Ask Dr. Drew - Secret Service Agent Evy Poumpouras on Russia, Ukraine & Protecting Presidents – Ask Dr. Drew – Episode 83

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

For over 12 years, Evy Poumpouras served on the Secret Service in an elite unit protecting Presidents Obama, Clinton & Bush. As an expert on national security, she has unique insight into the crisis in Russia & Ukraine. She reveals shocking details as a first responder on 9/11 – heroic actions that earned her a Secret Service Valor Award. Evy Poumpouras is a TV personality, journalist, and former US Secret Service Special Agent with expertise in national security, law enforcement, crime, and human behavior. As a first responder during the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, she was honored with the Secret Service Valor Award. She also served on the Secret Service’s Presidential Protective Division for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and is the bestselling author of "Becoming Bulletproof." Visit Evy at https://EvyPoumpouras.com and follow her at https://Twitter.com/EvyPoumpouras and https://Instagram.com/EvyPoumpouras. Read Evy's book "Becoming Bulletproof" at https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Bulletproof-Influence-Situations-Fearlessly/dp/1982103752/?tag=drdrewtv-20  [The podcast was originally broadcast on March 30, 2022] Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Kaleb Nation ( https://kalebnation.com) and Susan Pinsky (https://twitter.com/FirstLadyOfLove). SPONSORS • BLUE MICS – After more than 30 years in broadcasting, Dr. Drew’s iconic voice has reached pristine clarity through Blue Microphones. But you don’t need a fancy studio to sound great with Blue’s lineup: ranging from high-quality USB mics like the Yeti, to studio-grade XLR mics like Dr. Drew’s Blueberry. Find your best sound at https://drdrew.com/blue  • ELGATO – Every week, Dr. Drew broadcasts live shows from his home studio under soft, clean lighting from Elgato’s Key Lights. From the control room, the producers manage Dr. Drew’s streams with a Stream Deck XL, and ingest HD video with a Camlink 4K. Add a professional touch to your streams or Zoom calls with Elgato. See how Elgato’s lights transformed Dr. Drew’s set: https://drdrew.com/sponsors/elgato/  THE SHOW: For over 30 years, Dr. Drew Pinsky has taken calls from all corners of the globe, answering thousands of questions from teens and young adults. To millions, he is a beacon of truth, integrity, fairness, and common sense. Now, after decades of hosting Loveline and multiple hit TV shows – including Celebrity Rehab, Teen Mom OG, Lifechangers, and more – Dr. Drew is opening his phone lines to the world by streaming LIVE from his home studio in California. On Ask Dr. Drew, no question is too extreme or embarrassing because the Dr. has heard it all. Don’t hold in your deepest, darkest questions any longer. Ask Dr. Drew and get real answers today. This show is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. All information exchanged during participation in this program, including interactions with DrDrew.com and any affiliated websites, are intended for educational and/or entertainment purposes only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Before we bring our guest in, we were talking to Evie, who is Greek, and we were talking about our trip to Greece. And Susan, you said you want to go back? It was last year was here i can't believe it it was june right something like that july oh yeah maybe it wasn't quite a year ago it feels like eternity ago the way everything's been going in the world but um so where do you want to go back to i want to go to portugal and i want to go to prague and i'll go to France. Okay. Or Portugal and Spain.

Well, I'm ready to go. I really want to get out of this country as soon as I can. To that point, Evie Pampouris joins us. She is a TV personality, journalist, former U.S. Secret Service special agent, expertise in national security, law enforcement, and human behavior. She was a first responder during 9-11, and she was honored with the Secret Service Valor Award. She also served the Secret Service Presidential Protective Division for President Barack Obama.

First Lady Michelle Obama also had been working in, I believe, two other White Houses. We'll get that straight in a second. And she is the author of the bestselling book, Becoming Bullet bulletproof which is a book full of very very useful information particularly in today's world and i thought uh on the heels of all that's going on in eastern europe and what's going on in this country and what we've been dealing with for the last several years she would be an interesting person to hear her thoughts our laws as it pertain to substances are draconian and bizarre. The psychopath started this. He was an alcoholic because of social media and pornography, PTSD, love addiction, fentanyl and

heroin. Ridiculous. I'm a doctor. Where the hell do you think I learned that? I'm just saying, you go to treatment before you kill people. I am a clinician. I observe things about these chemicals. Let's just deal with what's real. We used to get these calls on Loveline all the time. Educate adolescents and to prevent and to treat. If you have trouble, you can't stop and you want to help stop it, I can help. I got a lot to say. I got a lot more to say. Evie, welcome to the program. Hi, Dr. Drew. Thank you for having me. Great to see you.

Did you? You as well. Did you recognize any of those clips before we pulled in here, the opening of the show where we're all in our boxes like we used to be on HLN? I did. I did. I had tons of nostalgia from our days. Yes.

Dr. Drew on call. I loved it. It was fun. So what are you doing these days? Let's? Well, let's, let's do, let's do three things. Let's first talk about the book. Tell people about why you wrote bullet becoming bulletproof and what they can learn. Secondly, I want an update on what you're doing now. And then we're going to talk about sort of yours.

I've got one of your assessment of a few things that are going on in the world. So the book, what can people learn with the book? So the book is really,'s actually quite timely. When I wrote it, you know, COVID had just, you know, started had happened actually quite later. And it's really about overcoming fear, living fearlessly, thinking through things, not panicking through things, and how to process difficult situations thoughtfully. So it's essentially and it's almost like

three books in one so you the first part is protecting yourself how do you protect yourself physically and mentally mental resilience as well not just the physical aspect second part body language reading people which as you know dr june we've talked to about so many times when we were talking about different criminal cases how to read people how to assess behavior i don't know what somebody's being truthful versus not being truthful right deception and then the final part of the book is influencing strategies and communication how do we communicate with people to elicit information to get what we want this really touches all key points not just in our professional career whether you're a doctor and you're trying

to get information from someone whether you're an attorney or whether you're dealing with people it's how do we get people to how do we communicate with them well because we always want to get information from someone whether you're an attorney or whether you're dealing with people it's how do we get people to how do we communicate with them well because we always want to get people to yes on their own right and then so it's really kind of a book that takes everything together and then it's just about mindset process and dealing with adversity and overcoming everything so it's just kind of a guide to to life. It's a great book with lots of really interesting, specific, not the kind of specifics you see in a self-help book. It's specifics from somebody who's had years of doing interrogation and working as a Secret Service agent in extraordinary circumstances.

The one thing that I noticed people really responded to were some of the tells. I don't want to, I still want people to buy the book, so I don't want to be a spoiler necessarily, but the tells around deception. You had so many really good specifics. Give them a couple. So, you know, I wanted to dispel a lot of myths because there's so much misinformation out there where people will tell you if somebody does this then they're a liar and it doesn't take into consideration how different and unique people are so the one thing i teach in

the book is about assessing human behavior a specific human behavior who is across from you what are they doing what would be their normal normal baseline when they're having an unthreatening conversation and then comparing that to when they're heightened, to when they're stressed out. And there are some techniques in there that you could look at, verbal techniques that you could look at when somebody speaks. So for example, let me give you something simple. When someone's speaking to you and they're telling you a story, they're recalling something and they tell it to you and they quote someone else or they use quotes in their speech. That is indicative of somebody being truthful and honest. Also, something that most people don't know and it's counterintuitive, when someone's sharing a story with you,

if they spontaneously correct themselves as they're telling that story, that is also truthful. When most people think, oh, they they just corrected themselves they must be lying that's not the case because a truthful person will want to make sure that they get the whole thing right so there's a lot of it and it's strategy it's tactic it's technique that's what the book is it's not about theory it's it's about look at this, assess this. When you see this, this is what it means. You know, something I've never asked you, I don't think, my memory's not as great as it used to be, so maybe we did have this conversation, but I don't believe we did. How did you get interested in the work you do? You know, it's really, I didn't have anybody in my life, in my family or in my life in law enforcement. grew up in new york high crime area um public housing government housing because my family couldn't afford housing on their own we so

we grew up around a lot of crime a lot of bad things and we were in an area that police didn't really give attention to and so was very fear-based a lot of drugs in my neighborhood a lot of crime and so i grew up very much in an environment where my parents were very afraid. Don't go here. Don't go there. I mean, we didn't even play outside in front of our house. So I think one of two things can happen to you. You either become more fear-based or you rebel against it. So I rebelled. And so just from there, I remember after graduating college thinking, I want to be a police officer. And so just from there, I remember as, you know, after graduating college thinking, I want to be a police officer. And I started with the NYPD. It wasn't a clear path for me, but I knew one, I wanted to shield and protect myself. You get tired of being a victim.

