs at the gates and shit like that, but not any heavy casualties, no deaths.

How did you wind up in South America?

Well, when I left, I was

very addicted to adrenaline and

went down to

Colombia.

I'd always wanted to, when I joined the SEAL teams, I was really inspired by the Vietnam generation.

I just

was infatuated with that stuff as a kid, watched all the documentaries of all the SEALs in Vietnam and Greenberry's.

And I just wanted to do Jungle Warfare.

And so the closest I could get to that was running counter-drug operations out of Columbia

when

I joined the SEAL teams.

And then, you know, 9-11 happened.

So

definitely

wasn't going down there.

And

so

I had

broken up with a girlfriend.

And I was like, you know what?

I'm going to go down there and check it out.

And

so I went down there for a little over a week, loved it, had the time of my life doing nothing Christian-based.

And

where?

Cartagena is where I started.

And then

went home,

had a surgery,

and I was sitting at a bar in Cape Coral, Florida, listening to a bunch of lazy, entitled Americans talk about their opinion of the war and all this other shit.

And I just got so fucking tired of listening to the shit on.

on people's opinions that had never been there, had never done it, had never lost anybody, probably had never even faced any type of hardship in their life.

And they're just judging me and all of my friends.

And I was like, you know what?

I'm fucking out of here, man.

So I put my house on the market and

went back down to Cartagena, stayed with a friend.

The Secret Service scandal happened down there.

Remember that?

Yep.

And which kind of like put it on the map

for

people to come visit and

to go do bad things.

And

it became like very Americanized.

And I was like, I don't want to be anywhere near Americans at all.

And so

I checked a lot of spots out around Colombia.

I went to Cali.

I went to Poraita.

I went to Medellin and then camped out in Medellin for about four years.

And

doing what?

Doing what?

Doing

living a rock star life.

And a lot of cocaine, a lot of girls, a lot of

basically what I was doing was chasing my adrenaline.

And because I wanted to feel that all the time.

It creates some type of

imbalance in your brain when you have that many adrenaline dumps.

And it's very much like a heroin addiction.

And so I went down there and I started doing a lot of shit that I shouldn't be doing, buying drugs.

That became a big rush,

buying and sourcing and cocaine.

And

so that's how I would get my thrills.

And

was that what you were doing for a living?

No, it wasn't for a living, man.

It was for the rush.

And so,

you know, I've talked about this on a couple of other podcasts, but

there's a lot of rumors going around there that I was down there working for CIA, setting up these drug networks.

When yes, they do do that, but no, I was by myself on my own program.

And I've always been fascinated with narcos and kingpins and cartels.

And

it's like

it was a major rush for me to go into

the worst neighborhoods in Colombia and start setting up networks.

And

I mean, it's extremely dangerous for a gringo to be.

I would go in neighborhoods where there were,

you couldn't get into the neighborhood without going through at least two checkpoints.

And

so I would just, I would go in there, I would hang out, I would talk to people, I would buy drugs, cocaine, I would bring it back to my place, do them all, then go get more, go get more.

What does cocaine cost in addition?

So about a 20th of what it costs the United States.

Yep.

And so what I saw, you know, back to my entrepreneurial brain, is

what it was going to be is, you know, you get, I put mentioned that, you know, Secret Service kind of put

sex vacations on the map for

rich white people to come down there and and take advantage of that

and

you know down there i mean uh

prostitution and these type of things are not looked at like they are here it's an actual legitimate career and um

and um so you get these guys that come down and and that's all they want to do and they want cocaine but they're all scared to talk to the Colombians because they think they're all cartel and they're all going to chop your head off.

And so, what I was going to be was an intermediary and

basically

the matri D of Medellin.

Like, I'll deal with all these people and I'll get you what you want, and you can just talk to me

for a fee.

For a fee.

Did you do that?

No.

Why?

Because I got sloppy and I got ran out of there by the Colombian version of the FBI.

Did you go to jail down there?

No.

As soon as I caught wind of it, I left.

But

I built a network from the ground up.

And so

just like how I was telling you, I take care of my team right now and I want the best for them and I treat them with respect and I'm very giving.

I was like that down there.

And so

starting with the doorman, you know, and I mean, I would live in these penthouses at the top story of the building, wherever I was at.

