Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Inside the Secret Service - with Mark Brandenburg

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

In this week's episode, we journey into the heart of American law enforcement with United States Secret Service Agent, Mark Brandenburg. Mark's career began on the streets of Olathe, Kansas to the White House, with his second day of USSS training being 9/11. Get an insider's glimpse of what it was like to drive "The Beast", the presidential limo, and conduct protective advances including President Obama's visit to Kabul, Afghanistan. Mark's career took an exciting twist when he became a Shift Leader in the Vice Presidential Protective Division, safeguarding Vice President Mike Pence. It was during this time that Mark began working on his political thriller, FENCE JUMPER. Away from the job, Mark lives a peaceful life in Virginia with his wife Melissa, their two hound dogs, and a mischievous cat. Purchase Mark's book Fence Jumper here: https://www.amazon.com/Fence-Jumper-Mark-J-Brandenburg/dp/1646638948/ref=asc_df_1646638948/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=642166674184&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8181583590550826544&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9021400&hvtargid=pla-1933385585168&psc=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwtamlBhD3ARIsAARoaEx0dbdMlvOzRlBz-FxZCPN69ms9HcKazim9SWYy0vS3UuZSpYoibkEaAiaoEALw_wcB Sign up for the new G14 newsletter here: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com/exclusive Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

Well, good morning, everybody. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. If you go to black rifle coffee.com, what are you going to find? Well, you're going to find everything you could possibly need for your heart's desire when it comes to coffee. How to, you know, not how to, even though I bet you there's a tutorial on there somewhere. Things you can make coffee in, drink coffee out of, a crazy amount of roasts to choose from, subscriptions that you could have those roasts delivered wherever you want to on, whatever interval that you want to. What else is on their banner right now? There's the BRCC Sure Club. Right now there's a collaboration between BRCC and Timothy Kennedy. It looks like a war hippo. Yeah, that checks out. That seems like it would be very Tim Kennedy-esque. There is a Liberty roast that is back for a limited time. And let's see what else is the last thing on this rotating banner. It's this damn bass cat boat giveaway. I don't even know what the hell that means. I'm not a fisherman. I like eating fish. It's tasty, but I don't know. Apparently this boat is a big deal. And you can enter to win a fully rigged and custom wrapped bass cat cougar and a whole lot more. And you can click on all of these things. And if none of that suits your fancy, you can roll through their gear, the apparel, coffee bundles, coffee samplers. Just absolutely go to town. Black Riflecoffee.com. My guest today, Mark Brandenberg, he is an active United States Secret Service agent, but has also wrote a novel called.

Fence Jumper. Mark has worked on the Presidential Protective Division, and he was a supervisor for the Vice President for the Vice Presidential Protective Division for Mike Pence for two years. We cover a lot, everything from why he wanted to be an author, what he wrote about in his life as a Secret Service agent. Episode number 293 with Mark Brandenberg. Enjoy it. Looking at danger close now. Where would you like to begin? Mr. Brandenberg? Mr. Brandenburg. I would like to begin. I think the best place to begin is maybe

just with, I like to start with my folks and then the family stuff. I mean, I know a lot of times, because people don't know who hell I am, so I know what's on your show. A lot of times you'll start with the kind of bio thing. Sometimes. Sometimes.

But whatever you guys think is the best. I mean, it's up to you, man. Yeah. So, it'd be a good way from the easy. This is my second podcast. First one like this. Okay.

What was your first podcast? It's called Cops and Riders, but it was all done on Zoom. It's a former cop out of Milwaukee. This got published back in February. And so there was a way to kind of get my feet wet and do that. Yeah. Because this is a little out of place.

I mean, this is like, for me, this is yesterday I was thinking, oh, God. And then today I felt a lot better, worked out and got all that in. Could just get it's new, you know. The in person, you mean? No, the in person I prefer. Yeah. I think just the whole setup, just, it's all new to me. So, you know, it is.

I guess. Well, I mean, I'm fine. I mean, for the love of God, man, you're a secret service agent. It's fucking be okay with stress in your situations. That's true. This is true. Driving the president's fine. There's just, there's no microphone in there.

What would happen if the person driving the president got into a fender bender? Like during the motorcade? Yeah, I'm talking about the presses in the back, like working on something and like riding. I just assume he's always back there riding on a scroll and then they're like, smack. Well, in front of the limo is a spare limo. If you hit the spare limo. No, I mean, I want in my fairy tale, we're talking about the president's vehicle hits something. Yeah.

Well, it happened in Ireland. Do you remember in Ireland? It got high-ended. So in Ireland, it was coming out of some, was it iron? I think it was Ireland. It was coming out of like one of the places and there was a metal, because the gate comes in. And it slides on this thing and it went down. This is the old limo.

They weren't as high. And it hit it just right. It was like literally like the proton torpedo hits the. death star hits the perfect spot kills the basically the axle it goes it's inoperable

really yes this happened in please tell me the president was in there he was in there they were leaving and so this is these are the parade limos

so they were lower to the ground the new ones wouldn't never do this this had to be there it is hold on oh great TMZ and see I was the transportation

guy also I got the prep so here yeah this is not our shining moment but the guys do a great job and then let me show you something how good the guys react to this right there it hits it oh it's just okay now I understand what you're saying so the angle watch the guys react yeah these people are all screamed

so they're good but now you're like you're like shit um it literally just didn't have the clearance to get over the top of that that was a true high set these are the old ones now the new ones are much better than this I'm what years to say it is um this is and what they'll do is they'll pull they'll react and they'll pull the uh these buses and shit in front of it to block off the people across the street. Now, mind you, they're all screened. So he's really in no danger. I mean, he's still in the bubble really well. It's just not a great look. I don't know a whole lot about the presidential limo, but I feel like he's probably doing okay in there. Oh, he's fine. And here's what's what's funny. How did they get the limo in there?

Good question. So at the time, at the time, I was doing the transportation advance in Warsaw, Poland. So this is part of the same swing. So those, those cars were supposed to go to Poland, that could post a gun on C-17 and go to Poland. And we're planning. all this, you know, it's a whole European swim. Anyway, the, so the polls, you know, working with them is very much Eastern Block, their kind of mentality and stuff. And this guy

was super stoic, I was working with all week. Of course, the news is out about this. And he looks at me and goes, that's not going to happen. When he comes here, I go, it's not going to happen, we're going to be good. So, needless to say, we went to all the sites, and we re-examined all the sites to make sure

that was not going to be an issue. Because that's the, First and the only time that's ever happened to my knowledge. How'd they get that limo out of there? Another good question. Once again, I was in Poland. Probably would have been better off backing it. I don't know if they're real real driving.

They would have to have lifted it and probably gotten on some of a flatbed, but that thing's heavy. What president was in there? That's Obama. Please tell me he is the kind of guy who'd be back there talking shit. Yes. They're like real good job, dude. Real good job. I haven't heard what he said, but I have something to the effect of probably, is there a problem guy?

Is there something kind of understated, my guess? God, as the driver of that, you could see him when he hopped out. He's not living his best life in that moment. No, I mean, you're just, I mean, I can imagine at that point, you're like, you're going through a thousand scenarios like, okay, what will we do next? And actually, what you didn't see in that video is some of the supervisors, guys, like I said, they blocked it off really quickly. So they reacted to it properly.

He was never in danger, but obviously it's not what you want to happen. And then, like I said, the new car. It's amazing what the engineers have done is that the new cars are not only larger and heavier and higher up, but they're easier to drive. Much easier. The visibility is better. Yeah, they did a better job of designing it. What are those things ballpark cost money-wise for presidential limo? I don't know. It's got to be tens of millions of dollars. Yeah, it's a lot. And there's I don't know what the number is now because I've been off the, so I was on the presidential protective division from like 2008 to 2000. 2014 during the Obama's administration. And at the time, they were still kind of bringing in the new cars. And so, you know, now I'm sure that there's a lot of differences in things because I've been kind of way from that for a while. I've been in protection for 15 years, but they have different types of protection.

Michael, are you able to find? Yeah, 1.6 million. That's actually way cheaper than I thought. Yeah, that's a bargain. Yeah. That's what's saying here. This is the Cadillacs. I don't know if this is the new one or the old one.