And then two, I wanted to help other people. I wanted to be of service. And I think that was always big for me. Just how can I be of service to people and that's kind of how it started it's a really important uh sort of instinct to leading a good life I'm sure it's been rewarding in a lot of ways for you um I I want to take your story about rebelling against feeling fearful and helpless right I imagine it was both, right? Helplessness and fearfulness. Is that accurate? I think so because there's moments where you don't know what to do. You don't know where to go to help.

You have no empathy there, and you do. You feel helpless. And I think it can either diminish you or it can help push you figuring out, well, how do I change this? Okay. So I want to use your story and what you did and use that as a frame to look at what's been happening to this country since I last spoke to you, perhaps, which was that you mentioned that the book is about living fearlessly and not panicking. And the last, certainly during COVID, has been precisely the opposite.

People have been in a panic. The press has been hell-bent on inducing panic. People have been told they are helpless against this causative agent. Adolescents have been destroyed by that kind of messaging. And they have no ability to develop self-determination because their face is covered so they can't and they're told not to go near their peers so they don't develop that peer support it feels to me like not only have we been living in fear rather than fiercely we've actually transitioned into hysterics we've like i've delusional thinking on all sides. I hear people getting preoccupied

about various sorts of conspiracy theories or Nazis are everywhere or Russians are coming. Whatever it is, that's delusional. That is delusional thinking. And it's everywhere now. People have said things like that to me five years ago, I would have put them in the hospital. Now it's sort of routine. My real question is, how come there hasn't been more rebelling against the fearfulness? That's one of the questions I've had. I would think adolescents and young people would go, screw this. I don't want to live in fear. I want to do something active with no more. You can't tell me to do that anymore. We're going to figure out other strategies. No one seems to be, or very few people, seem to be in that way of thinking.

Am I right? And if I am right, why do we think that is? You know, it's interesting because when all this was happening, I remember assessing it and thinking, there's two types of people that are going to come out of this. People, and I think the majority that are going to get pushed down, be super afraid, super consumed by this, extremely fear-based, and then other people who are going to rise above this and deal with this in a very different way. And I do agree with you because I'm an adjunct professor. So I see my students

as well. We're back at even seeing it in the youth. We're back at, um, even, you know, seeing it in the youth, we're back at on campus teaching and see even my students and their behavior is very timid, very fear based. But when you are surrounded by this narrative and you are on your device, you're on Twitter, you're on Tik TOK, you're on all the social media, and this is all you're consuming, and your friends are consuming this, and your parents are consuming it with the news on 24 hours a day, of course, that's going to happen. And so you've got this collective group mindset that you can't escape. It's fear upon fear. And this is where people have to, on their own, disengage. And then also, you have to think of two things too when you're consuming information from someone i always do this assessment who is this person

why should i listen to them yeah and if you're just consuming to consume it's going to throw you off and i think what we've done is we've lost our ability to self-navigate to self-assess to listen to our voice which is what you're touching on why are people not able to ground themselves and center themselves and create their own decisions their own thoughts because they're in an environment where they are so inundated by everything and everyone around them also dr jew if you are around other people who are very fear-based what are you going to become your parents or loved ones or those close to you are fear other people who are very fear-based, what are you going to become? Your parents or loved ones or those close to you are fear-based.

You will become that. Yes, but I will point back to you and your experience. You could also rebel against that. I'll have none of this. Thank you very much. And by the way, in addition to being inundated by the negativity and the fear, anybody who dares to do anything proactive or to push back or to have a positive bias gets attacked and destroyed. And that's something new. That is a weird, again, I wrote a book about narcissism 14 years ago or so, and I wanted to do a chapter about revolutionary France because that was the

only other period of history where I could find the same degree of narcissism as we have now. And I kept saying to my editor, like, I just know the guillotines are coming out. That's the only thing I, I just, where this goes, it goes into mob behaviors. And here we are, here we are. No actual guillotine. It said the cancel guillotine is sort of what we're using. And it's very disturbing to me. Do you see a way out? You said to give kids the ability to be self-assessing, to be able to think for themselves, essentially. Is it working?

I don't think so. And I also think what you're talking about, actually, what we're seeing is a very group, in and out group thing. It's either I'm in this group and you're not in my group, you're in the other group. And so I think, let me know what your assessment is. So it's like, I want to feel like I belong to something. So I'm going to be in this in group. And if you disagree with me, then I'm going to put you in this out group. And so I can identify with this group, which is the right group in my mindset,

and you're going to be in the bad group, the opposite group. And it gives us a sense of belonging. It gives us a sense of self rather than being able to stand on our own. It's come to a place where people are afraid to stand on their own, say something, be different, because they're going to be pushed down and shut down, as you say. And that's a loss of self and a sense of identity, where it's either we're creating this narrative, you have to be in a group. And it's not even you can't even be have some beliefs from one group or another, you must be all the way one way, or all the way the other way. And I wonder if it if it's dr drew from a clinical perspective do people do this to soothe themselves to feel more powerful instead of less powerful

because they belong to of course yes of course but but all all you know polar thinking all black all white all positive all negative um hang on a second caleb is alerting me to something it is plugged in unless oh maybe the might have been the thing might have pulled out a little bit so it's on now okay um but that kind of stark thinking you're either all good or all bad, that's narcissism. That's how narcissists think. They can't see a middle zone. They have trouble with any kind of nuance that somebody can be bad or problematic in certain circumstances and be actually a good person.

No, if you seem to be in an out group, you need to be destroyed. You're all the way out. And really what's in the narcissism is both feeling states and they can't tolerate them right i i saw a great assessment by psychoanalyst uh i told you i was working on my french and it was a french daytime talk show i was watching and he's and they were talking about these narcissistic partners of these poor women who'd been abused by them and whatnot and uh this this analyst said look when he, when he's attacking you and saying, you are something, I want you to hear instead, I am. In other words, whatever a narcissist sees

in the outside world, it's actually in themselves. It's a projection. And that is everywhere right now. People cannot tolerate the nuance. And i don't know about you but i i am super moderate and so i see the excesses on both sides i imagine you feel the same way i do in fact i really abstain from commenting on certain topics because it's you you're going to get attacked one way or another there's so many people inserting starting their opinions. And it's just become this mishmash of just random this noise and hate and anger. And we are in a space where the whole country is flowing. And I wonder if there's like, an identity. I can only speak for the US because I live here, but an identity in our culture right

now of a uniform narcissism or cultural narcissism. We are in the US is a very identity cultural narcissism we are in the u.s is a very identity-based country where we are taught that the individuals the the individual um is more important than the collective group yeah right if you're an individual you matter and so now maybe through social media through all these different platforms everybody's trying to seek and validate themselves and i want to be a hero and i want to villainize you in fact there's a quote um i don't recall who said it but i thought it was a great quote it says the bigger the hero the bigger the villain the more i villainize you the bigger the hero that i feel that i become and it's interesting that's interesting that's interesting if i'm of a bad guy then i will feel more powerful more more of the hero that's

interesting that's an interesting that's a i think that's a nice wrinkle on this that uh puts throws into focus why people are so exercised about all this. It's just they have to make people into outgroups and bad people in order to make themselves feel more heroic. And do you see a way out? I mean, you've obviously been thinking about this. Do you just feel helpless against this? What does your rebellious nature tell us about how we get through this? You know, as myself myself i feel grounded because

i feel that i can think for myself and i don't know if we can get out of it i think there will come a point where people will get sick of this but even when i teach my students and i teach criminal justice and criminology now i'm former law enforcement i make sure that when i teach i do not bring any of my biases in because I was former law enforcement my opinion does not matter what I think does not matter I will teach you the facts and then you make your own assessment you have enough people telling you how to think and who to be and until people realize that I am a product of what everybody is telling me to do, to think, to be. No one's going to stop. I think in some way, people have lost the ability to really self-identify and hear their own

