Camp Gagnon - Inside the Darkest Places in America | Tommy G

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Tommy G McGee joins us today in the tent to discuss some CRAZY history. We dive deep into how Tommy stayed close with gang members, how crime has changed with Flock cameras, the Big Brother surveillance system, and other interesting topics... WELCOME TO CAMP! 🏕️ Shoutout to our sponsor: Mars Men -Visit https://mengotomars.com and get 50% Off FOR LIFE, Free Shipping, and 3 Free Gifts with Code 'CAMP' at Checkout. Want the even WILDER theories? SIGN UP TO THE PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/CampGagnon 👕🧢 Shop CAMP Merch: https://camp-rd.com/collections/ufo 🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets: https://markgagnonlive.com 🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.com Timestamps: 0:00 The Return of TOMMY G 1:15 Access to Hoods & Prisons 5:23 Marks Prison Visit + Master Manipulators 17:28 removing footage + Kia Boys 19:03 Held at Gunpoint + Becoming Desensitized 21:49 Staying Close w/ Gang Members 24:37 Cultural Differences in Gangs + Drone Drop Offs in Prison 28:21 Real World Conspiracies 35:08 Flock Surveillance System 44:40 White Collar Crimes 49:20 Corrupt Billionaires 54:18 Ultra Wealthy Tax Evasion 1:01:01 NYC Trap House Busted 1:07:42 The Divid in The Country 1:10:12 Pakistani Elites 1:11:00 Unreleased Tommy G Videos + Future Videos #campgagnon #history #crime Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your content, it truly terrifies me. I'm sure the guy. I like it, good. Short a guy, look. You need to leave right now. Don't touch me. It's private property. You need to leave right now.

Leave right now. How do you deal with the risk factor? This channel is like a little side quest mission. I always look forward to my trip because I can't wait to be inside a New York trap house or I can't wait to go up to Scientology and confront the security. We need to move off. You're on private property, sir. You can escape. You can still can leave.

What are some of the hairiest situations you've been in while you're still there? We were in Little Village, Chicago, which is like the Latin gang, Mexican gang paradise right there. And we were there on Mexican Independence Day. There had been a machete attack at a parade earlier that day. We've been raided by Mexican police one time. We were interviewing a guy that went by the name of hostage, and I think he was kind of a drug dealer slash tattoo artist, just trying to survive and make him.

About 20 minutes in the interview, I get up, I take a piss, I come out of the bathroom, boom, a piece of la verga. And these guys come in and make you get on the ground, we're at gunpoint. And it was the most surprise scary of it. been in my life. If you look at Georgia prison politics right now, that's the most murderous place in America. The inmates run the place.

There's machetes everywhere. People are getting extorted. If you come in as a white guy unaffiliated, good chance that you're going to be tied up with belts. They're going to take pictures of you, send pictures of mark to your family. And if you don't pay $1,000 a week, $1,000 a month, you sleep outside on the floor, you get killed, you don't even have a cell. The thing that is scary is the slippery slope.

How could the system be weaponized against the people? Tommy G. How are you, sir? I'm doing good, brother. How are you? I'm doing excellently. I'm having an amazing day, and I'm very glad that you're here. This is actually not your first appearance on the show. You know this to be true. Yes, because they're Julian by proxy. There's a hilarious episode where Julian comes onto this very program and sits in this very tent deep in the Adirondacks in upstate New York, which is where we are right now.

And I'm like, I don't know how it happened. Chris, this is your fault? Nope. I didn't do that. There's no time for that right now, all right? I'm trying to figure out what's going on with this edit. We do an intro where I'm referencing Julian, and I'm like, yeah, so I got my pal Julian Dory here to chat with me about a thing.

And then it cuts to a video of you on Julian's pod. I paid you, what, like 20 bucks for that? Wait, that was an inside thing? Christos. My massage handler actually told me to do that trick and it worked. No. So here I am right now. That's how all this happened?

That's what you sold out for? I can't confirm her, deny. You are incorrigible. The same guy that worked with Monica Lewinsky in the 90s is now partner with me. No. Wait, who is that guy? That guy sounds awesome.

I might maybe connect you after the show. But you don't reveal your sources. That's fair. Reasonable. You complete the fifth. Tommy, we were just talking briefly before. Your content, it truly terrifies me. And I can say from experience

because I've spoken to people that are, I mean, not all of it, of course. I mean, you are a brilliant journalist and have created such an interesting lane, sort of exposing interesting little underbellies within, I mean, not only America, but around the world, and just putting it all on YouTube for free. It is fascinating.

I love my job. It is an insane job. And I really enjoy the videos, but not only do I enjoy it, but millions of people around the globe also enjoy it. And so I think you first got my radar through, like, the Kia boys stuff, and then, like, insane drivers in New York that would, like, street race in New York City. And then that kind of like percolated through just like going to like hoods and I was like, this is wild.

And the thing that I've always, the thing I don't understand is how do you deal with the risk factor? Like I, yeah, is that even a good place to start? Is it helpful to go through the evolution of how you start doing this content? I've always been a high risk taker. That's how I invest. That's how I've gone after my career. I try and live life in the exciting category and I want to live a life worth living. I always picture it like this.

When I would be journaling as a young man in my maybe college years, I'd be thinking about I want to be an old guy on a gurney, surrounded by his family, feeling loved, but also being able to tell stories and feel like I really lived life. And so this, in some ways, this channel is like a little side quest mission because it's a very mixed bag. And to me, it's about going after things that we find fasting as a team

and that are up my alley and also situations that I always look forward to my trip because I can't wait to be inside a New York trap house I can't wait to go up to Scientology and confront the security and try and, you know, get a rise out of them. To me, it's just like a, the big thing that's cool to me is that it's an idea factory up here. And as long as you can bring those ideas to life with a good team with good execution, now this is a job. Right. I wouldn't have it any way else. Hey, real quick, most people who watch this channel aren't subscribed.

And when you subscribe, you help the channel grow and you stay in the loop with every new drop. Religion camp, history camp, and camp gagnon. Now let's get back to it. Can we pull up time as YouTube? I'm sure at this point, many people listening have seen it, but just to get all the other casuals on board, just to kind of like see where you're putting yourself into. Because you have a child.

You have a wife. You have stuff to live for. You're not just like some rogue 22-year-old with a camera. Like, let's get in there, you know? Maybe at one point you were. That's probably for my own safety that I'm not a rogue 22-year-old. I mean, has the edge come off a little? Well, we've stopped focusing less on the criminal underbelly

because they're more unreliable to work with. We like being efficient on our trips, and also we're trying to focus this year on a lot more common man stories. Data centers, Israeli integration with the military, things that the average American feels impacted by. And so I still want to cover crime. I'm still excited by crime, but it's also like I've probably interviewed five or six different car thieves. I've probably interviewed 20 or 30 gangs in the last 40 years. So it's, or four years. So it's like I'm moving on to things that still excite me and that feel novel and fresh. but we definitely try and put ourselves in high-risk situations. And to me, the big thing of the channel is trying to get inside access to places most people won't go. So, like, I think a recent one of people are new to my channel, the Clayton County Jail series, I think stands out as like, holy shit, how are we in this place?

How is this place even existing? It just felt like a TV show in that world. Right. I mean, how did you get access to film outside of prison? A friend of mine is the guy that makes 60 days in. He's a Netflix producer. He also made the show Marines. His name is Greg Henry, a great guy.

He's the guy that has a lot of really good jail and prison connections around the country. And the secret to getting into jails is having good relationships with sheriffs, because that's the least level of bureaucracy. You need most prisons run by the state, it's going to be very hard to get in. I kind of got snuck into a Texas prison. They told them at the front gate that I was kind of a Christian ministry guy, and that's how I got in. And then after the fact, they're like, oh, you were filming all this other stuff.

And I thought I was above board. I didn't realize there was internal politics happening. But, yeah, I think just going into place of this, like how the hell did you end up as an inmate in this Atlanta jail where there's shanks and there's wild things happening? Right. Dude, I went to, I visited prison a few times. And I got taken for a ride, dude. I was, I'm not fit for whatever this is. I think I'm too naive or something.

But like, I went into one of these prisons, and I'm talking with a bunch of the guys, and the guys that I'm talking to are lifers. They're in there for the rest of their life. And the way they kind of explained to me was like these lifers sort of control the culture inside the yard because they're going to be there for the longest time. So the prison invests a lot of time into them because they are going to be there before everyone else. By, you know, in 50 years, they're still going to be there. And there's going to be a whole new crop of guys that are serving time in this penitentiary. And I'm talking to them, and I was basically just like, so. what are you in for?

And they start telling me these stories that are sad, but explainable. Mm-hmm. Where it's like, you know, I was doing a drug deal, went sideways, a guy died, and now I'm in prison. And I'm like, damn. And he's like, but you know, before that, I was being abused by my parents, and I was a runaway,

and they put cigarettes out on my leg, and I was abused. And all the way. And I heard, like, three of those stories, like, back to back to back. All with the different version of like, yeah, you know, I got a little greedy with my taxes. And then, you know, I had a little scheme. and, you know, the scheme winsiders, but I was trying to rip off these banks,

and then, you know, of course, you try to mess with the bank, they're gonna take you down. So I'm hearing these stories, I'm like, man, these guys are kind of awesome. Mm-hmm. But I remembered all their names, and then I went home.