Yeah. known as the beast. Yeah. For the record, we don't call it the beast. It's just the presidential limo, but that's popularized. I was going to say, who calls it the beast then? It's, I don't know how it got started. I think it got used to get started.

It probably was one. I don't know if we call it that. I mean, maybe that was happened a lot. I don't know. I don't know if it's just like a popular. Huh. Maybe at one time we did. I don't, maybe I'm wrong.

So what are they, in that situation overseas? What did they do with Obama? They pulled the buses up in front. Did they just swap into the second window? Yeah. So they'll have a backup vehicle. they'll have another limo available

and there's contingencies no matter I mean for all kinds of different situations because obviously you know as you've seen you may have seen a presidential motorcade it's super long

I go the other direction it's like when Air Force one he used to come to or he'd that fucking played anytime it would come to like San Diego or LAX I had buddies who were working for the Flight Standards District Office

and they're like fuck we're going to have like 30 people deviate from the airspace because they don't read the no-tam and they just go, you know, F-18 chasing down a Cessna, 152. But my theory is it was the same as high-ranking officers. You're better off going in the opposite direction. Yeah.

So I've seen them on TV, but I don't want to be anywhere near that. I don't need to. It's just like, let me get the fuck out of here. Yeah, I didn't have that option. But the, yeah, I can't fault you because it's just such a circus. Yeah, you just don't want to be around it. No. And also.

I don't think you're alone in that feeling if you don't have to be there for that sort of thing. There's not really a lot of allure of it. To me, I hosted. the Secret Service cat team a few times when I was at the East Coast Command and they were cool they set up, you know, I did a tour one time with my family, like the traditional tour

at the White House at Christmas time. It was cool to see everything. But the allure of I've met enough people in my life. Like it would be cool. I get like it would be interesting but you shake somebody's hand. They still like, there's no perfect person out there.

They're still fucked up in their own way. They're going to have their own struggles. And it's like, you know, your guy's job is hard enough. I'm just going to go somewhere else for the day. I'll watch it. That's appreciated. Yeah, I'll go do something else.

Yeah. But some other fucking weird. That's true. It's like that's the one thing about doing this job and being around a lot of different protectees, whether it's a president, vice president, even like DHS secretary. I protected General John Kelly for a while for a short time when he was DHS secretary, very down to earth. Yeah, you meet a lot of people in the job. And yeah, you do find out that it's kind of like even celebrities or stuff. It's kind of the same thing.

People have this kind of hero worship. And then the reality is, like you said, they're just normal people. Really, in many cases, very talented to you, most cases, very talented people, but normal people. And if you do have that hero, it's a mistake that I've made in my life. That's where I came to the conclusion I have now. But if you spend enough time around with them, you'll see the tarnishes that most people don't get to see. And you realize, like, okay, we're all human beings. I'm still waiting to meet the person that has the perfect life.

I know a lot of people think that a certain amount of- Just go on Instagram. everybody's got that perfect life. Or but they're like, oh, that guy's got a sweet, Bogadi or something. I know what the hell that is, but I literally could not pick out a Bagotti if there was 100 cars in front of me. Yeah.

But I bet you there are people out there who have a ton of them that are miserable. Yeah. Or they think they arrive at a certain bank account number and everything's going to be okay. Yeah. It's not. Everybody has their struggles. And it's also, it's like, and I found that, I think everybody's done that mistake.

And I did it, especially as a younger person, I remember when I was a cop. I was a cop in Kansas area, Olathe, Kansas. And I remember I met the Secret Service guys. They were cool. We did the warrants with them. And that kind of got me into the, I want to try that. Yeah.

Why were you doing warrants with Secret Service guys? So the Secret Service. I know they do a lot of counterfeiting types of? They do counterfeit, but they also do financial crimes. And like out when I started in Chicago, we did like mortgage fraud, all kinds of different types of fraud. The Secret Service is involved in mortgage fraud? Yeah. So you know how it got started?

You know the history? No. I mean, I watched the Nicholas Cage movie, Treasure Hunter, whatever it is, and he talked a little bit about it. Well, they were halfway there. Yeah. So in 1860, this is how we got our cool name, too. 1865, what's ironic is Lincoln, before he goes off, he informally signs saying to create the U.S. Secret Service to come back counterfeiting, because there's so much counterfeiting after the end of the Civil War. Why did they call it the Secret Service?

Because they weren't, because they literally were undercover. So they were called Secret Service operatives. There was no FBI yet And they would literally go infiltrate these rings in the South a lot of times And uncover the counterfeiting going on to try to get some sort of semblance of order with our currency And so that's where the term secret service comes from And also there's a great book called Freedom's Detective that talks about the time after that I read I think Cornacobie is the author's name, but very interesting.

But anyway, in 1901, McKinley gets shot and killed. well let's not skip over Lincoln getting smoked too I mean well there was no secret service yet I was gonna say but that it might be a good indicator maybe you need that's that's exact who was the other one there was one there was Lincoln and um thank god we have Michael Garfield was it Garfield the who's been assassinated yeah yeah it was another one in the 80s 1880s please tell me I'm right because I'd feel terrible I should know this there has been more than there likely should be yeah James Garfield yeah William McKinley yeah McKinley's the next one we'll see McKinley, so when McKinley got killed,

they were like, okay, enough with our presidents getting shot and killed. I feel like that at Lincoln, you could have said that. But there was no secret. I agree, they probably should have that. I think it would have been wise at that point. One's too many. Yeah, maybe you shouldn't be able to walk up in point shoot a president. Maybe one of the greatest heroes.

Hey, they just took out one of the greatest heroes in our country's history. Maybe we should have guys with guns around them. And he did have some sort of, I think he had one guy that night at Ford's Theater. He was like a soldier or something. But, you know, there was no real formal protection, which is crazy, but it's true. So after McKinley, so, the vice president is Teddy Roosevelt. He's the first person we protected. And because they had nowhere else to turn, right?

So they go, well, we have some Secret Service agents. Let's get them on it. And so that's how we started protecting presidents. And actually the first FBI agents they took from the Secret Service pool to create the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm not sure what that was, the 1920s or whatever. But it just grew from there. And that's, you know, I always love to go, that's how we got our cool name,

the United States Secret Service, because we actually were a Secret Service. If it created us now, it'd be had some lame-ass name like executive protection service or something terrible. It would be just awful. Not the U-Triple S. So, okay, it was Lincoln.

Garfield. Garfield. McKinley. Kennedy. Kennedy, yeah. And we were there for that one. Personal thoughts is a secret service agent. Did he act alone? I am not going to get into conspiracy theory. The fuck you're not. What do you think we're here for?

We're here to make shit up. No, that was, okay, that was. I know you guys get a special brief and you have to put your like retinal scan and thumbprint on it. This is that in the Nicholas Cage movie too. There's a presidential book that's hit in the Library of Congress. You know what I'm talking about, Michael? Sure. National treasure.

You're, fuck you. It's National Treasure, too. It's not a big deal. Yeah, so the Secret Service way back then was done completely differently than even if you go back to Reagan. Yeah. And his attempted assassination, A, we were much smaller, very small. It was basically just straight bodyguarding. He's lucky he didn't die on that one.

Oh, he's very lucky. He's very lucky. He's very lucky. The round that hit him bounced off the frame of the door. Yes. And I think, I believe the one that hit our agent was a ricochet. as well. Yeah.

There's that crazy picture of him jumped up in the air. Holy shit, man. And he eventually became a, like a chief of police outside Chicago as well. But yeah, the, yeah, when that happened, and that's, you watch it now and you're sitting there going, how the fuck do you allow this to happen? From a procedural perspective? Yeah, because it's like you have completely. Michael, can you pull up a YouTube of the attempted Reagan aside?