voice. And quite frankly, it takes confidence to be able to do that. It takes mental stability, being grounded. And I wonder too, if because people are so unhinged, we're seeing a lot more mental health issues coming up in society since COVID. So I wonder if that also plays a role in people's inability to be able to listen to their own self and trust in their own self and their own inner voice. voice yeah and and i would argue that that is the case and that there are many things layering upon that making it so and we've already mentioned two which is the echo chamber of what's bearing down on people there is the fear of attack if they dare to have an alternative point of view and there is the the lack of support because of all the social distancing and disengagement. I mean, people normally sort out some of these feelings, again, their ability to regulate by being with other people, being in the world. And that's been, you know, shut down for quite some

time and people are having a hard time getting it back. You mentioned biases also. I've noticed there's a fundamental cognitive bias at work in a lot of what's going on with COVID, which is people are either positive or negatively biased, and the positively biased people want to sort of go, okay, BA2 is looking pretty good. It's not looking that bad. Yeah, there's going to be a little surge here, but natural immunity plus hybrid with the vaccine looks great great people do fine with it people with negative bias

go how dare you keep your mask on shut up it's gonna be a disaster and that's and the negative bias rules right now which is hard for me you would think we you would think just the way we are as human beings that the positive bias would rule. It's so much healthier. It's a much healthier way to, again, you don't panic. You're not so fear-based. Panic and fear really never help. I mean, if you were, and I'll have you speak to that. I mean, you've been in some horrible situations.

Did fear and panic help you manage those situations? No. You can't think. You can't process. You can't make decisions. you can't make decisions you can't make decisions you're not able to make decisions you're not able to think for yourself and i wonder if it's this also is really fear of death right this fear of death and so you mentioned you had covet i had covet as well um and and i don't know too if it comes from where I came from, law enforcement and then the U.S. Secret Service,

where every day I went to work, it could be my last day. And in some way I made peace with, it could be my last day. And I've always lived with, okay, if tomorrow's my last day, I ask myself two questions or try to live by this. Have I done everything I wanted to do? And if I haven't, did I set out to try have i done everything i wanted to do and if i haven't did i set out to try to do the things i wanted to do and i've always been okay with maybe tomorrow's my last day and growing up and maybe because my family came from villages where you know death or people

passing was a bit of a normal thing today i feel like it's become this thing we should be afraid of that's that's um that shouldn't happen when it's going to happen to everyone and rather than making it part of the narrative that hey this is a normal thing this is something that will happen it will happen to everybody we've made it something outside something that people don't like to talk about something that's very fear-based and i think being able to be at peace with your own mortality is also a very positive thing nobody lives forever none of us do yes so having a healthy healthy psychological balance it's interesting that uh of course that that's the work of the Stoics, right?

Today could be your last day as one of their credos. And the Stoic philosophy is getting very popular these days, but not enough. We need more of it. Also, we've almost fetishized death. We've made it this colossal problem when the reality is, if you don't want to die you don't want to live and that's really the the reality about about death it's a it's a feature of living and we've and it's partly my profession's fault we've hidden hidden it away in hospitals we don't talk about it we keep people alive indefinitely so people don't have to experience grief i mean

and needlessly and you know needlessly for the patient. And it was weird to me. I'm going to bring a palliative care doctor in here soon. She does a podcast called Brain Science, which I like also. And it was weird to me that all the nursing home deaths didn't spark conversation about end of life and what people wanted or didn't want. When I was running ICUs and working in an ICU, we never put 80-year-olds, we did everything we could

not to put an 80-year-old on a ventilator because we knew if they did that, it was going to be a horrible existence afterwards if they made it at all. And the other piece of data that people should be aware of, I think it's for men, that the average life expectancy after admission to a nursing home, not for recovery from a hip fracture, nursing home care because you need institutional care. You are so far down the line that you can't wipe your ass, you can't feed yourself, you can't turn yourself. The average life expectancy is six months.

And people should be really talking about whether they even want that and what they want as their end of life. It should be as dignified as life itself, but people can't even manage to address it. It's interesting. You know, it's interesting you bring this up. My father passed away. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And one of the doctors, the oncologist was very adamant about giving him chemo, giving him chemo. My father was at an older age. He had diabetes, heart issues, and his cancer had progressed rapidly. He was just in fourth stage. And so I remember speaking to him about him. And I remember telling him, dad, let's go to this other hospital.

There's a New York city. There's a really great hospital for cancer. And let's see, you know, about treatment there. And I remember he looked at me, he said, no, I choose how I die. I'm not going to choose to die this way. For what? For a few more weeks or a few more months where I'm going to be sick. And he chose he said no

that's not how i intend to go and i respected that and i agreed with that because and thankfully my whole family agreed with that where none of us pushed him please do this do chemo do this to prolong his life in a much more painful way in a much more horrific way so that we could selfishly keep him here which would have been worse and so he didn't do a treatment and he passed within two months of of this conversation of him his diagnosis and although you know dr drew was hard to lose him i was also at peace and that i felt we did the right thing by him because i can't imagine having him go through that having him suffer through that and then lose him then him just prolonging his death and just dying in a much more horrific much more painful way

right completely yeah again no i i've always had immense admiration for people that stand up and uh and with with its dignities that i think i admire when people do these things and it's also accepting realities and realities terms as stark as it is it it is often you're right it's often the family that drive uh excessive care so they don't have to feel grief. And I understand not wanting to feel grief. I understand it's a bad feeling, but you got to do what's right for the patient. And it's very admirable. The only reason I could imagine stage four pancreatic cancer taking chemo is if you want to do it to help push the science forward for future sufferers. You know, if you felt like that was something I want to do is I can be a subject in cancer research, then okay, I understand that. But in fact, I have a memory very similar to your dad.

I have a very powerful memory. When I was an intern, I admitted a pediatrician to the hospital. And he'd had a lot of medical problems, but he was a very joyous person. And he's a pediatrician, which is hard to do. I can't stand the kids suffering. I can't do that. I just can't do it. But he was okay. And he'd come in with what's called painless jaundice, which is essentially a sign of pancreatic cancer typically. Because when the tumor develops in the head of the pancreas, it pushes on the common bile duct and you get yellow. The bile doesn't come out. And he said, you know, I've seen lots of people suffer through horrible things.

Now it's my turn. And he just said it like, hey, it's my turn now it's not like it wasn't coming he was like 77 years old or so if i remember right i mean he wasn't young so he'd had a good life and a long life he's like this is this is how it goes and i am here to tell you we're going to make the diagnosis and i'll get the they do kind of a thing called whipples procedure i don't know if he actually did that um and then we're gonna see where you know let it the cards fall where they may um he was just i just remember his you know it's funny i don't remember a lot of the words i just remember his attitude was so positive and it was inspiring um i'm guessing your dad was very similar

he was you know and you know it's everyone thinks it's like, oh, I'm going to be my best when everything's great. But when then things are not good, it's, it's appropriate. It's okay for me to fall apart. And it's, it's not bad. It's, you can look at what's happened the past two years. You can look at your most difficult situations or scary situations. And it's in your worst of times and your worst of moments where you must be your

very best that is the true definition of strength of courage not when everything's going okay and i think there's also this narrative that well if i'm stressed out or things aren't great i'm allowed to completely just behave however i want to behave just be completely fear-based cancel other people insult other people have no no no ability to govern myself or my emotions that's true mastery that's true self-discipline governing yourself and the choices we make and you know you made me think of another scenario earlier on when you introduced me you mentioned that September 11th on 9 11 when the first tower started collapsing it happened to be there and I got caught in the collapse of that tower and I remember taking shelter and trying to hide I didn't understand

the tower was collapsing I thought it was just maybe the roof or a portion of the tower but I understood I needed to take shelter because I was right by the base and there's no way to run it. And as it started to come down, Dr. Drew, I remember realizing, oh boy, I'm like, this isn't what I thought. I'm probably gonna die. And in that moment, I thought to myself, okay, I'm gonna die.