And by the time I'm leaving, I'm like, basically in tears, because I'm just like, wow, these guys are gonna be in here forever. They've never, they've all been sentenced, like the 90s. Like, they haven't experienced anything. Mm-hmm. And so then I'm walking out and I Google all their names, and they all lied to me. Dude.

Master manipulators, a lot of these guys, This is what I've discovered in the criminal world. A lot of these guys are the predator, but masquerade is the victim, which is a very weird thing to encounter because that is, and I came into this game very naive as well. I'm kind of this, I grew up in a very nice area, very low crime area. I've had a great life. And so I have this positive, naive view of the world

that everyone can kind of just get along and everyone just needs a chance and an opportunity. Right. They have the capacity for good. A lot of evil is systemic, and it comes from bad environments. And I grew up in a place where line wasn't very common. Right.

And then you go to these places. Like, that's one thing I've really struggled to wrap my head around with hoods is the amount of line that even as little as, hey, I'm five minutes from the location. How far are you? Oh, I'm right around the corner five minutes away. And then they show up two hours later. And just like, why didn't you just look at your GPS and tell me so I could have done other things too? Right.

And you get these guys in prison where you do feel it is a yin-yang. because on one end, a split-second decision can be a lifelong punishment. But on the other end, these guys were, a lot of them, were not people that you'd want to live next to, not people that their own family even probably wanted to live by. And so, dude. It's hard to wrestle with.

A lot of these guys that wasn't split-second decisions. They kind of explained it to me that way. It was patterns, though. Yeah, yeah, patterns that led to a split second of murdering somebody. Maybe. It's like, so for example, one of the guys I talked to, he's like, oh, I got jammed up with this drug deal. That part is technically true.

The first time he gets sentenced to, like, 88, it's because this drug deal thing. He spends, like, five years, gets out. And then he's living in, like, a halfway house thing. And then some crazy shit happens with, like, the neighbor murders the neighbor, like some old woman buries her in the backyard. The nephew starts looking around and being like, hey, did you, have you seen my aunt, murders the nephew, put, buries him in the backyard?

So this is, like, sociopathic. Like, it's crazy. It's truly like a guy that's just unhinged from reality. And then you go to prison for murdering two people and burying them in the backyard, but he conveniently left that out. Another guy. And he's sorry for himself. Yeah, but the craziest part is like, he was so therapist.

He was like, you know, I see myself like that tree, points to a tree on the yard. And he's like, trees only take what they need. They don't take all the water that's available in the soil. They only take the water that they need to flourish. So for me, I just try to take what I need and then give away the rest. And what I've realized is I don't really even need that much.

I was like, he's trying to talk like he's Gandhi over there. I was like, dude, like you're literally the Buddha. Like, this is crazy. Another guy, kind of giving me the same spiel on some finance shit. Super like tall, handsome white collar dude wearing a G-shock and Oakley's like on the yard. I thought he worked there. He was like, no, I'm just...

Good for him. He's getting it in that. I know. He's living. He might have a scheme or something going on. Oh, he's got as many schemes. But the scheme that got him into prison was, uh, what do they call it, uh, not a, what, patricide or something?

Murdered his whole family. Oh, wow. Like, took, like, wife, two kids. The most brutal, like, psychopathic thing you can do goes on the run in a different country and then is found on America's Most Wanted, like using his dead wife's credit cards to run up bills and just living the life.

And then he gets caught and thrown in prison. And this guy looked at me in the eye and was like, yeah, you know, one thing leads to another. and you know, things go bad. The system tries to get you. And I was like, what? There is a weird balance of you look at a lot of these people's childhoods,

and they were messed up. They were very sad. Absolutely. But there's many people that have survived bad childhoods, and they use that as an example to never replicate, rather than as an excuse to perpetrate harm on the world. No, of course. And I was even less in that moment trying to be, like,

trying to diagnose what was happening. I was more just like, how did I get, how did I bite so hard on this lie, you know? We all fall for it. Yeah. And it's easy from when you're not in that situation, you're not kind of in the magic of a new, crazy, intense environment, people that are, you know, serving life sentences. Like, there's a lot of forces that would make you just sit and listen

and kind of observe them. Yeah. But now once you step out or on a car ride home and you start, like, thinking, like, was that thing, was that bullshit? Did that not add up? And then... It's like a magic trick. Yeah, it is.

Like, you're in a magic trick and you're like, wow. Like, he made, like, that ring disappear or whatever. That's what a manipulator is, though. It is a human psychology professional magician. And it's like a minefield to have to learn how to walk. And I think that's what to me is so funny about the position I'm in is seeing the childhood I had, seeing the neighborhood I came from, how nice of a life it was. And I think I'm interviewing Mr. Fetanol dealer, murderer, car theft guy.

And it just to me is a little funny about how the journey all came about. I mean, I came from a similar background to you. Like it was like a, you know, I grew up in a nice suburb, two parents, a bunch of siblings, very religious upbringing. Like, it was a very kind of middle of the road, like white American existence, I guess. And I was also drawn to speaking with people that had criminal past. For a few reasons.

One, it was so foreign to me that specifically people that had criminal past that in some way were formed, where like now they were kind of on the other side and they could look back on it with some objectivity. That was really fascinating. It also, I think, showcased something about the human condition. Like, what do we as humans, when you strip away this sort of, this veneer of society,

of society, what actually exists on the other side? Like, what is at the core of how we interact with each other? And I think that there is a code of conduct that exists even within communities that engage in high criminal activity. Like, you know, like being honorable and respect and like not even like not going after like the defenseless. Like I've met people that have murdered people. And they're like, oh yeah, you know, I saw a guy being disrespectful

to an old lady, so I had to stop them. And I'm like, oh, so that still applies for you, like seeing the vulnerable. So these things that I, the themes that came up, I thought were really interesting. But lately, I've kind of been turned off of talking to people that have high criminal paths that aren't able to look at it objectively

because there would just be tension. Like, I'm curious how you deal with this. Sometimes it's hard to truly ask them the questions you want to ask. Yeah, to an extent. But also like just the things around it. Like I finished an episode and then all of a sudden they're hitting me on the side like, yo, can I get my boy on?

And then if I say no, then it's like kind of a weird. You owe, yeah, or the amount of guys that I'll have, um, hit me up for bail money, hit me up for lawyer money, hit me up. And not that I had anything to do with it in the first place. Yeah, they just know you as a guy on the outside that is connected to something. Maybe you have money. Maybe they just see you as a white boy that has a nice family that has a thousand bucks laying around.

They're like, oh yeah, this kid will give me money. There's a good amount of, of these guys too that I've noticed that when they're in jail, they have their mom, their baby mama and me. Those are their three contacts. Right. And it's like, oh, wait, so the gang, that you were riding so hard for. Like, none of those guys are in your call list.

Yeah. And the benefits, I think what's cool about as a society is we're kind of waking up. I think dro-w rap culture initially was like, holy shit, like, what are these guys doing? It seems so intense and crazy. And there's something infatuating about it for a guy that's not from there because it seems as glamorized, it's Hollywood. Yeah. But then I feel like we've come to a full circle moment where most the gang videos I post now,

people are just like, imagine being in 2026 and being in a gang. Yeah. Because these guys, a lot of them are very undereducated. All they say is, you know what I'm saying? They pretend to be rich, but they live at their mom's house. No, it sucks. Like, being in that environment is, like, so sad. Hell.

I feel terrible for them. You know what I mean? But I do think that there is a cowboy relationship. Like, in the way to, like, our grandparents would watch Westerns. Because cowboys symbolize the outlaw. That was, like, and Cowboys had, like, a little bit of, a little bit of a, a juge, kind of like for being honorable in certain ways. But cowboys at the end of the day,

they were like killing each other. And robin trains. Yeah, like Doc Holliday, like, what is it, like Earp Wyatt or Wyatt Earp? Like these kinds of stories, like, Tombstone, or whatever. It's like, yeah, it's just crime. And like, they kind of rationalize in their own ways, but it is crime.

And I think a lot of people judge, like, drill rap today is this cultural phenomenon that's like cancerous. But I'm like, dude, it's just cowboys in a different version, you know, like you watch a video from Oblock and you're like, or like, I think about like, take a on the run making music next to his wanted poster I'm like this is a spaghetti Western you know what I mean yeah there's something amazing about that yeah it's insane but we act like it's like dude this is crazy that America permits this I'm like America was kind

of created by this sort of ethic so I don't try to put myself above it you know what I do wonder I think it's easy to look at the past and feel and whitewashed a little bit not racially but more so like that the cowboys have more honor when they were probably doing dirty stuff too Yeah, they were all criminals. They were just white. Or the mobsters, too, you know. Yeah, they were just also white. But it also makes me wonder if some of the gangster code has been stripped away to where, I mean, right now, I just woke up this morning.