I'd be love, I would love to hear a modern day debrief. I would love to hear a modern day debrief on how you guys view that now. But here's the issue It's like you literally have all kinds of unmagged people there And they still Mag by a magnetic wand Yeah or depending on a situation Or at a magnetatime or walk through

If it's a set up site Now something like that Maybe an impromptu rope line Yeah Impromptu You would still You would still Mag all those people

And ensure that they're unarmed Yeah how did he get that fucking close Well once again The way they operated then is not the same That we operate now It wouldn't happen now We wouldn't allow that to happen now Because he's an official event.

This is not like an impromptu. Fuck yeah. Get that wheel gun out, dude. The wheel gun. Michael, go to the beginning and I'm going to have you freeze frame. Right. Play it a little bit more. Play it a little bit more.

Hold on. Stop it. This dude? Yeah. I'm not happy with that dude. Is that Metro PD? Yeah. I'm not happy with that dude at all.

The one of you just ducked out of the way. Oh, the fuck. Yeah. So the people who are trained are going directly at the shooter and he's just like, me the fuck out of here. Back on that guy right there. Yeah. Oh, shit.

Okay, so walk me through actually what happened, because you guys have to study this in the Secret Service. Yeah, it's been a while. So they're right here. You see, I wish I remembered the names. I would just study other names, but you can see the special agent in charge. You see the guy pushing him into the down the limo? That's a special agent in charge.

And pause it, Michael, if you can. Didn't around hit like the corner of the window and that's actually what hit, right? My understanding is. Now, once again, I'm not studied up on this in a while, but I think it hit the door frame is why I remember, because you can see the agent reacting. Yeah, I think it was... The guy who's jumping got hit, too. Yeah.

And I wish I would remember the names of them. I'm going to, like, kick myself for not looking at this. People can Google it. It's fine. Yeah, they can. I didn't realize that he almost died due to blood loss. Oh, he told him to get to GW. Yeah.

Like, he was like... Michael, you see that how he's just the guy's stuff in the president and the vehicle? Yeah. That's the special agent in charge. If this was me, I would be like holding Michael like a fucking shield, right? Like, I would be like holding him out. Up to the shooter. 100%.

I would run towards the shooter. You don't take a whole lot of space, Michael. I would go belt collar grip on you, Michael, and run you towards the shooter. Yeah, the, um... I love the guy's jump. Yeah. Well, he reacts to getting hit right there. Yeah, he got hit right there, low abdomen.

That sucks a big old dick. He kept them... Now, he made himself big right beforehand. So he's getting in front of the... He's staying where he's supposed to be. He's looking at the threat area. Yep. He's in between the protectee and where all those people are, the closest threat.

You can see immediately hearing it that's... Special Agent Charges knows exactly what to do. That's a detail leader. He's pushing him in there, right? He's got a behind, he's already getting him in there behind the... They reacted super fast. They did. Like, it was a varsity-level reaction.

And crazy, he's still almost. Oh, you could see the guy's pistol right there. Yeah. There's the shooter right there in the lower hands. That's Hinkley right there. Holy shit. That's point blank, basically. I was going to say, what do you think that is?

10 feet? Yeah, he's a shitty shot. But the, but he... So, okay, modern, modern thoughts on how this happened. Like, how do you guys prevent... shit like this from happening. Obviously, nobody's getting that close. If we get to this point, if we get to this point, we failed anyway. Yeah. So it's like, um, nowadays, there's so much more prep that goes into. That's what I'm talking, when you talk about the Kennedy assassination,

when we talk about the attempt on, on, on, on Reagan, it's really, it's night and day from what we have now. It's like, you know, it's like saying that a, a model T is the same thing as a, as a, as a Corvette or something. In theory, they are, you know, they're both vehicles. They're both vehicles. They're both different things. So nowadays, God, such a good reaction from that guy's stuffing him in the car. Here's what's great. When he gets on top of there, he's feeling him for wounds. He's telling the driver, go to GW, going to GW Hospital.

Oh, that was just his initial call. That was his initial call. Get the GW, get to GW. And so even back then, they would have preparation. So now what's changed also since this time is now when there's a visitor, there's always an agent at the hospitals. We'll have an agent waiting. There wasn't an agent there. So what happened was.

Probably with blood and all sorts of stuff. Well, here's what happens. They call GW Hospital. GW Hospital thinks they're full of shit. They're going, yeah, the president's shot, he's coming here. No, he really is. So now we have communications with the hospitals. Well, we'll have somebody on site to make sure that communication is made.

So if there is an emergency, whether it's just a heart attack or a medical emergency or obviously something as horrible as this. Yeah. But this really changed everything because after this. You bumped out the layers. And also our methodology and the way we handle things is way different. We put so much more into it, so much more advanced work into it. that and even now, there was actually a secure garage built at this Hilton because of this incident. Was he just walking from a hotel to a car?

I didn't actually know the backstory of why he was coming outside. So I believe, so this is the Hinkley, or this, they call the Hinkley Hotel, or Hinkley Hilton, excuse me, it's a Hilton hotel there. So he was in an event there, but he's coming out to go to his car. So there's a rights to driveway to go into the hotel. So he had to walk quite a ways to get to that car. I'm just being familiar with that area. he's walking open

and obviously these people are un-macked and there's literally press you can see the boom mics and stuff so really it's just none of this has been prepped and it would never happen now it just would not happen yeah you could keep people a lot farther out

you could put them through a lot more additional screening yes and I think after this people realized also that you have to do that but yeah things changed and it's always evolving I mean now we're even paying attention

to like drones and all kinds of things oh really hazmat see that guy with the wheel gun that fucked up. He should have put it right in that guy's ear and pulled the trigger. Yeah, that would have been, maybe he didn't. He must not have known where he was, I'm guessing. This is when he returned, obviously. Yeah. But, yeah, so, yeah, things are different now. Okay. Don't think you're going to get away on the Kennedy assassination.

Okay. And also, just from just, just to satisfy my legal department. Yeah. This, everything I'm saying that's not represented the U.S. Secret Service, they do not endorse this wonderful. thriller. Everything that I say is endorsed by the Secret Service. So we're going to. I'm doing the legal team as solid here and myself a solid. As somebody who understands ballistics. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think the odds are that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? Have you ever been? I've been there. I grew up in a Dallas area. It's a very small. I didn't realize how short. It's very short. Like compressed, you know, because there's, is there still a fucking X on the ground there? I feel like

I don't think so. That would be pretty fucked up. There's something, so I was driving. There's probably some marker on the side of the road. There's a marker there that caught my attention because I actually didn't realize, I think I was in the back of an Uber. Yeah. And we were driving through.

And it was either the Uber driver said something or I noticed that there was an indication. The fucking observatories right there. Yeah. Right? And you're like, okay, that's not super far shot. Yeah. Grassy knoll looks pretty money, though. It looks really, it looks like a really far shot.

It's not. No, but you see, that's not. when you go there it's super compressed yeah it's like almost like watching um yeah it's almost like watching it's almost like a studio if you watch a studio you think it's much bigger yes in video and then you get to it and it's much smaller so it's like yeah here right here now i'm just going warn you because if you want me to entertain the uh i'm just curious what your thoughts are how do you talk about it inside of the secret service how is the kennedy assassination well discussed it's well frankly it's it's not discussed greatly uh it's it's it's probably it's discussed

during like the initial training when they're new. Yeah. Obviously and all those. You're like, hey, don't do this? Yeah. Yeah, this is not how we do it. Fucking convertible, broad daylight. Yeah.

That's not awesome. That's not ideal. High ground issues all over the place. We're going to do a slow turn. Yeah. That's right. They did, right? They came and they made.

Yeah, they're coming from down there. Houston making a turn. And so they're going really slow. So he knew. Also, if I'm not mistaken, I believe the motorcade routes were in the newspaper, if I'm not mistaken. Super smart. I could be wrong about that.

Yeah. I think they were because that's why people were lining the streets. Yes, that's why people were lining the streets. And that's why he knew he got up into the building that he could get down to that he could make a... You ever been there, Michael? Slow shot. Not here. Uh-uh.

Have you ever actually been out of Montana? Yeah. No, you haven't. Yes, I have. Where have you been? Tennessee, Texas, California, D.C., Alaska. Where's Michael from? Are we going to have a Michael bio?