I don't have a choice about whether I'm going to die or not. That's not in my hands, but I do have a choice of how I'm going to die, how I'm going to face this moment. And in that moment, I chose, I said, I won't die afraid. I'm not going to panic. I'm going to sit here and I'm going to face my death head on. And I literally did. I kept my eyes open. I remember. And I said, I want to see my end and i prayed just just that happened to be my spiritual connection i prayed and i held on to that piece and so it's in those moments where it's like okay maybe you don't have a choice in how something is going to end up but you have a choice on how you face it and i think that that's what's gotten lost here how did you survive

that where did you duck into where were you seems unsurvivable if you're at the base i there was a corner of where i was able to be by the what they call the financial buildings near the tower and there was just a it's just crevice and i I was just able to sit there. And when the debris shot, it just shot over me. Honestly, it was just hit or miss. And I just happened to pick a spot where the debris didn't land. And I happened to survive it. But it's something freeing though, in being able to manage yourself and say, it's okay. Not this amphiphobia where, oh my gosh, if this happens, oh my gosh,

it's like, yes, these things exist. And I think being able to live in the reality and the truth of what something is, and then to face that truth, that's empowering. And not only that, I would think that makes you a more mentally healthy and resilient human being. Oh, yeah. There's no doubt that competency and techniques that make you not feel helpless in confusing situations. And these are really powerful, powerful techniques. Again, that's why i looked about your book i i fear though i'm thinking of the words we've been using of fearlessness strength what do we say dignity courage those

all sound like toxic masculinity to me and so we have we have diminished we have we have sort of denigrated some of these really important uh human qualities that they're not specifically masculine or what they're they may be asking but they're not specifically masculine or they're maybe masculine but they're not specifically male. Obviously you're a living example of that. We just had a dog cat fight here. What did you love? I love those words.

I identify with those words. I didn't grow up thinking those words are only for men. I grew up thinking those words are me. Or they're toxic. Why? Why are they toxic? Why?

Don't ask me. I think people are mistaking. I think it's an interesting question because I think what they're doing, what people have done in this country, is they've mistaken aggression, flat-out aggression, which is not composure and all these things we're talking about, and they're throwing them all into this same quality that have traditionally been associated with certain kinds of masculinity. Yeah, aggression is a

problem, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Well, I think there's a difference between aggression and assertiveness. Bullying versus being a person of strength. I worked along other special agents. I worked around military, individuals in the military, special ops, special operators, very elite, strong people. They had all these qualities. And because I was fortunate to be around other strong individuals by proxy, I became stronger. And this is where your sphere of influence comes into play. Who is around you? Who do you associate with? Who do you communicate with? And if you're talking to other people who are terrified and fear-based, you're going to be those things. I think I don't like labeling things. I've never liked it identifying with, it's just those words when I share them, that's who I really feel like as a

human being. And I think you should choose the words that allow you to feel who you are and to be strong, to be resilient, to be able to manage your fears, to have courage and to be brave. Those are things to be celebrated, not diminished. Have you ever thought about doing some kind of a workshop where these people are exposed to these things and exposed to people, like you said, that have had positive effect on you and your attitude.

I feel like there's never been a greater need at this present moment. I think people are kind of aware. I think sort of Jordan Peterson has been filling some of that, but I think it's something more explicit that maybe we should really talk about doing something for people that builds them back up from the morass we've been in. Yeah, I agree with you. It's like, and I have done talks and workshops about confidence and different things, but it's examining yourself, examining the world around you.

Why do I think this way? Why do I behave this way? Is this good for me? Even something as simple as making decisions. Did you know individuals who make decisions or are more decisive are more likely to be confident in life decision making whereas it makes sense we are in an environment now where we're constantly checking other people's opinions and checking with other people and i think this way can i say this and we're not we're not our own we're not the captains of our own ship and maybe you are

correct it's like we're in an environment where you're almost being deterred to be the captain of your own ship to have your own original authentic sentiments well uh i'm uh i want to correct somebody out there was calling you do you have any kind of doctorate they're asking this thing thank you for being the doctor. Maybe it's a Secret Service, law enforcement. A lot of knowledge. Do you have a doctorate? I do not. I've actually thought about going in for one, but I have

a master's in forensic psychology. So, because I used to do interviews and interrogations, the U.S. Secret Service sent me to get my master's. And what they wanted me to do is to understand from a clinical perspective the individual I was sitting across from. Because I did, I was part of a polygraph unit. And so we interviewed people who did very high-level crimes.

Or people came across my way that where law enforcement couldn't get confessions. So I would travel the country helping local police departments with their cases. I even did terrorism cases. And so one of the things that was taught was it's not the stuff you see in TV. Understand the person across from you. Do they have any mental health issues? Because a lot of criminal offenders do. So it was being able to identify those.

So studying the DSM, it was the four. Now we're in the five, where it has all the psychiatric and personality disorders, understanding that person, do they have any mental health issues? Do they meet any criteria? What is their perspective? How can I speak to them? So I think as a result of all that and my practice, so to speak, in interviewing and speaking with people all those years, and even after I wrote my book, I found so many people writing in with, Evie, I have this problem. How do I assess this? Evie, I have this. And I remember thinking, I can't answer your issue in a simple text, right? Because

people are so different. Situations are so different. But I see this need and people at such a loss looking outside of themselves for someone to tell them what to do. Right. So keep going with that thinking. So your suggestion is people learn how to master and regulate their own emotions and tune into their internal resources. You also want to give people tools. So something as simple as teaching someone,

don't go out and ask other people for permission for anything. Take maybe a week or two weeks. If you're that person who's always indecisive, stop shopping around for answers. Make a choice. And be okay with making the wrong choice. Again, we're in such a fear-based environment where people are afraid to do or say the wrong thing.

I'll bring it back to being a college professor. Dr. Drew, I'll ask my students questions in class and they are afraid to give me the wrong answer. And I tell them, this is your class. Give me the wrong answer. It's okay. Participate. This is how you're going to learn. if they answer me dr drew they talk so softly i can barely understand that i have to tell them repeatedly can you speak up the person sitting right behind you cannot hear you because they are so afraid to speak and if this is literally a problem i have in my class share your thoughts intellig. Don't insult anybody in the class. Always respect.

It's okay to have opposing points of view, but if you're going to say something, speak, own your voice. So I think a lot of it is giving people simple tools and strategies and helping them break habits, bad habits that lead to this type of behavior that lead to that you without you realizing we're feeding the beast right yeah that brings you in the sphere based i can't make my own decisions i'm afraid of everything i need to be a belong to a group i can't fail i can't make a mistake type of mindset well what but i i think what i'm super attracted to in the solutions you're offering is they are very pragmatic. Anybody can do it, and you just have to do it. And it's kind of like a cognitive behavioral therapy of sorts for the social circumstance of our moment. I'll tell you what, I have to take a

quick break here. The book is Becoming Bulletproof. I suggest you get it right now. Please do. You'll see why I like that book. And when we come back, we'll hear more from Evie. We'll take a couple calls. And I want to hear if Caleb and Susan have any questions. Something kind of funny happened. During the... It's my time. Yes, it's your time.

No, it's my time. When she was talking about surviving the World Trade Center, my computer just went dead. Like, just dead. I was, like, trying to get it to come back because I wanted to see, you know, what people were, you know, saying during that time on Restream. And I was like, something spiritual just shut my computer down. But I am really happy that you lived. I find that to be fascinating. Yes, we are happy that you lived i i find that to be fascinating yes we are

happy that you how you how you approach death i think you know it's it's incredible to be able to have that ability and not you know and maybe that's what saved you speaking speaking of all right you're having your wits about it shut my computer down i don't know what happened my ghosts are here speaking of composure uh people want to know your opinion about will smith and uh and uh rock and i want some dirt on um the ukraine okay hold on so hold on hold on hold on so we'll take a little break and we'll be back for all of that so don't go away let me take a minute to tell you about blue mics over the two years we've been working with our friends at blue mics the world has completely adapted to working and meeting virtually. So whether you know it or not,

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like the Mouse or the Blueberry we use here in our studio, as well as the more compact Encore 300. I love it for clear quality sound when we travel. Bottom line, there is no excuse to be the one on the conference call who sounds like you're in a tunnel or underwater. I cannot say enough about Blue Mics, and once you try one, you will never go back. To take your audio to the next level, just go to drdrew.com slash blue. That is drdrew.com slash B-L-U-E. And we are back. It is Becoming Bulletproof. Go get that book right now. And before the break, I was asking aie a bunch of things on everybody's mind. So let's start at the top. Where was security when Will Smith went up on stage and smacked Chris Rock?