One of the first things I saw on Instagram was a group of like 15-year-old gangster kids from whatever city that had their ops, they caught their ops, they backdoored them. And then they had them going to bathtub and they were pistol whipping them. And I'm just like, like, to think that it's cool, the back door, I think they may even be friends at the time. Like, I feel like at least in the 90s with gangsters, like they used to, like Cabrini Green, they used to have community barbecues and make sure the kids went to school. There was a little bit more accountability. And then part of that is we've reeked out all of the leaders. So now we have all these 20-year-olds that have survived are the OGs. And when you go to some of these places like Little Village in Chicago where you see like 12-year-olds with medical gloves on because they're busy doing, you know, crimes or stealing, it just is like, like, where is any?

of their leadership or guidance. It's all crumbled. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the Rico thing is interesting because it does take away the infrastructure. You know what I mean? Like the Kingpin guys, they were good at organizing in such a way that they would do like some community benefits.

I mean, you see this with like Italian moms all the time where they're like... Motorcycle clubs too? Yeah, of course. It's like, hey, we're gonna do the charity drive. We're gonna do the cookout. We'll do like the turkey drive at Thanksgiving. Like, they just do stuff to inject back into the community

in order to, like, hedge against, you know, the fact that they're kind of running the show. But now because of the disorganization, it's gotten, it's gone now to the, the younger group that hasn't been jammed up yet, you know. It's just an interesting world to immerse yourself. But I'm curious, behind the scenes, have you had to deal with people being like, hey, that footage you put out, that's got to come off or you got to delete that or else something bad

will happen to you? One of the ways we've addressed that and got ahead of it is I watch, I like guys for a really criminal episode, I will let them watch it before it comes out. And so they watch through every second. They can send me a timestamp, like, hey, my wrist tattoo was shown for two. second so make sure you blur that or you know hey the street sign is a little close to my spot we we know enough now editing this kind of stuff for a while that when we give it to them it's usually 100% clearance good to go but that way when i get the sign off it's like okay i did my due diligence

yeah um because my job is not to put them in prison yeah my job is to showcase them get inside their head and i think early on some people there's some criticism of like why would you highlight a criminal. But I remember that when the Milwaukee Kia Boy story came out, one thing I learned is that at that time, every person in the police station watched that video as part of their onboarding for the training process. And I had a cop who was a homicide detective for many years in my jihitsu school. And he's like, you know, we actually liked that video because you showed people the mentality of these kids. So when these kids pull a gun on us or they're shooting at people or they're doing crazy stuff with these cars and we happen to actually, you know, we have to

kill one of them because they're going to kill us. Now people get, like, you're dealing with a cold-blooded 15-year-old, 16-year-old some of these times. It's not some innocent boy who's gonna get a mural now. It helps the citizens get what we're dealing with. Right. What are some of the hair situations you've been in while you're still there? Because it's one thing to deal with a guy after the fact,

being like, yo, if you ever come to this obscure part of Detroit, we're gonna get you. You're like, I just won't go back there. But like, sometimes you're in the house, and then shit goes sideways. Like, what is that example? There's a couple, here's a couple main ones, that come to mind. One is we were in Little Village, Chicago, which is like the Latin gang,

Mexican gang paradise right there. There's the Latin canes. There's the two-sixters. There's the SDs. There's the maniacs. There's many, many gains all concentrated in that one area. And we were there on Mexican Independence Day. And there had been a machete attack at a parade earlier that day. And then when we got there, they're like, oh, yeah, like our ops, we got them with the knife. Our ops say they're going to spin the block at 8 o'clock tonight. And I'm looking at it's like 745. I'm like, okay, we have five minutes, then we're packing up because as much as they were excited for a drive-by shooting, I didn't want to be anywhere near it. Yeah. Not, I mean, we've been raided by Mexican police one time. That was early on in the channel. We were interviewing a guy

that went by the name of hostage, and I think he was kind of a drug dealer slash tattoo artist, just trying to survive and make it. I mean, the place that he had has come to, it didn't have a fridge. It didn't, I mean, it was a very basic low-level living accommodations. You could tell this guy was just hustling to put a roof over his head. About 20 minutes in the interview, I get up, I take a piss, I come out of the bathroom, boom, a piece of la Verga. And these guys come in and make you get on the ground, we're at gunpoint. And it was the most probably scary event of my life. I had a little bit of PTSD. Like, I remember when I got home, the doorbell rang, and I just, like, my heart started going to go in. It didn't last too long. I'm not going to say I'm a victim of the streets.

I didn't write a book about it. But it gave me a slight perspective of these guys that do feel or see events like this from age 10 on in the streets. Like I can see why they become desensitized. I mean, even doing this job, I've become desensitized. It used to be, we would be outside of Chicago, fetonol dealer's house three or four years ago, and I'd be like shaking the car. Like, should we really do this?

Are we going to go up and, oh, my God, there's a gun on the counter and, okay, like, what are we going to do? And now it's just like, okay, that's fat now, cool. Like, right. And the way I compare it is an ER surgeon. You know, your first day on the job, when you get a gunshot victim, it's like, you know, there's gonna be an adrenaline rush.

But now, you know, a few years in, hey, pass the sutures, I need the cloth, can you get me those tweezers? It's business as usual. Right. And part of me, I mean, it's good to get settled into a job, but part of me is like, oh, like, how much of my soul am I costing at this job?

Or being desensitized is not a great thing to become. Right. Paranoia is helpful in situations like this to an extent. Mm-hmm. So how do, like, in what ways has the desensitization been a detriment? Um, man. I think the good thing is we still do our due diligence. And I try and build a relationship with these guys.

A lot of these guys are still in contact with years after the fact. My guy, Yano from the Atlanta fugitive video, he's still calling me from jail and asking, you know, I just caught up with him this week. I'm trying to think, because I spent weeks on the phone with him before we ever met him in person. So by the time I got there, we had some comfortability. We had a friendship going. And it's a weird friendship because I do like these guys, but I can't get involved too much. Like, they make these bad decisions, and all of a sudden, like, the other guy in the video,

like, he just got out of jail and now he wants help with housing. So I connect him to a person in Atlanta that helps with job placement. So it's a weird relationship where you want the best for him, but you don't want to be an enabler, and you don't want to like carry the burden that they've put on themselves, they don't realize it's mostly their fault. Yeah, of course. And I mean, even worse case, like, you're now implicated in some way. You know what I mean?

Like, hey, is there any way we can just send me like $200 because of what, yada, yada? And then, you know, cops go through their records and like, wait, Tommy G. Is sending money to this guy? Like, what's going on? Yeah. And to me, so there are a few guys that I've helped with money. Like, I'll help here and there, like, hey, they went out at great lengths, at great risk to themselves to work with me.

and I benefited from that. So what is it to me to put some money on their books so that they eat better in these terrible jail conditions? But I don't go too far like, hey, can you, like I've had some outrageous ass. Like, I've had a guy that I filmed with like three years after the fact, be like, can you just give me a little 15 for a lawyer? $15,000, dude?

Like, are you kidding me? Wow. And you're like, the other thing that I always draw the line at is like, your own family's not helping you. That probably should say something to you, man. Yeah. So you have to get it together. And I had a family situation when I was growing up where one of my family members got locked up

and got his door kicked in a couple times by the police. And the first couple of times he had help. He had a lawyer. It was a rehab situation that was very expensive. And then the third time, it was like no help whatsoever. Public defender, like, was looking at significant time. Luckily, it dropped off to just, you know, he served about 10, 11 months in jail. got let out, and now he's eight years sober, doing fantastic,

working for Fortune 500 companies. And it was not helping him that actually helped him. Right. And so I want to be very careful, because there's a weird thing too of like, the friends you would give money to don't necessarily ever need the money. Right. And the friends that would ask you for money,

you're like, is this going to be helpful? Yeah. Do you notice a cultural difference if you go into like a black gang versus a Mexican gang versus like a white gang? Like what comes up? that's very similar than what comes up that's distinct? Overall, I would say structure. The Latin gains, Mexican gains have a lot, at least a decent amount more structure than the black gains.

I think a lot of the Mexican gains, they'll have meetings. They contribute to a pot where if someone dies that pays for the funeral or little things like that. There's more discipline where you may get jumped if you do something, especially the California, like that because the California system's a lot more controlled. I mean, there's guys in prison, like 150 Mexican mafia members in prison, calling the shots for, I don't know if it's hundreds of thousands of guys in the streets. But the Black Gang seemed very chaotic. I think a lot of their top leaders, Larry Hoover, all their top guys are out in prison.

And so now you have these youngsters that are like, it's gone from, it's a lot more fractionated, where it used to be these organized sets where it was like a football team where it's like, I know this is the Bears are playing the Packers and everyone knows who's who to where it's like, it's like a free-for-all. It's little tiny cliques that are beefing with each other, and they can live a block away from each other. I would say, especially from prison politics, like if you look at Georgia prison politics right now, we're doing an expose on the conditions there because I would say that's the most murderous place in America. Memphis, Tennessee, is the most murderous city. It's a very, very dangerous place. But pound for pound,

I think Memphis is like 500 or 600,000 people. There's, what is it, 50,000 people in the Georgia prison system and there's as many murders. The guy, the inmates run the place. There's machetes everywhere. People are getting extorted. If you come in as a white guy, unaffiliated, good chance that you're going to be tied up with belts. They're going to take pictures of you, send pictures of mark to your family. And if you don't pay thousand bucks a week, thousand bucks a month, you sleep outside in the floor, you get killed, you don't even have a cell. So there's guys running these extortion rackets in Georgia prison right now that are super rich. These guys are getting drone drop lobster in there.