He's here. He's from here. Okay. Yeah, the last. Yeah, he's moved to Maine. Last half of my life. He's moving to Maine pretty soon. Okay.

He thinks. No, I'm not. Just waiting for the Michael spin off from the, you know, that's, damn, freeze frame on the gray matter being exposed. That's a rough one. Yeah. You know, it's the, I try not to be a conspiracy theorist. And again, I'm not an expert at any of this. The trajectory that that one bullet would have had to take.

Yeah. You know, like, fuck me. I said, okay, Jack Carr was a sniper, right? Have you asked him about this? I was a sniper, too. Oh, yeah, I didn't know you were a sniper. Yeah, I apologize. That's okay.

It's, I mean, I have shot through people plenty of times. Yeah. You know, a torso shot with like a 300 Wimag will penetrate. You'll see Splash behind the person. Yeah. A head shot, it's going to exit on a 300 Wimag for sure, but it takes, in my experience it takes a more extreme angle generally when it does and I guess you could see splash but it never does a fucking 180 right like it doesn't go through yeah and then like do a left

and then a right hand turn yeah it also deforms as it hits like they're designed to deform yeah well you think this round though back then would be different I don't know and I don't enough about it let's say the round so it was a six five by fifty was the round. And I don't know what that. 65 by 52. I know it was, I mean, it was a bolt action rifle. Carcano model 38.

Okay. Bolt action rifle. I mean, so let's say it was, even if it's a modern day round, right? Let's say it's a modern day round back then. It doesn't change the fact that the supposed trajectory moved all over the place. Yeah.

And that they found this round like unmangled, but it would have gone off of bone and through bone. There's a point of chance. is like I see why people have conspiracy theories regarding this. And my problem is I'm predisposed and I always take the simplest. I don't think the I'm not a big conspiracy theory. Yes. Look at it.

So this is the round they say that went through like three people. Yeah. Perfectly intact. Yeah. That doesn't seem likely. I mean, I'm no expert, but no, I've seen some. I've seen this stuff. I'm not an expert in ballistics.

Yeah. But I am an expert at shooting people. Yes. And I have never fucking seen around like that before. It's ridiculous. And again, here's the question. Mark, and you have to answer this truthfully. What are the odds that the Secret Service was involved in the assassination?

Zero percent. That's such a Bush answer. You're fucking. I'm company. Look at his camera. Zero percent. Zero percent. Okay.

I've heard, well, I mean, the grassy. If you noticed it all the movies, too, it's always like a secret. service agent. It's always the undercover secret service guy. It's the Manchurian candidate. Yeah, well, it's just like in, like an Air Force one. It's always the Secret Service guy. I mean, the window would be a great position

to shoot from, right? Because they are traveling away from you, but they're not moving laterally. So you're, you know, it's way easier to track. And then honestly, the grassy Knoll would put him into a fucking L. ambush, which is textbook. Yeah. But it's a much easier. Obviously, the shot came from

the depository building, though. shots did come from there for sure What's your theory? So my understanding is that Oswald was not like some incredible marksman It wasn't a very far shot Like it was actually If you'd ever been Michael you should go It's interesting to sit there

Because I'm pretty sure it is marked where his The fatal shot was It's possible I'm not yeah You can look up at the window and you're like Oh fuck that's not that far But shooting through Can you pull up a picture of his rifle? I'm pretty sure it had a scope on it.

Because. I think it did too. So if you shoot, rack around out again, shoot back in, doing all of that without losing your sight picture, being able to track the target. Not impossible, but it's like it's also not the easiest, right? So every shot he's going to take, he's going to have to rack with his right hand. Yeah. Bring the bolt all the way to the rear to eject it. Bring it forward while tracking a moving target.

Again, what was in this favor is that it was just going away. So it's probably just a little bit of an elevation game. Yeah. Not impossible. but if you were to set that up with like a textbook L. Ambush, you would put people on the grassy knoll. Yeah. So you have the long access. Yeah.

I know you're saying. Yeah. Absolutely. So it would have been four shots and eight seconds. Which is in and of itself not crazy. Yeah. From that distance. Assuming who you are, it's again.

So this is, if you took the best marksman in the world, they'd be able to do that with this tool, right? Because this is just a tool and largely it's going to be reliant on the skill level. I just don't know if Oswald would have been capable of that. Yeah. impossible? I don't think so. I don't think it's impossible at all. Could he've gotten fucking luckiest he's ever been in his life? It's also like the way he was taken out was that's the thing that kind of is weird when Ruby. Didn't they also announce when he was going to be like walked out of the police station as well? That's the thing that if there's

something that makes me question that it's something like that. That's weird. It's not like, I mean, and also the background of Ruby who shot him was questionable to say the least. I believe there were ties into the mafia as well. There's all kinds of nonsense there. So like I said, I'm not a big conspiracy theorist guy. I don't really to I haven't really dived into this, but I don't know if there's necessarily a lot of value in, I would hope at some point, somebody fucking somewhere.

Yeah. This is in the president's book. Yeah. I, you know, I met, national treasure chill. In the video, Clint Hills, the Secret Service Agency, you see climbing on the back of, I've met him before. And he wrote a book in some things too. Like, he knew the first lady really well back to the first lady, people watching that video,

she's grabbing the back of his fucking head. She's grabbing, yeah, like brain matter. Yeah, she's picking up pieces. I mean, you can see his head just detonating. God, who fucking knows? Yeah. I feel like there's a good chance it was a secret service conspiracy. 32% chance.

It'd be dramatic if I took my headphones off and slammed it down and stormed out of here. If you want to. And then you're like, sweet. I can't the rest of my afternoon. Michael, we got those motherfuckers. It's on tape. Really like a full-on Mori Povich and just walk out. So they don't talk about that much inside of this.

Secret Service. No, we do, but it's just, it's not like a daily, you know, it's not something Yeah, I get it. I mean, like during training, they do study that, like for new agents or things like that, presumably still. I mean, they go over a lot of the, even the attempted stuff on Ford and stuff. Yeah. I mean, in the modern era, would they ever, well, I don't even know if the Secret Service

would have the authority to stop them, but can a president even say anymore like, hey, I want a convertible? It's just a fucking hard no. They're in the bubble, right? Yeah, well, we have what we have. I don't think a president would ever do that. Yeah. I mean, there's some lessons to be learned from that one for sure.

And there's going to be instances where I think presidents will ask to do something. And it's not so much a hard no for its security-wise. It doesn't happen very often because it's so controlled, their schedule and everything. It won't be a hard know so much as, you know, they're going to explain why that's a bad idea. And of course, we have the military with us too. military, the White House, the White House folks. What's the craziest thing you've ever heard of a protectee or a president asking the Secret Service to do?

I wasn't there for this one, but I heard about it. Like, I want to go wing walking on an airplane with Tom Cruise. There was one overseas where there was a request. This is by one of the bigger, a more important, let's say, it was the president, but a protectee. And they wanted to go to a refugee camp. I think this was near the Syrian border or something. And like I said, I heard this from other people.

I wasn't on the trip. And, you know, they had a planned trip in that area. And, of course, under the circumstances, it was very well planned. A high-risk situation anyway. Yeah. Lots of military help. And then it was, I want to go to the refugee camp. And I can't imagine the reaction.

But I think basically what you have to do is go to the protectee. the people and it's the military folks on the white house military office it's our folks because a lot of the evacuation and other issues that we deal with the military has a huge part of that obviously um and it and you just explain to them why you may lay out in detail why this is a terrible idea and that you know basically we can't ensure that we can keep you safe in this situation actually we think it's a really bad situation to put you in and be irresponsible you know basically have to explain that to them. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know, because like I said, I don't think people have ever been in that situation where, and I could be wrong, obviously, I wasn't the special agent in charge of the vice president's detail, the president's detail. You know, if you had one of them here, they may tell you something different, you know, like they may be privy to a situation like that that never got down to somebody like me. But I think most of the presidents, they understand. I mean, they understand the threat against them. Yeah.