And I would make friends with all the guys that were at the door because they control who comes in and out of the building.

And so if I went to the grocery store, they got groceries.

If I bought cocaine, they got cocaine.

If I went to go get booze, they got booze.

If I went to go get pizza, they got a pizza.

And so I just took care of them all the time because I knew it would get to the point where they would watch my ass.

Yes.

And

so I did that and built a great rapport with them.

And then,

you know, nobody knows town better than taxis.

And so I would take taxis and take taxis and try to develop a relationship with different taxi guys that were not scared to go into Barrio Antioquia,

which is kind of the worst neighborhood down there.

And

I would have

my girls help me make decisions and

tell me about the different taxi drivers that they use to pick them up from the clubs and stuff like that when they were done working or partying or whatever.

And so I developed a really good relationship with a couple of different taxi drivers, and they would show me everything I need to know, all the places that people don't want to go.

And

I would get in with them and then I would get in with the dealers and then the dealers would introduce me to their mid-dealer and then they would introduce me to their guy and and the network grew

so big that if I went to other countries they would know who I was and

what were you doing for income?

Well, I made money contracting and your money goes a lot farther down there than it does in the U.S.

So

I didn't really need any

until I blew it all.

But

so

story goes.

So that's what I did.

And

got in a lot of really

hairy situations where I didn't know if I was going to come out.

Didn't really care if I did.

kind of had the Hunter S.

Thompson

mindset where if life gets too boring, then I'll just check out.

And

it was starting to get boring down there.

I had OD'd a couple times.

And

what's a cocaine OD like?

So cocaine OD is,

you know, when you I remember my best friend was down there for a little while with me and and

I would always think, oh shit, I probably did too much.

I'm going to die.

And

he got tired of me being paranoid about it.

And he goes, look, he's like, you don't need to worry about ODing on cocaine until things start slowing down.

When you're on speed

and things get slow, that's when you're really riding the line.

And that had happened to me a couple of times where it sounded like my voice was in slow motion.

The people next to me,

that I was talking to all of a sudden sounded like the Will Farrell thing where it's like,

and I'm like, and you can't talk, you can't get the words out that are in your head,

and

that's when you know it's about time the lights are going to go out.

And

they did go out.

But

how do you recover from that?

Lots of volume.

Yeah,

exactly.

Lots of volume, Xanax, stuff like that.

And

so

I

developed these,

everything got boring to me.

So

the women got boring.

It sounds weird to say that because it's like, you know,

but it did.

It's like, there's nothing that you could say that I had not done.

And

that

got me to go deeper in and go to more dangerous places.

It doesn't sound weird at all.

It sounds absolutely right.

There's no satisfaction in that.

Of course, it gets boring.

Yeah.

And so then I started looking up the most dangerous places in the world.

And I looked up the most dangerous place in the world, and it was San Pedro Sula in Honduras.

So I went there and started to try to develop a network there just for the rush.

What was that like?

Got almost arrested on the first night.

So it

didn't last long.

Were there other Americans down there?

In Honduras?

Yeah.

Not at that time.

Which I thrived off that.

It made me feel really alive.

Like, oh, this is like uncharted territory.

Nobody comes here because they're scared to death.

Did your dad ever text you to say, hey, what about the Jimmy Johns franchise we're supposed to be doing?

Nah, because 2008 happened.

And

so that it got called at the very beginning of my contract career, and then and um,

yeah, and he went on to do other things, and

yeah, so and I was I was frustrated, but the money was really good contracting, and so I kind of got like stuck in this loop of like,

well, I'll just go over there and make a bunch of money and then do whatever the hell I want to do.

And um,

yeah,

so

so, anyways, so, um,

the last uh thing that got me, and I was talking to my dad, too.

I knew I had a problem and I, I'm really close with my parents.

My dad's my hero, and um,

I would call them all fucked up on Coke or Valium or Xanax or

Hydrocodeine or Oxy or whatever.

And, uh, because I was her drunk.

And, um,

I would allude allude to my dad, like, I got to get the hell out of here.

I'm going to die.

And I wouldn't remember a lot of these conversations.

I'd be totally blacked out.

And

he was trying to get me to go get some help.