And so... Like literally flying drones in from over the walls to drop. And we're actually doing a story about that. A guy in Indiana right now, we've been filming with him. He's doing drone drops into prisons, and there's very extreme dangerous work. But these black gangs, like, they beef with each other. It's...

And there's no... it doesn't feel like, from what I can understand, there's not as much of a chain of command where, hey, the shot caller has to approve this hit. It's, I'm just gonna kill this guy. And in the Georgia prison system, it's so a while, where even some of the guards are in gangs. And I talked to a guy that he got put in solitary, and in the middle of the night, the guard opened up the door and let him rivaling with a knife

to stab him like six or seven times. And he should have died, but somehow survived. And these are the conditions that people are living with. And again, it goes back to this, there's a sympathy. Even for a murderer, I don't think that the United States of America, if they're responsible for your safety in prison. A prison should be a safe environment.

And to think that there's these, there's people being tortured horrifically. I mean, I brought a folder of photos to Georgia senators where a guy's back is flayed open. You can see every muscle and ligament because his entire skin is ripped open. A guy that died from hot knives getting scraped across his entire body until he died. What the hell? Like Jeffrey Dahmer would be sick of what's happening in Georgia prisons. That's how bad it is.

Is that a for-profit prison? Most of them are state-run prisons. Only a handful are geo-group. What's the other one? Core Civic. as a small percentage are privately run, and I don't have the stats on a discernible difference if one's more dangerous than the other.

I think they're both pretty dangerous. But it's weird to know, to think that inside a prison, people are getting murdered left and right. Oh, yeah, I mean, even rich people, dude, they, you know, they got Epstein. Allegedly. Allegedly. Who knows?

No, no, he obviously took his own life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but he allegedly might have gotten murdered. Yeah, that's a good point. Who knows where he is? he's alive. I mean, you saw the story where, like, they covered up a gurney with boxes and then brought it out the front and then, like, brought his body out the back door or something? We have all these strange occurrences. We have all the holes in the Epstein case. We have the weird lack of coverage

and evidence on Thomas Crook. Like, we have no idea how that guy lived. We have no, his house was scrubbed clean. The Charlie Kirk scene gets cemented over a day or two after. We have all these very strange stories. And we're living in this chaotic time where, like, there was a time where, okay, a blowjob in the White House was months long. A guy wearing a tan suit was a new story. And now the sudden, like, oh, this person stole $100 million. This guy did this. His son's an insider trading. Now we're doing a war. Now we're doing that, like, it's, um, it's fatiguing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fatigue is real. Now, that's what I feel. I'm just completely desensitized. I'm just like, all right, does this matter? And then I sort of wait to see, like, what the societal

rip or lose and it doesn't. In some ways, they're winning. And I saw a really cool quote. I forgot who was saying this, but basically that who's that big comedian? He's a large person that got, he made his own little cult. He made a cult?

Ben, Ben, Owen, something like that. Anyways, he's a big giant guy that has his own little cult. But to despair is a sin. And I'm not a Christian by means, but I do like that because right now we are in an era. where despair is in the air. And it feels like they can just do whatever they want

in front of our face. It can be the worst crimes imaginable. Satanic rituals, people dying, getting trafficked, hundreds or billions getting stolen, and we're just like, okay, we're not going to riot. We're not going to take over the White House. We're not going to take over our country. But I think we need to inject hope back into the system.

And I always, I'm referencing bugs life a lot, which is the ants are strong. We're stronger than the grasshoppers, but we have to unite. Yeah. No, it is that feeling. I think it's like despair, but it also is just like a malaise, right? Like I think we're just kind of in the state of like nothing really matters. And I think part of that is due to like the general quality of life in America.

Like as we're, you know, things are bad, right, for a lot of people where like groceries were expensive, but everyone kind of has like a TV. Like everyone kind of has an iPhone more or less. You know what I mean? It's the minimal level of comfort to not take to the streets. Exactly. And so everyone's kind of just like pacified. I've heard people say like consumerism is the ultimate slavery because you kind of

have enough and you're like, all right, I'm chilling. Yeah, I could go to the Pentagon right now or I could beat off. Yeah, and you're like, oh, I just have unlimited naked women on the internet? Like, hell, let's do that. Like, there's a, it's just, we're kind of pacified. So I think there's a lot more leash, leashed and license to kind of do shit, you know. Yeah, but the cool thing is I see a lot of people uniting, like even talking to my neighbors that I know it would be across the political spectrum.

It feels fun that everyone I bump into, we understand this general sense of what's going on. And I also feel like there's like eight to ten things that we all could agree on. We don't want the corruption. We don't want the insider trading. We want the Epstein list to be prosecuted. We don't want data centers taking all the resources. We want to invest in our infrastructure and our economy. We don't want to be in wars.

And it does feel cool that we have the potential to unite, but we need almost a flash moment or a leader to emerge from the shadows that can really help us take it there. Yeah. But I'm curious what that even looks like. it like a full-on revolution or is it just sort of like a hedging of kind of the you know like do we really want people in the streets like that or do we want someone just kind of come in and like take the the temperature off of i think it would be preferable to do it peacefully and to use the system against them so to to show up with the ballot box to you know when your city council votes in a data

center you fire them um to put pressure on people maybe it's a tax revolution i think a bloody revolution it sounds like there's a little bit of like a rah rah masculine like we're gonna take it back but in theory anyone that has a revolution it's usually a pretty horrific period of a couple decades to bounce back if you're not more and I'm not looking for that I don't want people to die I want it to be a safe for the people revolution if possible and people need to go to jail though we need to see justice and we need to make it feel like our country is working for us and the cool thing is the exposure I mean even to what I see in China recently like people walk around there it's safe

it's clean, it's affordable. And yes, China has its issues. There's a surveillance state. You're not rising up in China. I get it. I'm not making it to be out to be a utopia, but there does seem to be a difference in two factors. One is when you have a society led by engineers rather than lawyers, but either extreme can go too far one way or another. Sure. Engineers treat people like numbers and, you know, they don't really care. If they want to lock you in for their COVID lockdown and people are going crazy, hey, the numbers say this, we got to do it. But America is now kind of hamstrung by the law, lawyer class where even public access to we we taxpayer fund all these parks these high schools

even to use the track or use the pull-up bar there's a huge fence that you have to find a way around because god forbid someone falls in a pull-up that they're going to get sued yeah so i don't know but i but i think if we would have spent the last 20 30 trillion on infrastructure or ourselves or just balancing our budget we've been taught that anything that benefits ourselves with our own money is an entitlement. And I'm not a socialist guy. I'm not saying we have to go pure socialism, but if we're going to spend this money, I'd rather be on child care education than more. Right. Yeah, of course. I mean, like, hey, you can, like, everyone has like basic access to go to the doctor. You know what I mean? Yeah, I shouldn't have to be calculating. Is it an ambulance

ride going to put my family under? Yeah. That's so crazy. Which for the majority of people in America, like breaking your leg would financially destroy you. Which is a little wild. And if you do pay for insurance, you pay more. It's like such a funny, weird game. I've been off the insurance game for like a year. I don't have... How's it been going? I've saved so much money. Is it, and what do you do if something catastrophic happens? I don't know. So that's the, isn't that the one fault in the plan? Well, that's the issues, right? Like the free rider problem. Like if I, like, if something catastrophic happens, you know, I would just be like, all right, I can't pay it. And then it goes, it falls on everyone else already. You know what I'm saying? So it's like the free rider issue is already this kind of quasi,

at least universal sort of healthcare system that we already have implemented unofficially. Which is just, I don't know, kind of dumb. Guys don't really talk about what happens as you get older, but you start to notice it. Your energy is lower, gym recovery takes longer. You're doing the same workouts, eating pretty well, but not getting the same results. And for a while, I just thought, all right, I'm getting older. But for men, testosterone can naturally decline as early as your 30s. And when that happens, it can affect energy, muscle, recovery, focus, and how your body stores fat.

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50% off for life, plus free shipping and three free gifts at men go to mars.com. That is men, go to mars.com. And after you purchase, tell them that Mark and Chrysos from the campsite sent you. It really helps. Now, let's get back to the show. I'm curious, would you ever try to take up that lane of content? I know you're looking at like more systemic kind of infrastructure issues. Like, for example, I want to investigate United Healthcare. I want to try and I probably shouldn't say this, but I want to try and storm their headquarters a little bit. We just had an interaction with flock, in a peaceful way, of course. But we had an interaction with flock where...