So I don't think you, I would be surprised if there was ever a moment where that happened in a real serious manner. Because there was, well, back in the day, back in the 90s, Clinton, and I heard stories that this was before me, where Clinton used to jog on the mall. Yeah. White House Mall. And there was information of a person that was waiting for him there and they convinced him he started jogging on the South Lawn after that. You know, and think about the president jogging in the White House law around the South, on the national mall now is just bonkers. It's unheard of, but back then at some point, and not that long ago, really. Yeah, it was a couple decades ago.

Yeah, so like I said, things change. Maybe Monica Lewinsky was hiding behind a tree. You know what I mean? Was he really? No comment. Jogging. No comment. No comment.

Yeah. Watch the Secret Service guy getting uncomfortable. Yeah. It's like, look at what? Once again, these are my views and my views only do not represent the U.S. Secret Service. How could Clinton get away with the activities with Monica Lewinsky without being observed by the Secret Service? I wasn't there. I didn't get hired until 2001. Yeah, but you know how this fucking system works, don't you?

Michael's like, yes, real questions. No, we're getting there. Yeah. I do not know. Is it, how often is the president, fuck. And obviously, speak broadly if you need to. Yeah. How often is the president not observed by the Secret Service? I mean, obviously, there's, like, they're not, like, hanging out.

Well, I don't fucking know. Maybe they are hanging out in his bedroom. But, like, if he's working in the Oval Office, I'm assuming there's not a guy in there with him, right? Because the building is, in fact, secure. Yeah, the whole thing's secure. So, no, and also they got to do things on the around. So you're not. Because you're in such a huge bubble with that infrastructure.

Yeah, we have such a big bubble. And we have such a secure perimeter. Yeah. You don't have to be on top of them constantly. And even when it comes to protection, physical protection, even if he's outside of there, there's times there's still human beings and indeed privacy. And plus they have other issues. They're meetings and things they're doing. It just depends on the situation.

But yeah, if he's in the Oval Office with his advisors or guests or whatever, there's not. Now, if they have like outside guests, like let's say he has, I don't know, the Boy Scouts, the Eagle Scouts. If Michael goes to visit, you know. Yeah, we're going to have something in there and we're working tight. Guys just going to be sitting there just like constantly indexing his shit. Just wait for Michael. He doesn't wait for him to make an effortive movement. Yeah.

But, yeah, the... What do you think the odds are that the Secret Service, when you weren't working for them and weren't involved in this directly, didn't know that that shit was happening? You're just going to keep pushing this. I'm just curious. I don't know. I don't, honest to God, I could totally see...

No, I don't think they did. Honest to God. Well, if you look back at, like, Kennedy, You know, the stories of him. That was a little different time. Apparently, he was laying pipe all over the White House. That was a different time and place. That was a different time and place.

For the stuff I've heard on it, like, if you watch some of the shows about how that went down, even the press score knew what was going on. Like, the press score knew about that now. Yeah. They're not covered. Yeah, apparently it was that open secret. He would fuck anything that walked. Well, the press score back down was probably all guys.

100% it was all. All heavily smoking. Yeah. You know, they're probably blowing a 0.05 midday. I mean, they just didn't care. I'm not going to judge it. I'm not going to judge it. No, this is a judgment-free zone. But, you know, they didn't care from everything I've heard.

So I thought, I could totally see how the Secret Service wouldn't know anything about that. Honest to God. That's a good answer. Like I said, you're not around them 24-7. Yeah. You see them a lot, you know, around them a lot, but you're not right on top of them. They have some privacy. As they should.

Yeah. Yeah, as they should. And any of the, what the fuck do we call it, PSD, protective security detail. And a lot of this is like in transit. Like I was on the cars I detail the first time I was over in Afghanistan. And you get the guy to his office and then you're out of the office, but you're kind of like around. They can move around like their bathrooms and all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely.

You got to get freedom. You can't. And the White House is already kind of a fishbowl anyway. It's not that big. It's fucking tiny. Yes. A lot of people also confuse the, like, because they see on TV the Capitol building. Yeah.

They're like, that's the White House. Like, no. Yeah. That's not the White House. No. No. No, it's not even close. Yeah.

It's not a big building. and so I can imagine if you're there that's a reason why when people like crap on the presidents like whether Bush going to Crawford

or even Biden going to Delaware or Obama going to you know to Hawaii or wherever Martha's Vineyard to get out I don't blame them

or when people or when they crap on them for for golfing it's like you guys don't understand what they're on they're 24 7

on this job it's always the other side if it's but the Democrats didn't mind Obama do our thing the Republican would crap and then that's always the way yeah it's always the bush so that kind of nonsense i totally

see why being on the inside i can see why they want to do that i mean if i was i would every other weekend i'd be gone or up to camp david or something i'll be honest with you i don't know why anybody wants that job it is can you imagine the fucking responsibility and like you said yeah there's also the performative aspect like you don't i don't care about people's politics but like i'm i don't want to see biden trip up the fucking stairs anymore you know like every time any microscopic things and I'm using that as an example I think almost about every

let's see Bush threw up at a dinner with the Japanese Prime Minister that was money Bush Jr., do you ever seen that video where he's dodging shoes that motherfucker's got moves

He's got some serious reaction to him Have you seen that one Michael? Yeah He's got fucking moves At that time I think I was a brand new agent still in Chicago and I remember seeing that going It's like

I go the first thing in my mind is are we going to start make people take off their shoes and move at their presidential events Is that what's going to happen are we going are we going that far do you need to though because that guy was like he gave like a little shuck and jive it was also yeah he yeah in the look on his face like his reaction when he came back he didn't give a shit i think he continued with the speech or whatever he was doing yeah but

but everything that they do is so publicly scrutinized yeah can you imagine yeah it really exhaustion involved oh fuck yeah well he was i mean bush took good care of himself look at that shit he's an athlete he lit like how how fast do you think the secret service was on that shoe chucker yeah I would imagine really because you would have had somebody behind them and stuff look at this though like the first one he jukes well the other one he's just like it's a shoe yeah that was the second one he gets an assist from the president of yeah and this is after I think the shoes were thrown he's like yeah we're good yeah we're totally fucking good here yeah Nope, there comes

Not even close President of a country Just getting footwear hucked at him Fucking awesome I was like Yeah, I'm sure they were all over him Yeah Here's my guess is

What do you do? You make people come in barefoot You know, okay he got those Away fast Those shoes came off at the same time There's no way Yeah And the second one's a little off

He may have gone up With his offhand On the second one Like you're probably gonna go You're probably gonna go With your strong arm first right?

Yeah. If you're throwing a shoe at somebody. Your first, the best chance of hitting is going to be the first one out of the gate. For sure.

So you go with that and then you know you're going to get mugged in a second. So you're just, now you're just you're just, you're just throwing and praying that it hits your target.

It is an interesting thought exercise from those responsible for protecting them. It's like, okay, now it's barefoot only because there's been a, you can't do that to people.

It's the same thing in all government. It's a very reactionary. to, you know, everything's like, oh, that's a problem we didn't see, we've got to fix it. And once again, going back to the other stuff, the reason I think we're doing better now, and we're not perfect, obviously, like no other place in government or anywhere else, but it's like, we're thinking forward better than we ever have, I think. And, you know, like, the drone thing, I think is one of those things, hazmat stuff. By the drones, you mean you guys are just aware that they're out there?

Well, they have countermeasures. I don't know, not aware of all of them, but I'm not aware of all of them. of some that we can't talk about, but there are countermeasures because, you know, you see that sort of thing becoming an issue. For sure. You have to take down all that stuff into account. And, you know, everything for medical, biochemical, I mean, and that's, like I said, going back to the Reagan years or even further back to the 60s, it's just not the same thing.

And it's, you know, you hope, or even like when terrorism became a bigger issue, of course, that becomes a bigger concern, you know, is these foreign groups and things like that. because the years of, you know, for a while you're thinking of the single shooter, you know, all the way from 1865 to 1981. So, and now that's changed. And now that's still an issue, but that's a relatively easy issue. That's the only problem we have. That one you can fix.