And

I lied to him, told him I was talking to this Vietnam guy about my experiences.

And I was, but that guy was a total mess, too.

And

he was there for the same reason.

Yeah, exactly.

No, this wasn't in Columbia.

This was actually in Fort Lauderdale.

And um

same difference.

Yeah.

And

I hid,

there's this place called,

what was it called?

Pointe de los locos or something, which Bridge of the Crazies.

And so it was like all these like,

look like L.A., lots of tents under an overpass.

and crazy drug addicts

who have no direction in life, life, who are dirt poor, and

had a bunch of girls with me.

And I went to that bridge and it stacked up a ton of cash and

thought it would be a great idea to throw all the cash up and just watch these people like go to town to try to get it.

And

very, very dangerous part of Medelline.

And

came back

to my building, walked through, and the doorman came up and told me that

the National Police had come to question him about me and wanted my passport and all this shit and wanted to know who I was, where I came from, what I'm doing, all of that stuff.

And I was pissed.

I was like, man, and the guy's name was Freddie.

And I'm talking to him in Spanish.

And I'm like, man, I always take care of you.

I can't believe

you would

try to suck more money out of me

on this bullshit story.

And

he's like, no,

he was trying to tell me that they had bugged the light outside my door,

which I couldn't understand.

My Spanish wasn't that good.

But eventually I got what he was saying.

And

I was like, this is complete bullshit.

There's no way.

And he showed me, he said, they have a picture of you at the bridge throwing money in the air.

And I had just come from there.

And so at that point, I knew that he wasn't lying.

I was like, okay, literally nobody knows that I did that because it was like 45 minutes ago.

And the only people that would know is my taxi guy and the girls that were with me and the crazies that were living under the bridge.

And so he had said that they had set up an observation,

basically an observation point at the building across from me and were watching me from that apartment.

So I went up and

identified it,

where it was,

flushed all the Coke,

and

went back into

my previous life on surveillance and counter-surveillance.

And I did

a counter-surveillance route to a couple of different internet cafes, bought a couple of tickets to different places outside of the country and hauled ass to the airport, got out of there, and never went back.

That day, yeah,

was decisive.

Yeah, yeah, it's your hooded box training, yeah, yeah.

So that's that's that's that's how that ended.

How long uh between that moment and the beginning of your podcast?

Not long.

Oh, the podcast, podcast.

Probably

a couple of years.

So

that wasn't that long ago.

Yeah.

You were leading a life that bears no resemblance at all to the life you're leading right now.

Yeah.

At all.

Yeah.

It took a lot of work.

It took a lot of work to

clean myself up and find a productive direction to start running and and um and once once i discovered business um

that became my new addiction

what do you make of the claim that you're still working for cia

i think it's um

i mean whatever people are going to think what they think but um people don't understand how it works over there and so

i mean i there's a part of me that understands it.

I'm like, all right.

Like, I didn't really come out of nowhere.

You know what I mean?

I mean, a lot of people say, like, oh, this guy just pops on the map and like fucking gets ginormous.

And it's like,

you didn't see all the back-end work that it took to get here.

And I started this in my attic as a one-man team and then taught my wife how to film.

And it was me and her.

And we only did nine interviews for the first year and a half because I was editing sound, video, cutting previews, doing social media packages, doing distribution, doing the research, interviewing, you know, all of that stuff.

And

so,

I mean,

I think it's, you know, it really pisses me off is when somebody that I am paying attention to because they're bringing things out that

I'm into, they're going down rabbit holes and conspiracy stuff that a lot of time winds up to be true.

But then,

and I think we're all on the same team.

And then I'll see him throw something out like,

Sean Ryan's a CIA shill.

And it's like, dude, I just, I was like totally fucking bought in on what you're bringing to the table and all of your research.

It was like really good stuff.

And I, I thought it was trustworthy.

But when you throw something like that out there, you've just discredited yourself to me because you have no fucking proof because I'm not one.

And now I don't believe anything that you say because if you're just going to loose lip throw shit out there like that, then

what else are you fucking throwing out that you want to be?

I think that's totally fair.

I've had similar experiences, yeah.

Um, I do think that people are paranoid because

it is true that the CIA operates against you know the Constitution, against the law in the United States, and it um

it does try and shape news coverage, like that's a fact.