Can you explain for people that don't know it? Yes, flock safety is a company that they're putting cameras all around the country. And so how it comes in is through city council members or for deals through police stations. And there is an argument that they do a lot of good. Like, for example, I've been with U.S. Marshals when we're tracking down very violent criminals, and they're using the flock camera system to be able to follow that guy. Nobody's going to land, move in, take them off the streets before more violence happens. And I don't see get criminals is always great.

That's awesome. The thing that is scary is the slippery slope. So we start out, okay, it's only going to trace license plates of violent people that the police want to find. Perfect. Okay. But now we're going to do a software update where now we can track audio. And now we're going to do a software update where we track faces. And now we're going to sell this data.

And now we're going to sell this data. And now we're going to sell them to the Israelis. I mean, who knows. And now we're going to decide what a criminal is. Yes. And, hey, because I think, like, is flock an evil company? I don't think so. I think that their basic building blocks are helpful to people. The problem is the scope creep. And we have no vote on the scope creep. Our city council members put it in with a patch of a software update. Who knows what the next iteration is? And let's say this is what we always get scared of us. In the event of a tyrannical government, how could this system be weaponized against the people? And so the point we wanted to prove with flock was surveillance, unconsented surveillance doesn't feel fun. So, We went to their headquarters.

When is this episode going to be released, by the way? Probably a couple weeks. Okay. We went to their headquarters. We found out that they had moved out. And so that was a news flash because this massive company, it was not announced yet in the news. Then we found out we have a connection, Ben Jordan, that's doing some of the best journalism. I've seen on Flock, a very big tech guy as well.

He found the next address. So we scope out their new headquarters. And both of these places, their name is not on the building. You have no idea that they're there. they have blackout windows because we flew a drone to try and spy on them. And the exercise you were going to do is film, they employ cars, license plates, run it through Ben's program, and just show, hey, when you follow someone's license plate,

here's all the other personal information you can glean from that. And also kind of how do you like it? So then we go to their drone headquarters, which, again, is a nondescript building that is fronts as a construction hub, CES construction, something like that. And we had an old flock camera and a camera crew, and I was going around the building and up to people that were driving and they're like, sir, you're under surveillance, but it's for your safety. So like, you know, that kind of thing.

They call the cops. And they also denied being flock employees. They're like, oh, no, I'm just with the CES construction group. So then they get a cop to box us in. And I'm going through this exercise with the cop of, am I being detained? He won't answer the question, but I won't be able to leave and my car can't get out there. And he's blocking other people trying to get to their job. as well. Then he's like, you have to talk to this guy, which I would have talked to him already,

but you don't have to box me in to do it. Which guy is? The flock, the guy that pretended not to be a flock employee, but now I was like, uh, I am a flock employee and I felt very unsafe. I'm very unsafe from us filming you. Yes. Oh, so you do feel unsafe when someone is filming you. And you know what? It's a it's a yin and yang because they, they're, their thing is we're in the public's eye. We're doing it license plates. We're not following you to your house. But, but, you're But it does empower law enforcement to follow you to your house. And depending on how politically you felt about ICE agents, they were using either flock or competitor to track people to their homes,

knock, say they have a warrant when they really don't have a warrant, and getting in that kind of weird gray area, probably constitutionally violating things that they were doing because of that apparatus. So. Yeah, it's very, it's very unsettling. You going to them and, like, checking them on it is so funny. But, like, I think about, like, Luigi Mangione.

right? He gets caught at a Pennsylvania McDonald's, just like sitting there with a mask on. The only publicly available photos are just like a dude with a hoodie and eyebrows. And then he's caught at this McDonald's because an employee tipped off the authorities, I'm like, there's just no way. My assumption, and again, I've reserved the right

to be wrong on this, of in discovery. This is found to be completely fallacious. But I'm assuming that there was some type of illegal surveillance that was done on him in order to find who he was. And then they were like, okay, well, this is going to completely destroy our case. Like, I think the investigating team was just in a quandary where they were like, okay, we need to catch this guy because we know where he is using our gray area methods. Exactly. We're probably tracking his phone is the most likely if he had a phone on him.

Sure. Or there's even a surveillance option where it's like, hey, are we able to tap in with these flock cameras or another database that has access to it, whatever it may be. And they're like, okay, we need to catch this guy. And we can't be letting, you know, ultra-rich people in New York City just be gone down. Like, that is going to destroy, like, the intent. of the American economy, but we need a way to get him without breaking the law and having the whole case thrown out. So they were just like, oh, a random person out of McDonald's saw him.

I'm like, what? They needed to sort of create the probable cause. Yeah, but like, you've seen the pictures where they're like, we're looking for this guy. Yeah. And it's just two caterpillars. It's just two black lines in a screen with 10 pixels. I'm like, that's the picture.

And a guy concentrating on running an entire restaurant, flipping burgers, managing the fly, the flies fixing the ice cream machine. Yeah. He was also alert enough to be like, that seemed like the guy from the news. A state away? I'm like, I just, I don't know,

maybe it's a very vigilant McDonald's employee, which I've known many of them to be, right? Salute to them out there. They're busting their ass. Especially like if it's a manager. Yeah. If it's like a, like perhaps an older lesbian woman running this McDonald's, she-

Running in like the Marines. She knows everything that's going on in there. So maybe she's just like, hey, I'm locked in. I can see a criminal a mile away. I'm skeptical. But it's just like, it's one of those things where I'm like, oh, this is, again, surveillance

that perhaps is good, because maybe he did do this crime that I don't agree with ontologically. I understand the message and the feeling behind it, but I don't think you should be out here killing people. But I'm like, this is, it feels a little shady to me. 100%. And that's what we have to fight against. And it brings us to another news flash, which is the integration through Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act, the integration of Israeli and U.S. military forces. And it's still, I'm still researching on what exactly it means, but it appears, We're going to do aggressive amounts of data sharing. We're going to be collaborating on weapon systems and even allowing Israeli companies to open up and running the United States. And there's a provision that they can still give Israel more money without the taxpayer knowing.

And Benjamin Netanyahu claimed responsibility for this plan. And when we talk about data surveillance technology, a few things Israel does really well is surveillance. They have some of the best cyber warfare guys on the planet. their unit 8200, which by the way is integrated all over Silicon Valley. Their NSO team, they have fantastic abilities to spy on people. And so not only are they getting all of our military data and they're starting to integrate, but also who does a lot of the cybersecurity for data center companies? Checkpoint, which is led by an Israeli entrepreneur who just was on TV saying,

the only way to protect the First Amendment is to prohibit it a little bit, like some sort of Orwellian speak. And so, I don't know, there's such, there's so many like creeps of, uh, the ways that we feel the world is crashing in around us and so many angles that they're getting us from where it's like, which guy in the bar do you turn and fight at this point when it feels like the whole bar is fighting you? That's why I feel like the American citizen feels right now. That's the thing.

We can criticize China where it's like, yeah, they live in a surveillance state, right? They live in like the sort of quasi-dictorial regime. Mm-hmm. But they get all these benefits from it. And I'm looking at us. I'm like, dude, we're kind of, we're also kind of in a surveillance state and we don't have healthcare.

So I'm like, if we're gonna be surveilled either way, at least make the streets clean, you know? Yeah, if we're paying, if some of us are paying between 20 and 40% of our money to the government, we should be. And New York is even more. It's, it's, that is a criminal act in itself. And then on top of that, it's the gasoline tax,

it's the property taxes, the sales tax, it's the this tax, that, the alcohol tax. I was just in Virginia. It was like a 20% tax. It just never ends. But for nothing, like, I went to like a beach and I was like, we were doing shows in Virginia and I wanted, I was like, hey, how much is like a beach chair?

And I got it's 20 bucks to rent a chair. I was like, sick, all right, cool. And then I like ring it up for me and my three friends and it comes out to like $100. I was like, what? I thought he said it was 20 bucks. And they're like, on a chair? And they're like, yeah, dude, the government's gotta get

some of the beach money. I was like, dude, this is crazy. So literally one fifth of every dollar you spend just gets added on. It's like bizarre. And not only does it get added on, but they're not accountable for it. They still are running up a deficit. It's like they're like a, we're there sugar daddy. We're the government's sugar daddy. Yeah. And our little cute sugar lady is not spending responsiveness. She's buying too many burton bags and the country's about to collapse. Yeah. I'm curious, you're now doing more content around the ultra rich and like the billionaire

class to an extent. Do you notice similarities? between how these billioners operate and how people that are running like low-level crime schemes operate? Getting into white-collar crime, we're actually doing a story in New York about the deed theft epidemic. I don't know if you have you heard about that at all. So basically these landlords are coming in and they have these sophisticated schemes, or maybe they get your grandpa that has dementia to sign off on a piece of paper, then they use that signature to forge more to buy the house or take that house for him. And all of a sudden, a house that, you know, there's a lot of these families in, you know, the Bronx and Harlem

that the house is the greatest asset they have. It's been passed down on the family. Maybe it's free and clear. And then all of a sudden, there's some guy coming up to and say, I own this property now. And we're looking into that, but people are afraid to speak out about a lot of the people that are responsible for doing it.