Why didn't they prevent him from going on the stage? And why didn't they grab him before he even got off the stage? So it's interesting because I've actually gone to events like that, high-profile events with presidents or first ladies. There's been times where I've gone to different awards ceremonies. Security is typically there for outside public, not for the celebrities. They're there to protect the celebrities. So truly, I think they didn't know what was going on. They didn't know if it was a skit.

They're not there to protect one celebrity from another celebrity they're interesting that's i get it so i think i get it no idea they're looking for the random person who's going to come out from behind who's going to run up on stage they're not expecting another celebrity to get up on stage to to do what will smith did and i i I thought Chris Rock handled it in a very dignified way, a very unclear situation. There's a lot of things he could have done. Oh, now Caleb is telling me, he's just flashed up on my screen, that the Academy says they asked Will Smith to leave, but he refused. So that's interesting. Of course. But I'm just curious, you you know we're talking about fear and composure how you felt about chris rock's reaction to it all i thought he actually had really good self-governance because when you

are attacked you're instinctually you want to fight back instinctually you want to move your hands up and i found it really interesting that he didn't even he didn't even try to push will smith off of him or anything he actually stood there and he took it that's a lot of composure and just the his ability to think through a very stressful moment especially on stage to think don't lift your hands don't hit back don't do anything that says a lot about his ability to govern his emotions. It's probably a very high level of emotional intelligence to do that. Yeah. Yeah, really.

I'm not sure I could have. I would have at least lunged back, and I might have thought better of it after I did. To protect yourself. Or said, hey, could somebody take this guy out? Yeah, right. Like, we can't go on until you get this guy out of here. I don't feel safe. I think he was just kind of shocked by it.

And also, like, he thought it was kind of funny in a way maybe who christened yeah like was that supposed to be funny or is that real i mean i don't think it looked like a punch right i think he started laughing a lot of people when they're stressed yeah maybe that's what I think that was, Susan. He was nervous. It was a nervous laughter. It's his way of releasing his stress in that scenario. Yes, I agree. I completely agree. I mean, Chris Rock has probably had people lunge at him before. Well, that's what I thought Evie was going to go, which is next.

If she's always admonished me, like, be on the defensive all the time. If somebody heads towards the stage, be ready. Be ready for the assault instead of what Chris did did was sort of leaned in like what do you got and um that i thought you would have something to say about that were i to be the one to have done so i suspect you might have had some notes for me what was that it's a moth yeah moth having a lot of paranormal experiences over here yeah no it's it was it was kind of like it was kind of like is this is this for real like why isn't he responding i think that's why people thought it was fake abby go ahead i think that but i also think he's you know susan look at it

i'm on stage and he's also he's facing the crowd so he sees also think about what he's seeing he's seeing how many thousands of people in an audience so i think he's computing all those things as well so probably yes there's a level of shock but i think he's also seeing the reality of where he is and he's thinking have self-control don't move because even just instinctually his body doesn't react like that's composure where typically you want to put your hands up or do something and yeah or touch your face just got hit in the face his demeanor though probably helped not escalate the situation further because had he hit back or done something they probably would have had a physical altercation on stage so by him not doing

anything oh yeah it really de-escal did the whole front row oh yeah oh yeah and i'm sure he was thinking also i have a job to do here let's get this going now he he really handled himself well now susan you also had a question about uh fbi and cia misinformation what did you exactly have in mind misinformation oh no i was just curious what her take is on the fear that's coming out of this war in the Ukraine and how we're dealing with Russia and how our kids can sort of understand it more fully, you know, we all live through nuclear threats from, you know, early age. I don't want to say how old I was, but when we had the problem before, but, but, you know, how, like what's really happening? Like, how are we, are we supposed to be like building bunkers or are we, or should we just, you know, face the light? Like I told my kids, like if, if, if a bomb's coming, I'm going to be the

first one out there i'm just going to get it over with because i don't want to suffer and see what happens afterwards but um but what is it that we should she's going to choose how to die guys that's all i did yeah i was laughing at you i would every saying okay i'd be like yeah see but um sure because i find it i find i yeah i'm i'm more spiritual that way but i also don't i know that i wouldn't want to watch my family die slowly it would be terrible but um and that's the selfish reason to do it but um i don't know i just think like with impending world war possibly um how like from your point of view like is there stuff that we just don't know and how should we handle it and should we really be worried you know because the

media is not gonna i don't believe anything they say so so the first thing is media is going to escalate they want drama they want to tell a story they don't want you to change the channel and again we're being inundated by the story. Conflicts happen, happens all the time. Don't forget, we just left Afghanistan after being there for how many years? Because of 9-11. That was extremely catastrophic. So these scenarios are always happening. Again, they are further escalated by the repeat narrative of being on the news, being through social. Now, if you look at strategically national security, obviously they're dealing with, you know, Russia and I was around for the Soviet union as well,

Susan, so you're dealing with Russia and you can see that the U S is being as careful as possible to avoid having conflict, which is why they're not putting troops, they're choosing how to strategically handle the situation. And you're seeing these economic, economic instead. So you can tell they are doing their best to avoid this, but also there are other things they do. They're probably trying to through insurgents or different ways. Insurgents is not the correct word by planting people and propaganda into a different, helping create a different narrative in Russia, letting people know. In fact, I was reading up right before we went on, Dr. Drew, about how the U.S. is leaking intelligence that it intercepted from the Kremlin.

I saw that. Putin's certainly being afraid to tell Putin the truth about what's happening. And this is where when you have dictators or very fear-based regimes, where your own people will just agree with you or tell you yes, and they won't tell you the truth. And so what the US had hoped by leaking this information is for Putin to hear, hey, your plan is actually not going as you think, and what your cocoon of people are telling you is wrong. So they're really hoping that he will self-correct or self-shift. Now he may, because he's really backed into a corner if you look at it from a military standpoint. And also there's two things

to consider, Susan. The United States has something called hard power, soft power. Hard power is the military, our weapons, our resources, right? That's hard power. Soft power is our influence over the world, which is how people see us. And what we're doing right now is using our soft power, okay, to help mitigate the situation, to help deal with it, show our influence and the allies that we have throughout the world the majority of the world is aligning with you know the west aligning with the ukraine now i think it's just they're taking it step by step again saying world war

three is a great way to get people to tune into the channel you know to to be afraid this is where i think this is where people just have to use logic. It's a, you have to stop. You have to disengage, read up on the news and then go live your life. Because you stressing about it is not going to change it. And the government, there's so many layers and individuals. It's not just the president who's making choices. There's cabinet members, There's military personnel.

There's intelligence agencies. Everybody is collectively working together to try to mitigate and de-escalate the situation. So I want to dial the conversation back a little bit more to the psychological negativity in the in and out groups. And let me just mention, there's a famous social psychology experiment called the Robber's Cave, where groups of randomly selected matched young boys were sort of set into two camps and they immediately became warring camps. So read about the Robber's Cave, just Wikipedia.

And do you, I just want your, I spent a lot of time asking people this question. I'm just curious if you have a thought on this and i've sort of asked you as much already but do you feel positive about the direction we're going are you hopeful or do you see the way out yet are you just still kind of worried we're stuck like this for a while i don't think we're stuck i think that it's going to get resolved i just because it's not just the U S doing this alone. You have so many people, so many organizations, even private companies pulling out of Russia. You're really seeing this true collective effort. And it's kind of amazing to see how

people who are non-military, even Elon Musk moving his satellites to help the Ukrainians. So I see this in a much more positive light, but again, media, social media, it's not going to paint it that way because it's not as interesting to watch. And you know, my grandmother left Asia. Even though my grandmother was Greek, her family left as refugees and they went to the Ukraine. My grandmother was born in the Ukraine my grandmother was yeah yeah yeah yeah yes so even when I saw that you know I've always had a very soft place in my heart because that was my grandmother's place of birth it's the place that they welcomed my my great-great-parents as refugees but you really I think people also have to have faith and be more positive as to we're

seeing this collective effort and if you want to help think about ways that you can help the collective effort rather than sitting there and playing this doomsday narrative everybody is working strategically to try to prevent it yeah i totally agree with you and and then how about our in-group out-group nonsense the the all the the delusional thinking and the consternation amongst ourself is are we going to find our way all the stuff we were talking about 30 minutes ago are we going to find our way we have to find a way out of that the question is do you do you feel optimistic and you see a light ahead i don't know yet. I think something has to happen to make people's collective mindset shift.