Yeah,

no, I mean, I'm I'm I

know that that happens and, and,

and happens all the time.

But at the same time, if you've listened to me, I've been extremely hard on CIA

and I've talked about things that they have done that make me very paranoid

after the interview.

Like, we, I can't remember if we discussed that an hour ago or if that was last night at dinner, but I mean,

that happens and all the fucking time, all over the world.

But nobody is ever able to pinpoint exactly why they think that.

They just throw it out.

Of course.

It really grew traction after I interviewed

the founder of Palantir.

And because,

I mean, people think that's a big war machine and

losing my train of thought here, the military-industrial complex type company.

But I mean, guess what, buddy?

Like,

we need innovators, and we have to innovate.

We can't just be doing the same old shit.

And I want to know how we're innovating our military capabilities and our

intelligence capabilities.

And that's a big part of it.

And it, you know, to be honest with you, it gives me comfort knowing that we are still innovating as much red tape as we have to deal with.

And And I think that that's what gives me a glimmer of hope when we're talking about global domination and China and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

And if people don't even understand, I don't know why Palantir has such a bad rap.

Maybe you know something that I don't.

But I mean, to me, that was fucking genius.

It speeds up the decision-making process.

It speeds up the intelligence gathering.

We're able to access information, you know, at lightning speed to be ahead of whoever our adversary is.

I mean,

people are mad at Palantir because they disagree with U.S.

foreign policy.

I think that's kind of the main,

from what I can tell, I'm hardly an expert on the subject.

But I think that it's, I mean, not to be a conspiracy nut, but

your,

you know, public performance over the past five and a half years has,

you know, been run counter to the aims of the CIA, I would say.

I mean, it has.

And so to tell people that you yourself are working for the CIA secretly is a way to discredit you.

But if I were the CIA, I would be encouraging.

I guess that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, that's a good point.

That is a good point.

I mean, I'm very hostile to the CIA.

I've said that many, many times.

It doesn't stop people from claiming that I secretly work there.

Yeah.

So, and I've always thought that maybe that was

I mean, I've challenged people too because I think about it.

I mean,

it would would be impossible.

You know, I mean, they might

have somebody, an operative, do a five-hour interview, and they might say, hey,

this is all we need you to get in that interview.

It's this one fucking sentence.

And

so the whole other five hours could be complete bullshit, except for the one little thing that they want injected into that interview to create some type of a narrative.

And I'm always trying to look out for that, but it would be impossible.

It would be impossible to figure out what exactly that is,

if that operative is good.

And they'll do other things like

they may do other things like, hey, we know that this happened.

You're going to go to this show and you're going to talk about

this.

And then two weeks from now, that's going to come out in the media.

Or we'll wait until the interviewer releases that specific episode.

And then two weeks after, we're going to release this to the press.

And then they're going to say, this was said on this show

by this person before it ever came out of the media.

And then when it comes out in the media, because right, everybody hates the media, but they still fucking watch it all the time.

That builds credibility to the operative, you know what I mean?

And then they, and then,

and then they

know what you mean.

Okay, you're tracking.

So

I'm watching it all around me.

So,

do you feel that, have you ever had a guest where you thought, huh?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

That this person might be acting on behalf of an intel agency.

About a couple of them.

Any confirmation on that?

No.

You know, gut instinct.

I don't want to name a bunch of names because if they're not, I don't want to

you know, but I just did a really good interview with this guy, Blarum Scoro, who was an asset.

He got recruited out of prison, and then he got recruited in prison by the CIA to, right after 9-11, to make friends with all of the Muslim Brotherhood, all the terrorists that were in there.

And so he built a network in there.

And then when he got out of prison, and so he would report back to the agency about like, hey, this is what this guy has done.

This is what he's a part of.

These are the people he talks to.

Because they all trusted him because this guy basically became like the head mullah of the prison system.

And when he got out,

agency gets back in touch with him and said, hey, you're going to use this network and you're going to, your, your, your cover cover is going to be you're building a

al-Qaeda cell in Macedonia.

And so

he would set up shop in Macedonia and he would go into Pakistan and go into Afghanistan and Syria, Iraq, Iran, all these, Russia, all these places.