And I always think about the quote, like, those you're afraid to speak about control you. But what I notice about the white-collar criminals is it is very sophisticated. They do it through legal mechanisms. Well, this paperwork says this. And my lawyer, drown you in court with their lawyer. It's just, it's a lot different than the brute force that I'm

going to pistol whip you and take your wallet. It's, it's almost like I'm not touching you crime where you know that they're doing it, but because they're finesting the legal system and they have more money to drown you in legal fees, like there's almost nothing you can do about it. Right. And, and also how above reproach they are. Like, you can have a guy to a white collar crime where a deep theft guy has stolen, I think, is 11 or 17 homes. What's the guy, Slarney? Nis Salarney, something like that. We can look up the article, but... Allegedly.

Allegedly. Allegedly, he's done this. But as they're figuring out the case, so 17 homes in New York, I'm going to guess just a million apiece, just to be in the low end. Sure. So $17 million crime. He's on house arrest right now, so his case is being further adjudicated. I know a guy that stole $80,000 in bank robberies in California in the, I think it was

the 80s. He did 10 years. He was one of my best friends. And, you know, he did. So there's like a huge difference of like, if, I have a tiny bit of cocaine, that's a felony, a tiny bit of fatno, all these Schedule I one drugs. I'm going to prison and I have a felony. But this guy, so he was sentenced, but he's still on. But he's on an ankle monitor right now. Wow. So a $17 million crime ankle monitor,

you're okay, dude, no need to have to survive in these jungly prisons we've created. But a guy that robs a convenience store, let's 10, 20, 30 years in prison. Yeah. I mean, what's that quote though it's like like if i owe you a thousand dollars that's my problem if i owe you a million dollars that's your problem you know what i mean yeah you get to levels of money that are so high that uh you know there's different ways to finesse where it's like the little stuff it's like well this is obviously bad it's way more in your face so like we just lock these guys up but it feels completely unfair right like i mean but you can look at this even like way more macro and people have pointed this out where it's like yeah you have a grandma weed you're in prison for however

long because it's your third strike and then you have someone that's like getting a the society addicted to opiates and they're like they get fined if a percentage of their profit where they still make out yeah exactly but on the books they're not profitable so nothing happened you know what I mean it's like this is crazy and that's the that's the white collar finessing that I'm talking about is they do like whether it's tax evasion whether it is stealing money from people like it's all done in this little careful accounting legal way where technically it's above board because well they're also the ones that help influence the tax code or influence this that they get to play in that game. Yeah. Like to think that I paid more in taxes by a lot than Donald Trump did in the last

few years is unbelievably insane. Yeah. Just I would be okay with paying my fair share if it felt like society was benefiting from it, if the money was being spent appropriately, and if it was being allocated in a way that actually helps people rather than bombing some guy in a dirt hut across the world I literally have no beef with. And if I saw on the street, I'd be like, hey, what's up? You know, like, I don't want to bomb that guy. No, he was going to make a nuke. Yeah. Oh, he was two weeks away from a nuclear weapon. That's what my massage. He could have been. He could have been near a nuke, dude. But it's kind of funny because everyone's near making a nuke. You know what I mean? Like, you're closer to making a nuke than like a guy 10,000 years ago.

That is true. So in that regard, if you really zoom out, you're going to get me rated. They're like, dude, everyone's pretty close to making a nuke, relatively speaking. I mean, I think by the Israeli spectrum of how close you are to making a nuke yet. everyone to put it close. That's what I'm saying is you got to just, you know, be preemptive in the strike. I'm curious if you've ever seen like weird ideological creep, like when you're around like the ultra wealthy.

Like do you ever see them talking about things or like almost like engaging? Like I've noticed or at least read about like ultra high net worth people, almost engage in like cult like thinking where they almost like see themselves as like sent to save the world like a Peter Thiel, right? Where he's like, it's my destiny. I'm like messianic. And me and my other like tech cohorts, we exist in this almost like divine sort of way and all the people against us that are dragging us down.

And back in time, technologically, those people are, you know, antithetical to my Christ-like mission. I'm curious if you ever see like these types of ideological conversations or even like weird ritual type stuff. I believe I've only interviewed three billionaires. And what I've noticed is they all seem to have almost like cheesy motivational quotes. like one guy in his workout room, he, like, has like a photo of a lion, and he's like, I will not give up. I will not quit. And I think a lot of them think it's almost like their own, or they had, he had like, the other guy had pictures of his, of his face superimposed on Superman's body. And it's Trump. And they're doing, they're doing like, and then they're

like dropping like Grant Cardone quotes or like think and grow rich. And part of it, part of it is true. If you think a certain way, your reality does seem to change. but it's I do think there's a sense of they don't care that they don't pay taxes one that's an alarming one like they're like no no no like you everything I write off I'm just playing I'm just playing the I'm just playing the game how it's supposed to be played right and it's like don't you feel some sense of obligation because some of these guys I've talked to you have 10 houses that are each 10 or 20 million dollars across the world plus a jet or two they're living a life that even a king in the middle ages would have been like holy crap I'm going to time travel

so I could be you. Yeah. And there's no sense of maybe I should help the public pot. But then there's also another end where charity is difficult. I've tried it in my own way. I made a wrestling profit nonprofit foundation in Milwaukee that lasted about a year where we did a fundraise for. And I would say about 60% of the money was me.

I spent tens of thousands of dollars on it. I've recruited coaches. We had a great spot. We grew it well where the kids. kids were showing up. We had maybe 20 kids at practice, up to 30 or 40. It was really going well. And then there was a, I think maybe a power struggle with the coaches or one coach really wanted to run it for himself. But then he also, part of it was because it was maybe a hood guy. He thought I was, he's like, I want to be on the paperwork. I'm like the nonprofit paperwork that is

currently losing $45,000 a year. You want to be on the paperwork? Like, what does that even mean? You want to also like share the expense of that? He's like, now I want to be on that paperwork. And I'm like, brother, we haven't even charged kids for this yet. Like, we're not making a dime. It's actually like a negative red flow right now. And then he kind of wanted to go off and do his own thing. And he's a great guy and he's great for the sport and great for kids in Milwaukee. So I'm not insulting him.

But what I am saying is it is sometimes hard to give money away. So even these billionaires, the thing is, at their level, they can make an entire, like, nonprofit company where that's what I hope to do when I get insanely wealthy is, I'm going to perpetually fund a wrestling gym in Milwaukee. Kids never have to pay. We have top level coaches that we've recruited around the country, state-of-the-art facility. It's going to be a benefit to the community.

We're going to focus on leadership. We're going to focus on responsibility, eating healthy, all of those things. But it doesn't seem like a lot of them, I would guess a lot of these guys I've met in the ultra-wealthy camp, not even 1% of their money would go an annual basis towards helping people. Interesting.

Yeah. I mean, even like McKenzie Bezos. She gave a bunch of money, right? Like, she gets divorced from old Jeff and then just don'ting out cash. It's pretty admirable. That's cool, you know? I think, like, Melinda Gates also,

like, does a pretty good job with that. She's probably coping for a lot of PTSD connected to her husband. Yeah. If you found out your husband had done the most allegedly devilish things known to man to children, that'd be hard, hard to live with. Yeah, I guess. But I don't know, it's just interesting that, like, there's some people that do it, you know?

Like, there's some billionaires, right, where they get the money and, like, it doesn't immediately corrupt their souls to such a degree? I don't, like, I wouldn't necessarily say that they're all totally, like, it's operating from a really bad philosophy, because I think they think, hey, private business is the best way to go. I create jobs. It's the most efficient.

And giving it away is almost like a welfare thing that doesn't truly help people. Because there is an element, like we're talking about enabling people, of just giving something away. It's the teacher man to fish. And I think a lot of them have that mentality, which I do think is a probably factually correct. mentality. It's better to teach a man to fish than to just give him a fish every day, make them dependent on you. Yeah. But I wonder if there's a way, like, if you were one of these ultra wealthy, like sort of trillion-air type dudes, like, I'm talking like the top 10. If you just created

like a universal basic employment, just like any person can show up and you will get a job. And then creating an infrastructure where like they're not just like digging holes and filling them, but like they're doing something productive, or even like a halfway work situation where it's not just like giving money away. But it's like a- People are still earning. Yeah, there's some type of employment option that's just guaranteed.

Like you could just meet like a random homeless dude and be like, dude, if you go to this place, you will get a job. Are you familiar with the CCC of the 1920s and 30s, the community conservation corps? Those are the guys that built a lot of the national parks. I believe they worked on infrastructure projects, but this was coming off the Great Depression

and they hired hundreds of thousands of men around the country to help build America. And I think we could use some of that. I think, like, one, these guys should actually be taxed. They should pay their fair amount. And you shouldn't be able to use tax loopholes to write everything off to where I'm paying more in taxes the entire Amazon corporation. But because what we're discovering is men feel really good when they are put to work and they're benefiting their community. We just talked to, we were doing a callistatics piece yesterday in Harlem.