There is such a strong group thinker, this collective mindset that needs to change and something has to shift it. And I don't know what that is. I do remember pre, I keep going on 9-11, but I remember pre 9-11, the country was was not as unified 9-11 happened and it unified everybody so i don't know what it's going to take for people to shift or change um but i do think that we are in this with this soup right this mental soup um yes that's what it is am i i'm trying to describe it right it's like a tangible no i feel like it's it's a more yeah it's it's it feels like a like a molasses it feels like this this this cloud is you know you can talk about a soup cloud molasses it all it feels like it's

around all the time and it's uh extremely disturbing to me and i and i do i do been feeling the same way like what's going to get us out of this what's it going to take i want to talk to you more about doing some sort of workshops or something because that i feel like at least we would be doing something active to try to back to your point of not feeling helpless and doing things actively i feel like we might be doing something uh active let's um let's take a call and see josh i bet you have some interesting questions about what we've been discussing yeah hey dr drew josh um boy this is uh we've had an interesting week in this country um i i looked at the robber's cave on wikipedia while i was just sitting here and it makes me think of victor frankl and Viktor Frankl, in the introduction to, just in the first couple pages of his book, The Search for Meaning, Man's Search for were being slaughtered in the camps.

And, you know, Jews on Jews, Jews turning against Jews in the Holocaust. And I'm not saying that we're in a Holocaust. I'm not saying it's anything remotely like that. But my mind went there because I feel like when I saw Will Smith and I saw Chris Rock, I know we have a problem with racism in this country. And I know the Academy is doing its best to please everybody. And what I saw was some in-group fighting because they're both black men. They should be friends frankly and if we look at it like that what victor frankel his whole thing and he started an entire psychotherapy called

logotherapy which was a search for meaning so in times of stress and infighting, it's very, very difficult to find meaning. And I bet that in those camps, it was very difficult to find meaning. And I don't want to say that I have any idea what it was like there. Yeah. You read at least the first 100 pages of the book. He talks about it. And we'll discuss it amongst ourselves here, Josh. Thanks for throwing that, lobbing that grenade in the middle of this. So he, but I think we would both agree. We've been talking about a search for meaning, meaning making, being purposeful lives, not fear-based, not, you know, and meaning based on internal experiences that are genuine and then

you know brought into reality his thing was um you know when there's no hope you can still find beauty and meaning and he would he would he was a physician so he would sort of attend to people and he would look after things and he would just do stuff automatically. One of the really interesting statements he made is when he, I forget if it was in an interview or maybe at the end of the book or something, he's, Victor Frankl we're talking about here, said he was looking, you know those classic pictures of the, I think it was primarily men in the striped suits sitting on the, essentially the sort of wooden bunk beds. There's a whole bunch

of them they look all starved and look miserable he he you know he watched people react to that and said how do you know how do you know this might be a good day for them they might have gotten an extra serving of soup on that day this could be a joyous moment for them in that misery you have no idea how they find these or just the fact that they were all together. It might have been a cold day, and they were finding heat with each other and getting great relief from that moment. Again, it's finding life's tiny joys, I guess, is really what it's about, and meaning. I agree with that. I'll let you talk, Abby.

You know, it's interesting. I actually mentioned Viktor Frankl in my book, Becoming Bulletproof, and I mentioned him in the section where it's about, where he talks about finding meaning. And one of the things that he learned and what is that because he was able to find meaning in the tragedy, he was able to heal and he was actually able to survive it, to survive the events. And so when you can find meaning in things and not just completely just, you know, really see the hopelessness in it, in things, which is really what destroys you, what takes you down. And so if you can find meaning in tragedy, if you can find meaning in difficult situations, that helps guide you in a different direction. And so this

kind of goes back to what we're talking about and where if everything is hopeless, if everything is negative, if everything is fear-based, and maybe even, you know, you can see how even the energy in the world, so to speak, and maybe I'm kind of shifting more into Susan's territory here. You could even argue that just behavior

is a bit more erratic, a bit more off. Even, you know, we brought up Will Smith. Is it what's collectively happening in the world and the way people are behaving and told that it's okay to behave it's okay for you to lose it it's okay for you to be this that's right look what's happening that's right you're okay and it's the opposite that's right of meaning and finding strength I completely agree with you and I do think it is he's got a lot of stuff going on in his life i'm sure and as i mentioned people when i've talked about this particular

event i said look what when i have treated celebrities and they did something publicly um what's really going on is always way way way way way worse than you can imagine it's a lot going on um you know it's funny we were watching sus Susan and I watched the Tammy Faye Baker thing that Jessica Chastain. Chastain, is that her name? Susan, help me with this. Jessica Chastain. That's what she got the Academy Award for. Was that Chastain?

Yeah. And there's a scene where Tammy Faye Baker gets strung out on pills and takes a whole bunch of pills and is on television and starts wandering around and eventually starts kind of talking to herself about the scenery and then lies down in the essentially the fake beach where they're having this scene on television and just lies there and Jim Baker's like come on now get up here we go aren't you funny and uh and she was in serious trouble and of course it all gets glossed over in in the you know oh yeah she's behaving strangely something's going on but don't worry about it it'll be fine you know when people behave strangely in front of cameras there's a really powerful reason underlying that and don't uh don't think otherwise there's something really going on

there and i i worry about i mean i worry mean, I found myself drinking more during the pandemic, and, you know, everybody, once in a while, you might just have one too many, and you're in trouble. Do you think he was drinking that night? Oh, yeah. His eyes were all red and kind of, yeah, he was doing something. I don't know maybe smoking pot i'm not sure what will smith's thing is but he didn't look sober to me well substances you know figure prominently into problematic behaviors they just do we don't

behave normally when we're on substances are you addressing that kind of stuff with your students? You know, it's interesting. So one of the drug use is actually up for younger people and vaping and marijuana use is very high. We're seeing very large records, more so than we've seen before. And so those substances are very predominant. Now, how it impacts behavior, you know better than I do, Dr. Drew. But I'm with you with the Will Smith scenario. There's deeper things there. It's not just a simple joke. You know, there's always layers upon layers of things going on within people to bring out certain behavior, to bring it out in a public way, to not be able to control your impulsivities, right?

And so there's definitely depth there to that. But I do think you're correct. People don't want to deal with their issues, and they look to other ways to, and I see it in my younger students. Marijuana use is up. Vaping is up. And vaping, you can, you can, you know, vape different things as well. So that's one thing that we are seeing a shift according to the, it's called monitoring

the future surveys that they've done on students, and that's kind of hit really higher levels in drug use amongst youth than before. And the disturbing phenomenon I see as it pertains to these trends that you're saying is rather than looking at them as mental health issues, people gloss them over with ideologies like, well, that's your way of looking at things. I literally had a conversation with millennials where I was talking about some behavior.

I worked in a psychiatric hospital for 35 years 40 years practicing medicine got you know assistant professorships and things and i know what i'm talking about and i made an observation and they go well jill smith has a has a certificate on human sexuality and here's what she says and i thought oh my god people people i know expertise has been under assault lately but people don't even know what they're talking about. They don't understand what a doctor is. They just don't understand it. And that also concerned me because then you can call anything anything then. Nothing's real.