Yeah, it's a linear threat. Pretty easy. But now you have much more sophisticated things out there, obviously. And so we have to be working to make sure that, and working with partners outside to make sure that that's being done. And that's how you compartmentalize our responsibility. So you have a whole protective plan in place. And that's why so much work goes in. That's why I said earlier, if it gets to the point of what happened in front of the Hilton with Reagan, we've already lost. We've already lost. If it gets to that point, that's no wind. Even if it comes away unscathed,

that's not a wind. That's not good. And we had to fix that. And fortunately, since then, you know, knock on wood, that hasn't happened. But there's going to be attempts. It's just a matter their time. And, yeah, so it's just about trying to stay on top of that shit, you know, and that's, and, you know, and you're always worried too. I think, overall, you're worried about what are we not thinking of, you know, what is, what things are contingencies or issues are we not addressing? And that's something that's constantly being, you know, thought about.

And hopefully we're, I think we're on top of that stuff, but sometimes you don't know until it happens. Like the shoe. Like no one planned on the shoe. I was impressed when I saw that. I was like, fuck yeah. He's a good athlete. He took care of himself, which is a lot easier.

If the president takes care of himself, at least takes some concerns off of your hands. At least you know health-wise that. I don't know if Biden would have been able to dodge that shoe. I wasn't conjecture on that. I'm not quite common on it. And again, I don't have, I'm not judging anybody anyway. I do think if you're in your mid-80s, you probably shouldn't be responsible for a lot other than actually shitting on a toilet as opposed to in your pants.

He's elected. You elect them, we protect him. That's true. What's traveling on Air Force One? It's good. It's actually when... Is it a good good food? Very good, actually.

And you might as well eat it because you're already paid for it. So we have an account and stuff. You have to pay for the food on Air Force One? What the fuck? I think it's the White House mess that does the food on Air Force One, the Navy mess. So that's just how it works. So there's no free lunches here, Andy. You're a government employee on a government airplane.

They're not feeding you for free. Now, back in the day, that's trash. What's that? I said, that's trash. You know how it is. You know it's going to be a budget thing, probably. I guess. You know, some other, I don't know who pays in for the food.

Yeah. They didn't know, hey, we're not going to pay those. We're not going to feed them for free. It's probably something like that. I don't know. I'm just pulling that out of, you know. Yeah. But, yeah, it's not.

I mean, it's cool. I mean, the cool thing about it is, like, being just like, a suburban cop for five years, and then you find yourself on, I mean, even when you first go to the White House on presence detail, you're like, so I can go anywhere I want? Can you feel like you're doing something wrong? Can you?

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, but just even like being the other, I mean, just being a new guy. When you first start, they try to, you know, they're kind of breaking you in, getting used to, getting familiar with the lay of the land. Obviously, your responsibilities aren't nearly as much as you continue your time there.

But I think everybody has that a little bit where you're like, now that goes away, but at first it's like, so I can walk right past the Oval and I can open this door and I can, okay. And then it's the same thing on the Air Force One. It's like when you first do that, I mean, and you don't want to lose that

kind of the appreciation you have for it because it is cool. I'm a suburban cop. Here I am down the road. I'm on Air Force One. You land. You're rolling up there. You see the crowds out there.

And it's kind of a cool experience because you're on the inside, they're on the outside. You have this job and you know, it's an exciting thing because you feel like, I mean, you really sense something being part of something special.

Yeah. And like I think there was a Blue Angels pilot one time. I think it was Blue Angels that said, I'm not famous, but I'm part of something famous. Which I thought was a great way of putting it. Because when people treat you really well, and you may have had experience, when people find out your Navy, see like, holy shit, that's super impressive. I correct them immediately, though. Yeah.

I think that. Yeah. Yeah, I imagine you do. I do. I'm like, no, trust me. I can teach a fucking monkey how to do what I did. But you know what I'm saying is the people that. react to you that way.

Yeah. And I agree. We aren't, you know, I'm, you know, Secret Service. I'm not anything special. I was a suburban cop. I worked hard. I got where I want, but you could have done it too. It doesn't make me anything great.

Do the, and I'm sure this varies per the protectee. Is it your job to kind of like be there but invisible? Did they ever come up and like interact with you? Does the president ever like walking down the hallway? They're like, what's up, Mark? Yeah. Well, so on a big detail, a lot of times that protect you, like the president or vice president. They know the bosses.

They didn't have a special agent charge, maybe some of the assistant well. But they don't really know, because there's so many of us. Yeah, for sure. And we all look alike, short haircuts, suits. So they'll get to know some of them, but they'll recognize you some. Like I remember being in a stairwell, the president would go up to work out Obama, and they would say good morning or something. I'm sure when I left, because I've been there for five years, he recognized me.

He didn't know my name. Whereas in other situations, the smaller details you get to know, you can get to know that protected you really well. because it's just you, the protectee, maybe two or three other guys. But we're talking about a much smaller detail. Yeah. I was just wondering what the policy is with the secret service. You're supposed to be visible but invisible?

Well, it depends on the situation. I mean, if you, you know, we used to call it proper tension. It's like, okay, so there's times you tighten up. Usually, obviously like a rally or something like that. Yeah. But you can loosen up in different situations. I meant actually with interaction with the protectee. I was just curious if there was any policy for,

interaction. Not necessarily a policy. I mean, if you sit there and try to be all chummy with them, I think the boss is going to go, hey, shut the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, do your job, shut the fuck up. Because it's like you're not there to be his buddy. And these guys are busy. They got a job to do the president or the vice president. If they address you, address them, but you shouldn't be going up to him and going. No selfies. Other than other, yeah, no selfies are probably a bad idea. TikTok video. It's probably a bad idea. Hey, yo, come over here for a second. Throw up Some deuses. Strongly frowned upon.

Hey, Mr. President, can you see hi to my mom? You know that shit's probably happened. I haven't heard of it. Like somebody on the last day, they're like, you know what? I'm out of here anyway. I hope that God it hasn't. It has. I bet it has.

And I hope the president looked over at the boss or somebody goes, make sure that's the last day. Do something about this? Yeah. It would be something like that because they would know it's like, this is not something that should be happening. So. Yeah.

Fair enough. All right. Yeah. I mean, you got to keep a professional distance. And I think that people know that because if you don't, plus if you did do that, guess what? You'd find yourself somewhere else real fast. Oh, yeah. You're not going to be on the president's detail. Or you'll be like watching a dumpster in Iowa somewhere.

Yeah, you'll be standing post on a kitchen and holiday inn or something like that on a trip. What's the least glamorous thing that you don't think people know about the secret service? Speaking of being on a kitchen patrol or staring at a dumpster. the a lot of it's like a lot of law enforcement i mean you talk about the the brochure of shit like the air force one you know the white house um all those things are the trips and things like that going overseas uh what you people don't see is the monotony of it uh in the long hours how but just like in the military or any law enforcement it's like holidays weekends trap you know it's all that stuff standing post i mean if there's a big rally at a uh let's say at a coliseum or something like that

or let's say if he's going to the Army Navy game or anything like that. I mean, there are people out there 24 hours ahead of time, and they're holding it because they're sweeping all that area. So there's a lot that goes into it, and there's a lot of people, and as a young agent, I did a lot of that. Or I remember being on Middights at Crawford, Texas, it's pitch black out there. And you've got equipment to see through that, all that.

But, I mean, you're in the middle of nowhere, and people don't see that. That's not the part that people see. And that's probably one of the reasons why that and the travel, and a lifestyle issues. That's why sometimes attrition can be an issue because people get on the job. Now they have a top secret security clearance.

They're marketable. If you're young, ambitious, but maybe you get there and you have a family and stuff. I'm going to say it's a different story if you're single too. Yeah. No, it's totally different.

And also, like, my spouse has been great about it. And that's important because I think a lot of times there's two things I think it's like, hey, I'm from Chicago. I don't want to move from Chicago because you're going to move. And the second one is

their spouse and kids and those responsibilities if it's if the pressure to the job start putting a strain on your household you're going to make the call even if you love the job and most of the time

I mean this is my theory is that most people leave they actually like the job and they wouldn't might because we've had guys come back yeah but the job just puts it's a demanding job

I mean it just it is what it is and if you could go do something else and not have those demands and it makes mom happy and it's stuff then that's what people do. And I don't fault them for it. I don't either.