And he would meet with the head,

the head of the Haqqani network, the head of the Taliban, the head of al-Qaeda.

He didn't meet specifically with Bin Laden, but he's like one step away.

And

dangerous job.

No kidding, man.

That's the real Jason Bourne shit right there.

And what he would do is say, hey, you know, I'm recruiting because I'm setting up a terrorist cell in Macedonia.

And then they would give him...

all of these weapons.

They'd give him bombs, rocket launchers, guns, mines, you name it.

And then basically what he would do is tell them that that shipment is, he would take care of logistics and to get that to Macedonia.

But what he would really do is get it to the agency, and then supposedly they would destroy it.

What do you say?

Supposedly, they would destroy it.

Well, who knows?

You know,

I don't know.

But, because I don't trust him.

But

the

so then

he has an assassination attempt.

Um,

CIA cuts him.

He gets pissed off.

He's still pissed off, rightly so.

At the same time, I'm like, how do you think this works, man?

Like,

you got burned.

They don't use burned assets.

Like, you're irrelevant at this point.

And then he started telling me about

getting uranium out of Russia.

And so we kind of had this discussion.

And, you know, Russia is a big, obviously a big topic of discussion.

Some people think we should be in Ukraine.

Some people don't.

And

some people think Russia is our ally.

Some people don't.

And

I'm kind of like, this isn't really our war.

Why are we involved?

But I said, well, what are they going to do with these?

And he said that they wanted to get him into the U.S.

and it would blow, it would kill half a million people.

And I asked him if he thought he'd done that.

But it didn't really fit in the interview.

It didn't fit.

You know what I mean?

It did not fit in the interview.

Do I know what you mean?

Yes.

In fact, I was just thinking that as you were speaking, like we're talking about all these other things.

I don't trust this for us.

And then all of a sudden, we get to Russia.

And so I just called him right there on the interview.

I was like, you know what goes through my mind?

I said, when's the last time you had contact with CIA?

That was exactly what I was just thinking.

And he said

January

16th or something in 2022.

Like, knew the exact date and got really flustered.

And I mean, I would probably be flustered too if somebody just said that and I wasn't.

But

I said, you know, what goes through my head is what if somebody contacted you knowing you were coming on this show to say that you were getting uranium to al-Qaeda to sneak into our country to blow us up.

A lot of people want to see us go to war with Russia.

Did he tell you that iran was trying to assassinate donald trump too no that's my favorite no iran is trying to assassinate donald trump yeah

okay

but

but i called him on it because it didn't fit in the interview and it was almost like shit i lost my opportunity to insert this into the interview so now i got to swing for the fence and just drop it and it just immediately clicked in my brain and then i got paranoid again i'm like jeremy you got sorry buddy you got to fucking switch your phone out.

Like, you've been texting with this guy who knows what came in.

And, um,

and, uh, but I mean, you, you never really know.

It's going to be a gut instinct, you know, and so, but I wanted to say that out loud

because if they're watching, and they probably are, then they know that

I know that I'm a target.

So I'm a little bit shocked.

I sort of knew the rough outlines of your life, but I didn't realize like 20 minutes ago you were living in Columbia and then you were on the, I mean, this just happened not 20 years ago, like seven years ago.

Yeah.

So that's got to be one of the hardest pivots, one of the most profound transformations I've ever seen.

I don't really kind of know anyone who's come this far in a separate direction in such a short period of time.

You're not even 50.

Where do you think it goes from here?

Who knows, man?

I do want to say something, though.

You know,

I think a lot of people think that kind of shit that I was doing down in Columbia is cool and it's adventurous.

And, yeah, there was a lot of adjournment.

It was a good time.

It was definitely adventurous.

Good or bad.

I think we can say that was adventurous.

But, you know,

it was a,

I mean, who knows where I would be if I didn't do that.

And I would have started this earlier, you know, and

it's just.

no way to live and everybody that you think is your friend is fake and everybody just wants to take advantage of you.

And once you get through the initial phase of, oh, man, this is like the coolest life.

It's the loneliest fucking life that you can lead.

And

almost died because of it

several times.

And,

you know, how would it have turned up if I would have OD'd in one of those penthouses and

my parents, who I love so much.

finds out, oh yeah, there's our son, the Navy SEAL CIA contractor, decomposing in a fucking penthouse in Columbia because he OD'd on cocaine.