Nothing's grounded in reality. And you can gloss over anything with just a bunch of ideological gibberish yeah who is this person why should i listen to them two most important questions yeah yeah interesting so tell me why they should listen to you what is your we haven't really gone over all your different experiences other than uh nypd uh 9-11 did you actually spring into action in 9-11 did you have to go do stuff what you just happen to be down there kind of thing no our offices were in seven world trade center and so that's where it worked when they were you know in in that at that time they were

evacuating people from our building and i myself chose to stay with a small group of agents. Some others did evacuate, other colleagues evacuated. And so I think that that's where you see like character, you know, the character of people. And I think we sometimes we group people into gender and to race. And it's sometimes too, it's just, I feel like more, it's just the character of the human being and who how they choose to govern themselves in their lives but going back to your original question i chose to stay and people were dying and so myself and the small group i was with we were like we're going to try to do our best to help and we just ended up getting caught in the both plane uh both plane attacks and then the collapse and we had actually

set up a triage nearby to try to help people um help the wounded and a lot of people were in shock and panic and i remember even trying to communicate with people you could see people could not process information and so it came to the point where we would physically those people that were not injured that did not need ambulances um we would just literally grab them turn them and just point them towards the water which was the hudson river and we just say you see the water walk that way just do that because you could see that they could not process more and so we'd physically just turn them and just go that way just go towards the water and it's it's also exposure if you're not you know look i don't want to say that it was a very traumatic very high stress situation so for a lot of people

they they they could not adapt to the chaos of that moment mm-hmm it I I'm so curious on what you did did you just set up a triage tent or how do you do that in the middle of this on you know this are you you're not even sure what's happening you're not sure if you're under attack you don't know what's going on and and I'm sure there are people injured all over the place how do you determine who the caretakers are, where they should, I can't imagine how you did that. Well, we, you know, and it was trying to, it was very chaotic. So I know when you watch it now on TV, it looks very clear.

At the moment, it was chaotic. When the first plane hit, I actually thought it was like an electrical fire. I remember thinking, oh, I wonder what happened. And then when we went down, we grabbed our medical kits to go down to walk towards the second tower excuse me to the burning tower to help then the second plane came as we're kind of in in the walkway

by the base of the tower so the second plane comes everything shoots out we take cover so it's not to get hurt because just debris was just coming down everywhere and we're not talking about small bits of debris we're talking about chunks bits of debris. We're talking about chunks, some that it's like the size of cars. And so that blocked actually, after you survived that, because we had to take cover, our entrance was blocked. And so we're like, all right, we need to go back the other way. And actually, as I was trying to go back the other way, we had, we ran into police, they were dealing with an individual who they suspected might have been involved in attacks. We actually enacted an arrest while this was going on.

Then after we assisted in the arrest, we went to set up a triage and that's where, and you don't see this anymore. People were jumping. And I remember too, we were trying to set up our tree walk without getting hit by someone because people were jumping and then you risk being killed by a jumper. So we found the spots triage. And what we were doing is ambulance, just, just ambulances just started pulling up and whoever needed physical care, we threw in the ambulance, like people that were truly injured. Most, most people drew were in shock because the debris and the calamity of what was happening was so severe that you either,

you either walk away or you didn't like if something hits you, you were down. And so the injuries weren't that many, you would have thought they were, but they weren't. We had more people kind of in a state of shock and their inability to to understand what to do and a lot of debris in people's faces and stuff like that so as we were there doing the triage we set it up too close to the tower not knowing and then that's when the first tower began to come down um i see and so yes and so but this is it's like in those moments in life it's like you choose when the world's falling apart or when things are chaotic you choose what to do how to help and if we bring it back to you the ukraine you could see something as simple as you know chefs or cooks going over to prepare food to help and so you choose what path you do you want to be someone who actively

does something to help shift things in some way or to put positivity or do you become the opposite i don't know i think we ought to leave this and help others say that again we've lost we've we've lost no no no i disagree because when people are of service, they immediately realize its importance. We'll have some giant whatever, some big problem. We're going to correct it. That's not the same kind of reward we're talking about. We're talking about you with a skill set and a wisdom and a desire helping another person. Now, not only just that other person, but it's this one-on-one exchange that really creates that purpose. I would be running as fast as I could to get out of that building.

You are a strong woman. And the fact that you don't have, you know, horrible PTSD and you can't talk about it publicly. I mean, a lot of people, we've wanted to interview people that were in the World Trade Center too. And they're like, I can't talk about it because it's just too big for me. But she didn't experience the helplessness. You have moments of it i'm sure but yeah but not everybody's able to do that it's just it's incredible training and you know what also help me dr drew and you'll understand this after it happened um i chose to go back and volunteer and help in the search and rescue and in the cleanup efforts. And so I put, I, because I volunteered and I found meaning going back to Viktor Frankl and all that negativity and all that chaos, I volunteered.

And I remember my supervisors were like, no, you can't go back. I said, yes, I'm totally fine to go back. And I went back and I stayed and I worked for weeks. I had 12 hour shifts and I worked for weeks. I had 12-hour shifts. I won't forget. And because I found meaning in that tragedy and I was able to give, that was my therapy. That is what helped me. I get it.

It's, again, not controlling so much as not being helpless, not being powerless is literally what it is. Having some influence on on what that's why you lived yeah yeah yeah God said she better stick around we need her for a little further computer you probably lost a couple friends are trying to talk to you through my computer all right well listen Evie I I miss you It's so great to touch base with you again. I hope people take inspiration away from this conversation. There you are with Michelle Obama. Yes, is that you? Yes, yes.

That's awesome. Fantastic. And you served three presidents, right? I started under the Clinton administration. So Clinton was president then Bush jr. And then with the Obamas, I was physically in the white house with them on a full-time basis. When you're an agent, you help protect even the former president.

So Ford Bush senior, you play a role in all their protection. You you'll, you'll rotate through to assist in everything. Um, but with the, with one with one president, at one point, they do make you stay with one president on a 24-hour basis. And for me, that was President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. And there's a great picture of Evie. I don't know if probably, Caleb, I don't think you can find this, but she's in this huge duster coat walking behind Michelle Obama,

and there's an Uzi in the duster in the coat, right? You know, picture I'm talking about. My MP5, my MP5 probably. My MP5, which is like an assault rifle or something,

right? It's some sort of automatic weapon. I'm sure. Semi-automatic or automatic they had both capabilities for us but yes yes wow all right well listen um let's do some more stuff if we can help you in any way let us know caleb you have any questions for her before i let her go i know you're you've been enraptured with all this i mean this is just i'm i'm just enthralled this is amazing i love hearing about all of this stuff and And it's, I mean, I've been looking up pictures of all of the work that you've done while we're doing,

trying to put some more onto the show. I'm actually, I am kind of curious. I do have a question if you have a second. Um, I, so one of my, my guess it's one of my biggest fears whenever I used to go on Drew's show on his TV show is that something like I would hit my toe or a spider would fall out of the ceiling. And then I would suddenly yell out one of those words that are banned from television, but that never actually happened because I guess you compartmentalize certain words that you say at all other times away into a different part of your brain. I never messed up, never did it. But so as someone who you definitely know some of these national security secrets and stuff, is there a technique? How do you keep yourself from ever accidentally blurting

out something that you know that you shouldn't? Self-awareness. When you think it, you don't have to say it. You have to pause and think. But I also think this happened because even as an agent, I had to think through what I was saying to people you're dealing with the public you have to be thoughtful with your words when I was the interview room I had to be very mindful about what I was saying to either a victim or an offender I could say the wrong thing and the whole thing could get ruined so one thing that I learned to slow down and to process things rather to be more

responsive than reactive. And I actually think too, that's a habit you can learn and you can do it in small moments. Like if you just, if you incorporate these habits in lifestyle, it's, I'll tell you this, Caleb, it's not the big things we do. It's the small habits that we fold into our daily lives that help us manage ourselves and kind of put the version of ourselves that we want out there and i think you you were so familiar and aware that you were on set that's probably why it didn't happen you had a lot of self-awareness of your environment and that's something you thought about i'd like to but

caleb i can introduce you to someone who not only blurt stuff out on television you what happens is you blurt out on tv and then people run for the dump button the person i'd like to you introduce you to after the dump button gets it gets punched she goes what oh oh shit i said fuck me because it's already pinsky it's already the dump is resetting and she goes what did i say fuck it's like okay well let me introduce you to that person make it in television oh i could i just i was always afraid and knew it's gonna happen i'm like give me a dump myself no no no let's we'll tell you a few stories that you know some of my funniest most out most unbelievable moments have been with susan in that that mode where she says stuff we dump it and