Life happens to us all. Yeah. He's got to make your decisions. Yeah. And it's incumbent upon us at his agency to recognize those difficulties. And they do. I think the leadership does, honestly, to recognize that and then to adjust to it as it is. Because the problem is the responsibilities of protection are not going away.

They're the same. We just have to have. And it doesn't matter if we have 200 people or 400 people doing a job. Obviously, you'd rather have. 400, but the job's going to get done regardless if you could if these guys got to work double time, it's going to get done. But once again, that puts strain on them and then suddenly you, you know, you're compounding the issues that might be happening, you know, outside the job. So where were you January 6th? January 6th. So my responsibility at the time, so I'm, I was in denigatory protection,

still am. My job was credentialing and identification. So basically we were getting ready for the inauguration. Okay. So you were in D.C. I was in D.C. Yeah. But I just missed that. So I was out at unit station and we were playing the arrival of the president of

the president of like Biden. And I'm just, my role was pretty, I mean, we were getting ready for the inauguration. My role is an important in this particular case, but I was there for the walkthrough. And I saw, you know, it was a pretty easy day. But it was all, you know, there was a lot of people downtown. And we were at Union Station, which is for people who don't know is real close to the capital. And so we saw all the crowd there. The crowd looked peaceful. It was a typical, you know, Trump supporter type crowd, not anything that we haven't seen a million times at rallies and things.

I drove home. So I missed it all. I drove through. And like I said, there was no indication at that time, zero that I could see of it turning the way it did. When it did turn the way it did, what's the reaction to the Secret Service at that point? You guys just go into hard lockdown? Yeah, they went in the hard lockdown big time. And once again, I wasn't at the White House, but something like that happens, and they're amping up the security level real fast. And also, remember, Vice President Pence was in the Capitol. What I knew actually, I knew the-

Shit he was, that's right. And I knew the bosses who were working that. Because when I got home and I turned on the television, and you see people storm in the capital, you're like, what the fuck is going on? Because I'm up still when I see. I literally just walked into the door, and I'm like, like Jesus Christ. And I'm like I'm getting raised so I'm like I'm

waiting for a risk I'm thinking I may be putting my shit back on not in a suit but in you know something like a vest and stuff and heading downtown I didn't know what was going to and there was a lot of contingencies in the next days afterward for that and that's the reason why also I remember the during inauguration

I mean it was it was locked the inauguration was locked down like nothing I've ever seen and and I was in response to all this but yeah Pence was in the in the Capitol and they got them out. And I actually I don't know 100% how I got amount, but I know how I would have gotten them out.

I imagine that's what they did. But, you know, once again, I'm proud of our guys for doing the right thing. Because if the news reports were right, I think Pence wanted to stay. Like, he didn't want to have that look of running from that. That was not the call for him. No, it wasn't. You get the fuck out of there. No, no. And, but I can understand

his impulse, you know, because he's like, hey, I'm going to get my job done. Not the time in place. Yeah, because it was an, unprecedented situation. And the Capitol Police, who we work with a lot, they did the best, they did the best they could. I know there's a lot of reports of stuff, but the vast, vast majority of the guys and gals there, they, you know, they held the line in a really almost an impossible situation. And I think a lot of lessons were learned from that, obviously. Once again,

it's, you know, reactionary. Yeah. It happens too often. You know, we just never see anything like that. What, in a total hypothetical, I'm just fascinated by, because the Capitol building in the White House are not right next to each other, but they're not incredibly far away. And, you know, the title of your book is Fence Jumper. Let's say that for whatever reason and pull out who they were supporting or not, a group of, a mob of Americans decides to lateral from the Capitol building to the White House. And they do start jumping the fence. At what point is the Secret Service authorized to start dumping people?

Like, is it if you cross that threshold? Okay, I have an opinion, but, you know, in law enforcement, it's more gray than there is in the military when it comes to. you don't shoot. Now, if you have... Well, it's interesting, right? Because they may not be armed, but it's like... Yes.

And we've had that happen individually. Yeah. Now fortunately... I'm talking like 40, 50 people start climbing the wall. Like, what the fuck do you do? No, I think you're justified at that point. If they're running aggressively at the White House and you have people running who are clearly looking...

So I think, in my opinion, this is just my opinion. This is not the... Yeah. This is not necessarily the Secret Services protocol. There's no set like you do this is in and you do this. You know, it's the call of, of, I mean, just like a police officer has a use of force. Continuum, yeah. Hostilized, hostile intent.

Yes, and I think you have that hostile intent. If people jump and run, I think you can make a real easy case that one guy jumped. Like we had, especially in North Fence Line, the North Fence Line is much closer to the White House. If somebody jumps in and starts hauling ass to the front door or the White House and possibly has a vest, you don't know what he has. I think you could Let's say Ideally the canines Take him down or something before that happens

It gets too far But once again If he's athletic It's not far Yeah it's really not The South Fence is way farther away Yes So there's a lot more standoff

A lot more ways to take it down To And also we have We have the response teams They're on the grounds If they respond on time So that shoot don't shoot If it got to a point though

I think you're justified Maybe not initially but it gets to a point if the guy's still coming, it's the call the officer has to make. That would be fucking tough. And it's not easy. Well, when the one jumped from the north fence line years ago, and he actually got inside, remember, into the mansion.

Didn't he encounter a female agent upon opening the front door? I will not confirm what the, I don't remember what the gendered the, I just know it got, it wasn't an agent, it was a uniformed division officer, but it was a cat guy that was off duty that got the guy inside. A lot of things were changed since then, too. Was the fucker just running around in there opening doors? No, he didn't, in fairness to us, God, Dave, my wish I didn't bring this up.

But the, no, in fairness to us, the, he didn't get very far in. Yeah. But, let's not remove the fact that he got in. No, there's no, there's no excuse. I'm not, look, I'm not making excuses for this. And no one's going to make excuses in our job for this because it's completely unacceptable.

Now, I think things were changed. I think that's just, I don't know, I don't want to speculate or speak because it would be sounding like I'm speaking for the secret service. I don't want to do that. I have the solution to this one already. You electrify, you electrify the fence. Yeah. If you touch it, you die. Well, now, the fences now are much, you're not scaling that fence now.

They've changed, the fences have, you know, the ones that were there before. Yeah. I've been there a long time. The junior agent of the day needs to go apply. Chris go to each and every bar of that fence and nobody will get over. I'm not opposed to that. Moat, whatever. Yeah.

He has to scale each individual pole and fucking Chrisco from the top down. Yeah, you want it. You're going to have to earn it. Yeah. Just sit there and the guys just watch them like vainly try the climate. I wonder, what did that person who jumped that fence and ran it? What were they trying to do? What did they think they were going to do?

I think he was just let you get it. So the White House is like a magnet for middle. For crazy. for crazy people. And so, you know, and by the way, I want to shout out to the Uniform Division. They don't get,

the agents get all the credit. The Uniform Division folks that guard the White House to do that job, have a really hard job because it is, you talk about, it can be very monotonous,

it could be long hours. But the counters, people don't realize, the counter snipers, the canines, those are all Uniform Division. Yeah. Uniform Division just scooped up

that kid not too long ago. They're like, scoot it in between. They're like, picked the kid up and brought them back to the parents. Yeah. And they do a great job, and it's a hard job.

I really underappreciated. A lot of them do come over his agents later, but they don't get the credit they deserve. And so, yeah, they're manning that fence line. And, yeah, I mean, I don't remember what I was about to say, you know. I was asking you what that person, what you think they were trying to accomplish. Oh, I don't think he knew what he was trying to accomplish. So you don't people show up, and the uniform of guys deal with it is the, they're dealing with, you know, crazy people. They drove from, like, Dayton, Ohio.

and they said the president's been talking to him, he's got something really important to tell him. He thinks he has a, you know, very crazy, far out, you know, kind of paranoid. You don't know. You weren't in the office when he was calling him? Yeah, got to hear both sides. You got to hear both sides. Fuck.