And we had this huge buff guy still in his construction outfit coming up and doing business. pull-ups and he's like, I'm helping build America. And I want that guy to be like, instead of the amigos or whatever rapper, I want this guy to be like the potion child that the hood looks up to because we do need men to get to work. And it also makes you feel good. And also we've done this weird trick where we've downgraded blue collar work. Working with your hands is somehow this lesser form of occupation. It's like more servile. But if you work in a cubicle, you've made it in this country. And I think we're discovering, cubicle makes you depressed. I was in a cubicle job outside, outside sales, but I also was in a cubicle at times. I hated it. Learned a lot, but I hated it.

But we need plumbers. We need electricians. We need guys that build the roads, build the new tomorrow. Maybe we build a train system, a bullet train system. We need that in this country. If we would have spent $20 trillion on that rather than more, I would be happy. If that's what the budget is. But, oh, I don't know where I'm rambling, honestly, at this point. You were getting to be fired up, though. I like that. Yeah, I don't know. It's a tricky thing, though, with, like, taxation is, like, I don't even know.

I don't know how you do it, right? Because, like, these guys on paper, they're not really making that much money, right? They just have, like, these stock options. They go up. They take loans against the stock. You can't tax the loan because they're paying an interest on it. So it's like, all right. And then the companies are all filed through, like, Ireland or whatever.

Like, they're putting their IP through Dublin because they have different laws. and then different countries are going to open up to create business opportunities and have a free market where they can pull in, you know, like businesses don't want to be tax advantageous. So it's like, I don't know how you shore that up. I truly don't know what the answer is. Well, I would be even more okay with them dodging taxes

if at least they were paying their employees a livable wage where a Walmart guy doesn't also have to get a job at Applebee's. Yeah. You know, it's like double dipping in the shittiest way. Not only are you not paying the public, purse for your taxes, but your own people that work 40 hours a week are still on welfare. Yeah, and then who pays for the welfare? And then it's like, oh, the taxpayers. So now you have subsidized. Yeah, exactly. Like, honestly, probably the, the biggest welfare queen is some company like

Walmart. Yeah. And we think it's, oh, we think it's the quechere. We think it's the trailer park lady, but it's well, it's Walmart. Yeah. So. And there's little things, like, I remember reading a story about Walmart trying to increase the minimum wage. And you hear that and you're like, that sounds nice. But then you realize that if Walmart increases the minimum wage, for a period of time, they can continue to foot the bill to a, you know, a marginal cost to them. But it starves every other store around them. And so now you're like, wait a second. I thought this was a good thing. But actually Walmart is getting rid of all the competition in the local market. And then eventually I give it 10 years, the minimum wage hasn't gone up at all. All the mom

and popster are now gone. And now Walmart's only showing town. You're like, this sounded good. I was on board and all of a sudden I realized there was a ruse to actually destroy us. That's the difficult balancing act. There's so many choices that are damned if you do, damned if you don't. And it's easy for us in upstate New York right outside the forest where I drove into the park here to see you. Exactly. To think, oh, like, I'm just going to have this utopian idea. But in reality, there's so many things that the domino effect happens and you don't realize until it's too late what you've done. And that's what makes being a politician actually a pretty difficult job. You get hated for everything, blame for everything. Some of it has definitely earned.

but there are so many, like, little tweaks that if you turn the knob this way, you screw that people, but if you turn the knob that way, you screw them over there. Dude, like, I truly, I don't know. I try not to come from a place of, like, entitlement or, like, arrogance, because I truly don't know anything, and I also would not want to be a politician. I like to criticize them, but I would not want to do it at all.

Yeah. Because I was even talking to a guy that I know that's in the military, and he was like, it's very likely that every operation that happens, like, given our ongoing theaters in the military, to East and even South America, that like Trump, or like, Hegg Seth, they're getting a brief. It says like, hey, this is what this operation's gonna cost,

and this is how many casualties do we wanna go for it. And they're estimating literally how many human beings will die on our side. And they're like, do you wanna do it? And he goes, yeah. And he's like, oh, it's only 500, it's pretty good. Yeah. And it's like, that's the calculation you have to make.

It's like 500 families are not gonna have their kids anymore. And it's like, do you do that? I truly don't know. And my knee jerk is like, nah, bro, just chill. You know what I mean? Like, that's my knee jerk. But also, like, I don't know if I should be in charge of defending our country. I don't know.

There's some level of being a ruthless, calculated action taker that you need to be to be a leader at the top, that most of us don't have that capacity or we would struggle with it too much, where we can boo some of these guys all we want. but the fact they have the ball sometimes to make these decisions. The only thing I would counter that with is like, okay, Mr. Trump, if you have the balls to make this decision to go to this war with Iran, is your son also going to be on the front lines too? I mean, he's of the draft age. So, like, if you're willing to put your own on the line and the country, then it's like, okay, you're putting your money where your mouth is.

But when your kid gets to be a crypto, multi, multi-hundred millionaire, maybe to his own, you know, smarts and success, you know? Yeah. That's where it starts to feel in balance. Now, send the poor kids on. Yeah. You know, let the poor kids fight the worst. Yeah.

What are you doing in New York right now? Three stories we're trying to wrap our heads around. New York calisthenics. There's these guys that do really cool, crazy pull-ups. I grew up watching this show called bartenders. I don't know if you ever know that, but... Bar-stars is another one. Yeah.

So pretty much hood calisthenics, a positive hood story. Also talking about nutrition. We're talking about de-theft, the landlords taking homes from people. And then we're going inside trap houses. And that's where I was last night. I wish I could have met you last night for the Knicks game. But we were heading to this kid's trap house, and I hear what he's selling, perks, crack, cocaine, weed.

I'm like, okay, we definitely got to go. Like, this guy has some nice inventory, and I want to cover it like a business insider episode. Yeah. We're driving, and we start pulling in. We're like, this just seems like too nice of an area. Like, I've never been to a trap house in the suburbs. It's not gutter enough.

If I was a neighbor here, I would notice I would call the cops, because I don't want that around me. And it's like, okay, whatever. So we go in, we're in there for probably five or ten minutes. And then the guy's mom, one of the kids in the crew is mom comes home. She's pounding on the front door. Travis, you aren't going to lock me out of my house? And now I'm scared because I thought maybe, you know, in trap houses either a guy coming in to rob the trapper

because he has a sizable amount of cash or it's the police kicking in the door. Both of those are situations I don't want to be in. I never considered some milf is going to be scared the shit out of me. Then she runs around in the back door, and she breaks in, and there's probably about 10 of us. We're huddled up at the front door because the kid can't get the front door lock open, and we're stuck there. And me and my crew are towards the back closest to the mom as she's running in. I'm like, I had nothing to do with this. And also, I'm on your side, mom.

Like, I would be pissed too. So I wouldn't have come here if I knew you were involved. That's so. And what did the kids say? Is I, yeah, my mom's here? The friend of the kid was flexing like, nah, get this. This is good. This is good stuff.

Like, we don't give a fuck. we'll still trap out of here. And then we talked to him in the car. I'm like, dude, you live in the suburbs, right? I'm like, what are you doing trapping as a suburban kid? And the money, the money, the money, whatever. And I'm like, so have you ever been rated? He says he's been rated a handful of times.

And I'm like, have you ever had to move? He's like, yeah, me and my mom and my siblings, we have to move a few times. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing, making your mom move out of her house? And he's like, well, I pay a good amount of the bills. And it's like, well, I pay a good amount of the bills. And it's like, well,

I can get it. I can get it, but it's like, dude, you just get a job. Yeah, I guess where I've learned on this job is sometimes it's hard to be, I'm less of an absolutist. I'm more of a gray area guy, which is, I don't want to say I'm a fence sitter, but I can usually see both sides and it makes it hard to be rah, rah, rah, one way or another sometimes. No, 100%.

Like, this is even part of like doing this show and then just, like, living in New York and being around, like, really closely connected with people that grew up so differently than me. Like, there'd be questions that I would ask them that to me sound obvious. Like, I have friends that grew up, like, deep in the hood. They were involved in crime. They spent some time in prison. And now they've completely changed their lives. And I remember, I was like, dude, like, you grew up in New York.

Like, you're right next to the financial hub of the world to an extent. Why not just, like, get into finance? And he's literally their answer was so simple, but so clear. He was just like, I never met anyone that didn't sell drugs. He was like, I... That is the finance hub in their community. Yeah, he's like, I never, like, they'd be like asking you, like, why didn't you become an astronaut?

Yeah. It's like, well, I didn't know anyone that was an ass. Like, I didn't even know how you start that, you know? That's an interesting point. In some ways, they are chasing the most prestigious job they're aware of. It's just like the most available thing. And human beings do this across the board where you do the hustle you know. Like when Vietnamese people come to America, they get into nails because there was one

woman who put everyone onto the nail game. Yeah. You can literally trace it like down to, I think she was in like the 40s or something, 40s, 40s, maybe. Monkey see monkey do is a real thing. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call them that, but it's like they just literally put people onto hustles like, dude, West African dudes come to America, they sell bags on Canal Street because their cousin is here and their cousin came because their friend is here and they go,

hey, this is where you source the products, this is how you sell it, this is how it works. And they just put people on the game and everyone basically does that all my friends that sell insurance, it's because their brother got into insurance. And it's just different hustles. And so communities stay isolated. And so when you're living in a community that persists on this type of culture, you then just perpetuate the culture because that's what's around you. Branching out is dangerous because I think it goes back to when you'd leave the tribe.