she goes what huh did i say blah or just come right back i was traumatized and then he double traumatized me by yelling at me for saying a bad word i i think it's some of the greatest moments i've ever been a part of don't get me wrong i think it's hysterical love it and watching all the people freak out yeah we had one we had one with sam rubin on ktla to be fair i was i was assaulted sexually by a guy in a a car next to me on the freeway who chased me yeah and he exposed himself and i was panicked and i got home and not many people get to go right on the radio when they're coming off the freeway and they don't know what just happened right and i used a few words and i didn't you know because i'm not she said she said do radio what she said was and i looked over and there's big effing c not with the full words

i didn't say effing i didn't say the first time you did the first time you did because i got dumped and then you went what and then you went i will i didn't expect to see a giant you can't say that on the radio and i said i do not give a shit and then the baby heard me yeah but literally and i was coming back from from when you were on you were on hln so i was just coming back from the station there and and um you know it just it threw me and i honestly i am not good with i'm not able i thought it was holding things in unless i really had the viewers who have made caleb never caleb will never worry about this again you understand caleb you actually you've assuaged caleb's anxiety with all this oh i had to go on the tv the next day on kbc and explain it we we had a big benefit and i had to

go there and sell tickets to our ktla and uh of course the first thing they mentioned was oh we heard you something happened to you on the freeway last night. And I was like, oh, my God. So I had to explain it, and I changed it. I didn't use any words. I said I was just driving down the freeway, and I looked over, and do-yo-yo-yoing. She goes, do-yo-yo-yoing, and I'm like, oh! I was like, run, run, run.

I'm like, okay, Sam. Anyway, we're here to promote this charity. It was a lot. I didn't use any expertise i learned so i was like that was my favorite television moment of all time me to tell the story it was fantastic it was fantastic oh my god it was terrible they chased me and then then drew yelled at me because i didn't call the police while i was driving 80 miles an hour down the freeway what av coach evy coach up what should she have done this guy was really uh pushing up behind her uh with his vehicle in a large truck pulling alongside and exposing himself what what what should somebody do in that situation

all right so you can get his license plates that would be the first thing i couldn't because he wouldn't let me get behind him he wouldn't let you get behind him so she couldn't get now the front oh philip only have one okay the other thing is you can just go give him the finger because honestly even if you report him in those situations like that sadly police aren't going to do much so you can give him the finger well that's i didn't want to call the police and say hi it's susan pinsky i just saw this and this on the freeway and have them laugh you know what i mean like i was just like they're not i mean what are they gonna do he was he's gone you know license plates they could they could pull him because he also here's the thing he also might be a repeat offender.

It might be, hey, we're familiar with this person. There's cameras in the area. They call people the cameras. Now, it's whether or not they're willing to put their resources in it. And that's the thing because there's so many things going on. For them, that might be a little bit low on

the rank of things. I did try to slow down to get his license plate, and I couldn't do it because he just slowed down behind me. He didn't want me to see it. I'm thinking of all these things I want to ask you. How do you feel things are going with the NYPD now? Are things getting better with Eric Smith? I mean, NYPD is, look, it's a very diverse police department to begin with.

It's one of the largest police departments. It's the most advanced. They do their best. I mean, crime is definitely shifting here in New York City. We're seeing a lot more incidents. And it's kind of getting the, not just the police, but also getting the court systems, the district attorneys to work in harmony. And this is where it's like,ute do you not prosecute do you if you're allowing people to be released on their own recognizance when it comes to bail then you'll see a lot more reoffenders so this is where you're seeing this

back and forth war and it's it's it's too it's it's a crime control perspective war versus a rehabilitation do you know a process where it's like crime control is we want to do everything we can to punish crime, to deter it so people don't reoffend. And then there's another school of thought. Criminal justice system shouldn't be as involved. We should rehabilitate people, be more empathetic to people, but then that also shifts things as well. And so this is where you're trying to find harmony between these two worlds. I think it's going to take a minute. I also think it's going to take for people to be so sick of crime.

It has to come from the public, truly. It has to come from the public. And do they know? It's very hard to tell when somebody is someone you can rehabilitate. I mean, if it's a heroin addict yeah we can do something about that but if it's a personality problem or you know criminality it's a much different phenomenon to rehabilitate does somebody have a plan for that no i don't think they do i think that that you also have a lot of people mental health issues in the prison

system or in a jail system i think it's in the cities. It depends. NYPD police departments, they just know control crime, right? District attorneys prosecute. They choose whether or not they prosecute. But it's also if NYPD is arresting and the district attorneys aren't prosecuting, then everybody has to be in harmony. And I think it's going to take a bit of time i love having the same problems california it's having a lot of similar issues out there

i know i interviewed gascon our da here and he said i'm going to get all the data together and then i'll reassess and the data has gone very not his way very poor and uh magically he's not interested in data anymore so that's uh that again, that's when you disconnect from reality. That's what happens, folks. You get a world that's not cooperating. Reality on reality's terms is what health is all about. All right, Evie, I've kept you long enough. I appreciate you being here so much.

Let's do some more stuff together. I miss you. And do you have another book coming out or anything else you want to promote? No, just I've been doing good, the book and just a whole bunch of different things, but it was such a pleasure to be on and I miss you guys and just thank you so much for having me.

Are you in New York City now? I am. I'm in New York City, but I come out to LA all the time. So I'm going to visit. Woo-hoo. Well, we're coming to New York in a couple of weeks. We should go see you guys have

dinner or something okay get shot up at Peter Luger yeah we had we were in a gun battle Peter Luger last time we went up for a steak yeah I know it's great we'll tell you the whole story later it follows me everywhere tragedy my instincts were good in fact I was shocked how good my

instincts were I didn't you know it was very unclear situation but I did I was surprised they did as well were. It was a very unclear situation, but I was surprised they did as well as they did. I want to go back there, though. We'll take an FBI agent with us. Do you guys live on the island? Do you live in Manhattan? We're close by. We'll take you.

Don't tell everybody where she lives. I know. Believe me, she won't tell you. I know. Trust me. She scrubs all of her pictures. She scrubs everything. Trust me. She scrubs all of her pictures. She scrubs everything. Trust me. She's lectured me on that multiple times. I'm like, don't post that. It's kind of a loose line.

She pulled me like, seriously, seriously, you have to take the geolocator off of these pictures. Okay. Got it. All right. Well, listen, we'll talk soon, and you take care of yourself, okay? You guys, all my best. Thank you for having me. All right. Bye- we'll talk soon and you take care of yourself. Okay. You guys all my best. Thank you for having me. Bye-bye.

Take care. The great Evie Pampouris. We're going to have, I wanted to tell that story on after dark. Oh, we'll tell it. Don't worry. I sent the video. I sent the audio to Nadav. Perfect.

Perfect. So we'll, we'll go into more detail on that. Kayla. It was that one. And then there was another one. Another thing that happened. I can't remember what it was. Do you remember? When you blurted some stuff out on the radio?

No, not when I blurted it out. The other time. Were you exposed? I can't remember what it was. I can't remember what it was. There were two things that I totally forgot about. It wasn't that traumatic. Cause I don't have like flat.

Although whenever people drive up next to me in a, in a big truck, I always, I just, I don't look over. Caleb, you liked today's episode. So just,

if you ever have any more conspiracy theories, Evie's your, Evie's your man. Oh yes. I, I already have a list of things to ask next time. That was really interesting. Oh goodness gracious.

All right. We thank you guys for being here. It's again, Naomi Wolf tomorrow. We're going to catch up with her and hear why she's been silenced and what she's got to say. Again, Naomi's been a very important academic voice. Should we call her academic? I mean, she's been quasi-academic for many years. She is so amazing. All of a sudden crossed over I mean, she's been quasi-academic for many years. And all of a sudden-

She is so amazing. All of a sudden crossed over some line where she had to be destroyed. And I say we still listen to what she's got to say. I'm interested. I have a general sort of attitude when people silence people. I just want to know what they, what were you saying? I want to hear what you got to say. Ask Dr. Drew is produced by Caleb Nation and Susan Pinsky.

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