And that scenario went through my head a lot of times.

And so I just, you know, I just, I don't want to encourage anybody to do that.

That was a low point in my life and something I'm not proud of.

And you've been a,

I would say, pretty vocal advocate for sobriety

in this job.

How many of the guys who work for you are sober?

Almost

the majority of the team i think there's two guys that drink

do you think sobriety is going to catch on as a way to absolutely i think it's already catch there's a there's a huge wave it's like the new thing to do it seems like

truly sober just like not using pills alcohol yeah

do you think we're in the middle of some kind of christian revival absolutely a hundred percent i mean

have you seen the baptism parties that are going on at colleges that look like it looks like it's a Kegger crazy tailgate party and they're baptizing people in the back of the back of trucks?

And yeah, I think there's a huge wave going on.

I think so, too.

It's cool to see.

Do you think the U.S.

government can continue?

Continue what?

To exist.

You think the current system can continue?

I think it will continue.

You do.

Because it does feel like we're moving towards something.

Like a one-world government?

I'm not sure what.

I'm not sure what, but it seems like so much change in a short period of time.

The scale's falling for so many people realizing that, you know, what they believed was real is not.

Questions people are asking, the resurgence of Christianity in the country.

I mean, it all seems to be happening at once.

And I know, you know, in every age, people think the end is near, but

does that ever occur to you?

I think it will continue to exist until people no longer have the appetite for it to exist.

You think we're pretty far from that?

Yeah.

Goes back to critical thinking.

Yeah, maybe that's right.

Last question, because I can't resist.

I know you spent a lot of your time talking about this, but

having fired every firearm, been trained on every firearm,

what are your favorite firearms?

Favorite firearms?

Yeah.

I like lever actions.

Come on.

Now,

I do too.

They're my favorite, but like.

I mean, I'm tired of all the tactical black gun shit.

I mean, that's that was my life for 14 years, you know, and

but I have a lot of them.

But I don't get excited about them.

I get excited about lever actions.

Now, if you're going to ask me, you know, shit, it's the fan.

What am I going to?

It definitely isn't going to be my lever action.

It's going to be my AR because I know that like the back of my hand and it's a tool that I'm really good with.

So.

But when you shoot for fun,

with just open sights?

Yeah.

Open sights.

You know what I really like is I don't even know what it's called, but it's it's a revolver, but it's the,

you know, you lift the little thing up and you have to load it one by one.

Yeah, like what is that?

The 12-shot 22s that they, the cowboy guns?

I got a 45-long colt one.

Is it just single-action?

Yeah, dude, I love it.

It does with a colt.

You can't hit a damn thing with it.

And it's got the pin that you push the

holes out with.

Yes.

I love that thing.

Really?

Yeah.

Talk about your life going full circle.

So you went from like, you know, some high-tech Kimber to a single action

cowboy gun.

I love it.

And you went from the AR platform to the lever.

What do you prefer the lever gun chambered in?

357.

I knew I liked it.

357 revolve.

Same ammo, sidearm and long gun.

That's my favorite pair, right?

And I could see

beneath the fame.

I knew that you were the kind of man who preferred 357.

I love it.

the straight wall cartridge amen sean rine thank you very much thank you congratulations thank you it's an honor being you're one of you're one of the people and this is not true for everybody but every time i see some marker of your like continued success i i am thrilled i'm thrilled by it and i mean that well that means a hell of a lot i'm not joking at all i thought and part of it is just like my narcissism because i saw you because my nephew sent me a clip from you and i was like that guy's really talented i like knew instantly i knew you'd be successful

And the fact that you had no background whatsoever, I didn't quite realize how far you're back.

You did not go to the Columbia School of Broadcasting.

But

your natural ability to interview people and to listen to them and to empathize with them,

it just came right off the screen.

I was like, that guy's going to be a star.

And you have been.

And I just find it thrilling.

Thank you, Todd.

Thank you.

That means a lot.

Thank you.

And congratulations on all your success.

It's been cyclical.

Oh, and Alp.

Can I just say, I never do this.

I'm proud to call this man an Alp user.

Thanks.

I love it.

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