You're the only one out in the woods. That's for all the potential for encountering something really scary becomes. And also, it's going away from complete safety because if I know, hey, maybe I don't care about selling bags, but this is the one way that I'm sure I will make money. If I try and branch out around that with no connections in the game, I'm going to the deep unknown and we're trained to be. be afraid of the under. Yeah, of course.

And then even just practically, I was like, why didn't you just leave your hood and then just like walk around like the wealthy areas and see how people were living? Like, at least you would give you a different perspective on like how they carry themselves or like the clothes that they wear. And he was just like, I never knew anyone there.

He's like, why don't you ever just come to the hood and hang out and grab lunch? And I'm like, well, yeah, it's a good point. I don't know anyone there. I don't know any of the restaurants. Like I don't, I completely people just, it's funny because I think we think we're so like autonomous and we exist with our own free will

and we just exist to exert ourselves under the universe. I don't know if that's really the case. And I think we all sort of float within the lines that we're comfortable with, you know? And that like, imagine a city in America you've never been to. I mean, you're fairly well traveled, so I'm sure you've been to many.

But like, you haven't been to Tulsa, Oklahoma, because you just never had a reason to go. And so you have nothing against it. You're not like, oh, they do something good. You just don't go because you never have a reason. And when you grow up in a tiny little hood, somewhere, even next to a big, city like yeah i just don't go into like the nice parts because i don't i've never met someone from there

which is why i think like cohabitation and community building and creating bridges across communities is like the best thing you can possibly do you know like going out and like even like playing sports on like an integrated team of people from different classes not just ethnically but like different like hey the poor white kid and like the wealthy latino kid learning about each other and then being able to show each other how each other lives is so beneficial and I think that that is like one the best way to inoculate against like prejudice and just being like oh these people are like this it also shows different people of different classes like hey this is how the rest or maybe a different

portion of America lives and this is what your lifestyle can be too if you get out of these high risk dumb games that are gonna put you away for you know 20 years yeah I think it's interesting because there's two rival mentalities they're kind of strong right now in this country there's the you know, we should have as much mixing as possible, because from this mixing comes the greatest innovation that the world's ever seen, and this is how things get built.

And then there's people that are taking the opposite approach, where it's like, I'm gonna, one, people tend to racially go around each other, but like there's even an experiment being done in Arkansas right now, return to the land where these, it's a whites only town. And I think, you see it with Poland, they're very isolationist right now. They want to keep Poland Polish. And I don't know, is one better than the other? Who produces better results?

And who is allowed to do it? Like when China is isolationist, no one's mad. But when the United States doesn't invite everybody into their doors, oh, it's because we're racist. But in the same token, I do agree. I think exposure to many people, especially in sports, because if you're not a wrestling mat with somebody, there's no difference in class.

We have the same shoes, the same headgear, and we're going to scrap. for going to war, and then we learn to have respect for each other afterwards, I think mixing people through sports are one of the best ways to do it. That's the thing, America's already mixed. And I'm not talking about like forced diversity where you're injecting people to be with each other.

I'm talking about like actual organic growth that comes from a mutual interest, you know, whether it's like clubs, sports, things like that. And America's already mixed, you know what I mean? Like, we already have American citizens that are from every different nation. Like America as a nation is an idea. Whereas many of these other countries are ancient ethno-states

because that's how it's been for thousands of years. America's not that way. We are intentionally injected with diversity because that's what it took to create the nation. So now we got to deal with it. And there's downsides, of course. Like there's going to be cultural friction. There's no perfect system anywhere.

Yeah. But this is the system we have. And it's been, it's done historically very well. It's done great. It's been very exciting. America's been the, the, the, the, of a lot of the world as far as the cultural energy that comes from it, the innovation that comes from it. And I think as long as our leaders don't bankrupt us into the ground, I just saw a quote from

Julian Assange, which is basically that the mission of the transnational elites is to bleed as much money from Europe and the United States into the hand of the transnationals in Israel as possible. And it feels like, I don't know what year he said that prophecy, but it feels like I could see that coming from. Yeah. I'm curious what the next thing after this run of episodes you're doing in New York is, is there's something that you're looking at in like six months. They're like, oh, this would be awesome. I'm getting invited by some very elite Pakistanis to go to their country. They feel like they've got nothing but bad press from international YouTube style people, and they want to show some of the good

stuff they have. So apparently we're going to be able to train with their special forces, which are actually top-notch. Yeah, in Islamabad? I don't know if that's, I think, That's cool. Or maybe we go to La Shore. I don't know where we're going to bounce around. But we're flying into a native reservation in South Dakota, and we're doing a police ride along, going to jails out there. I don't know.

There's an endless list of things that I'm like, when I get to this city, I can't wait to do this. What's a video you scrapped? You know, we were doing a mass surveillance piece, and we just didn't have enough meat on the bones. I feel like it was just too much. It would have been better just to invite an expert on a podcast because it's like we did four sit-down interviews.

There's no action to it. But now that we've had this flock encounter, it's like, okay, we're back in the mix. And we actually have some breaking news of their hidden headquarters switch. And now we might actually get invited back to speak to them directly, which I would prefer. To me, if I can pull off a piece, we did this in Chicago, where I interviewed the police that fine carjackers and stolen cars, and then I interviewed Chicago car thieves. And I mixed them together in the same piece. That, to me, is a home run.

So if I can find the kind of techno-actors, anarchist sort of guy that is against flock, and then mix it in with flock and do one integration, back to integration, it's a good thing. That'll be a hit story. Yeah, that's cool. I like that because I personally don't really like debates. Like, I actually don't think debates are like that fruitful on like sort of a mass consumption scale. Like if it's two people sort of like talking, I think debates can be I think debates can be helpful for understanding ideas. Like if you and I debated, that's great. But if it's debate for public consumption, I think it creates too much friction.

Like, I don't think there is actually, like these Jubilee videos. I think it's entertaining, but I don't know if actual growth comes from it. And that's what I like about your videos. It's like, hey, we're just gonna show two sides in their own vacuums, and then you can sort of decide after hearing the points.

But once you hear the people going back and forth at each other, it's just like, kind of dunking on each other. All we do is further dig our heels into what we already thought walking into it. Right. To me, a home run piece recently, It was scary to put out. It felt very controversial, but it's actually been really well received by all parties,

was going to Jewish rabbis and Crown Heights, New York, and asking them controversial questions that has been circulated on my internet feed and across a lot of the internet. And I've been in touch with a lot of these guys since, and they want me back, and they want me to cover their Chabat movement. And to me, I felt really good about that because I didn't want to alienate people. I'm not out here to crucify, no pun intended. But I want people to feel like I would go back.

Like, for instance, there's an IDF soldier I've interviewed twice now that he doesn't like my takes. He thinks I'm propagandized, but he thought the way I characterized him in the interview was fair, that I let him speak, that his side got said, and so therefore he agreed to a part two with me. And that's the way I try and do it is I might think you're totally wrong. And it's a weird balance. Sometimes I try to inject zero of my opinion to the story. And other times I'm just passionate about it, so I can't help but let it bleed out or show my bias. and I let my bias be known.

But I try to make friends across this as much as possible. So, you know, the fact that these rabbis feel good enough that they go out to me with a kosher steak dinner afterwards is like, okay, mission accomplished. My job was not to try and go after one side or another to the point where you hate me now. I want to still be like we had good discourse. We might not totally agree, but we felt like it both went well.

That's awesome. I think that's the thing that I'm most drawn to is like people that are actually working in good faith because it's really easy just to paint a store and it's like, hey, you know what the cause of all of our problems are? This minority. You know what I mean? These migrants that are coming over, this religious group,

it just feels like it's creating more division and it's touching on real problems, but then giving a completely misaligned solution. It's like, hey, is there wealth inequality in America? Sure, are there systemic issues with our politicians? Absolutely. The answer is not excising this group, whether it's Somali migrants or whatever.

I'm like, it just completely misses the point. and I think it creates and harbors way more animosity within America, which I think is the cause of so many of our problems. Well, it's also a pie chart. So, like, if you think 100% of our problems in this country are Somalians or Jews or whatever, it's like you're missing the very diversified pie chart that we all actually contribute to. And there might be some groups like maybe it's the right-win senators at a certain time. And then maybe it's the, you know, there's going to be a flux of who has power,

who has sway and who maybe you feel, depending on your view, is covering or causing most of the But to assign blame to one group is a foolish thing. Yeah, and that's what I like by the videos, is that I think it showcases different problems and kind of highlights it in a holistic view. So for that, I applaud you. Thank you. Tommy G. Thank you so much, brother.

I really appreciate it. Next time you're back in the city. Let's do it again. Cheers. Hey, we have a brand new channel that is a part of the Camp Universe and we made it specifically with you in mind. And I personally think that you're really gonna like it. So check it out.