But the... I bet that happens every day. Oh, it does. I think, no, every day, multiple times a day. And we call, like, a fence jumper available on Amazon. You have fence jumpers, which are one thing. And you have, you know, gate callers. as we call them, because they'll literally go right up

to the uniform division guys and gals. And once, like I was saying, hey, I want to talk to, um, I want to talk to the president or whatever it is. And we have, you know, protective intelligence people will talk to them. Yeah. We may keep some records, you know, we may put them on record or something because

if they have, especially if like somebody that has like a, some fascination with the president or something. And then the president goes on, I don't know, he goes to Des Moines and that guy shows up. And it's doing the same thing. Yeah. You get a history of the travel. Now we're starting to see a pattern where this person is not just, they're actually being actively, you know, going, going to sites and have like a, and so we may keep a closer eye on. And they haven't done anything.

There's no, you know, there's civil rights. They haven't done anything wrong. It's an intelligence package. Yeah. But you know, yeah, it's an unusual pattern of behavior. You guys would be not doing your job if you didn't do that. And you have to. And like I said, a lot of that's mental illness and stuff like that.

I'm not a big protective intelligence guy, so I don't know a lot about that area, but that's the type of thing that concerns us, obviously. Let's help everybody out. Has anybody ever come up to the White House gate and gotten five minutes with the press? I'm going to say the answer is no. No. All right, so anybody listening, don't fucking waste your time. Just stay home.

Yeah. Stay home. It's so funny you're here on Tuesday. He's got five minutes right now. We got an election in a couple of years. You can get your time then. But like, you know, back in the day, Like back before, probably in the 1800s, I mean, you could literally picnic on the White House lawn back a long time.

Before there was even a fence probably. Yeah. It was no fence at all. It was considered it still is a national park. And the West Exec and East or West Exxat in particular, which goes right by the mansion, it was wide open up and before, I think up until about World War II. You could just drive right by it. But it was obviously a different world. And that's what, you know, things change over time.

And it's crazy to think about that now. So how long have you been a Secret Service agent or officer? So I'm a Secret Service agent. I've been doing this. And it'll be 22 years in August. You get into the end of your rope with it? I am. I have a son that's a, he's at the Corps of Cadets, actually, in Virginia Tech.

He's got, he's just finished freshman year. So we're going to do it a few more years, stick at D.C. And overall, I like the job. It's, you know, there's times as you get older or two where you're like, The sleep deprivation and that kind of thing doesn't become any easier. You know, when you're having to do, you know, it's a lot easier when you're younger. Yeah, just long nights suck. Long nights.

Long duty days. Or, yeah, or long days and you've got a short change into another day. But yeah, I'm going to give it a few more years, you know, at least four more, something like that. What, do you guys get paid? I think I asked Evie this, but are you guys paid on a GS scale? Yeah. Okay. And now you can, eventually you can get to the, you get high enough into the, in the,

this won't be me by the way because up to the SES level but yeah the rest of us are on a GS scale and then there are you can make more money doing protection it's you know because you have to incentivize

like there has to be some incentive for people to do this you can't just be for the love of the game you know it's going to be because the protection takes up so much of our time and that's where you can get you know overtime and things like that

above that you know and some people you know different people gripe saying oh, it should be more, it's not enough. And obviously you're going to have that. And there's a cap on that, but I'm not getting into the weeds on it. Yeah, for sure. What do you think you're going to do when you're out when you have the chance to do kind of whatever you want to do?

Well, if my book goes well and it's picked up by Chris Pratt, they do a movie, great. We'll go with the author. But I think what's really going to happen is my wife and I, when our son's out of school, we'd like to get back to the middle of the country. That's kind of where we are from. Whether it's, you know, my brother lives in Denver or Kansas City again. And maybe, you know, a lot of people go to corporate security and different private sector jobs. You know, because the thing is I'm done. I'll be in my, you know, I turned 50 this fall.

I'm not going to be very old. So, you know, that's the 50 is super old. Okay. Well, it feels that. I was going to try to, I thought 50 was a new 40s. Am I wrong about that? Like if you were to think of where the Grim Reaper is for you, he's like one step behind you. Yeah.

He might even be like, you never know. See, I was hoping you to agree with me. So much for that theory. Well, okay, yeah. Do you feel young? No. No, I feel fine, but it's like I was a joke this morning I worked out. I got and I realized the elevation is a little higher.

But I also noticed that I'm getting to the age where walking is becoming exercise. I used to make fun of those people. Yeah. Yeah. And so it becomes a trot to a walk and then it goes my knee hurts. And then it becomes a trot, knee hurts walk. So. What activities do you do for fun?

golf not well but that's what I do with my son watch a lot of sports barbecue grill you eat a lot I think a lot of guys I know you're an outdoorsman I'm not a I like the

I wouldn't call myself I like being outdoors but like the people I think are outdoorsmen are like full on renaissance men yeah Cam Haynes or Cam Haynes is a little bit much anybody who runs a marathon a day and he's older to me and I see him running on there And I feel like shit.

I think he's in his mid-50s. Yeah, I know. Makes me feel really inadequate. He's climbing. He's like running up mountains and jumping on like tree stops. I'm like, I'm walking. I was walking today because I hurt my knee hurt. Yeah.

No, the guys, I think of like mountain men or Michael knows him too. It's like Nelson. It's like he's a four-season dude. Yeah. The second he can get a boat in the water, he's like river rafting and guiding and fishing. But before that, it's like he's probably. probably have bear hunting this week. He's a sheriff's officer too.

He's out here? He's out here, yeah. But he's like hunting, riding a dual sport motorcycle, or he's on a snowmobile or he's snowboarding, or in the summer months. It's just like he's guiding all sorts of shit. And somewhere in this, he works. Yeah.

I don't know how much he works. Yeah. Well, he's probably been on the job a long time. He's been on the job long enough. Yeah. I don't know how he gets as much time off as he does. Yeah. I don't know. He might, you know, maybe he waits behind the tree to give people hand jobs when they go jogging.

I don't know. I mean, that's just something that they do is. We're the judge freezing on here. Yeah, I'm not going to judge it. Whatever. It's your golf time. Whatever you want to do. But he's like a mountain man. Like he, every season he's got something to do. I really do enjoy where I live. But there are certain times where I'm like, I'll just wait for the weather to get better. And he's like, oh, fuck, I have seven activities I can do right now. Yeah. Yeah. To include jerking off other sheriff's officers so you can get time off.

You obviously know him very well. Yeah. Michael does too. A little too well. I was just going to say. I'm not going to ask. Yeah. Have you rolled with him recently, Michael?

The last time I saw it, I've never rolled with Nelson. Really? He's always not there. He was a four-stripe white belt when I started. He was the one who talked me into it. And I was there at his blue belt Iron Man, the other two people who got their blue belt that day quit. Yeah.

He's still a blue belt. That was four plus years ago. Dang. Michael's knocking on the door of his purple belt at this point. Yeah. I think you'd fuck him up. I feel like he's pretty strong. strong. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't know how the fuck we got off that. He's the, he's like the, he truly is though. I love him to death. I give him a lot of shit, but he like he's a Renaissance man in Montana. Like, yeah, he's the dude who'll be in his fucking 80s smoking an ivory handle pipe talking about the fucking legendary stories all from Western states. Yeah. You're like,

yeah, it's going to sound like something of like a book. He's already got those. Yeah. He's always not familiar with him. Doing something. So, huh. Is he, is he big, is he big on social media too no no no not all okay complete fucking idiot when it comes to that stuff yeah i was gonna say he could probably monetize that he's not gonna monetize shit yeah no too busy i could see him doing like an only fans taking pictures of like his butthole and feet you know what i mean michael like he could monetize that but i don't see him yeah do anything other than that's really funny yeah i don't know the kSO policy is on only fans but he's probably flirting with whatever policy that they have do you think you want to continue to do security when you get out? I'm always fascinated by that. And I

asked that question because the career I came from, a lot of people, they kind of find something that's like 70% of what they used to do because it's easy. Yeah. Well, I know people who've gone to, a lot of guys go to the banks and do, well, they'll get hired. I know, like, I know people who are in, like, the NBA who do security, but they do, like, larger stuff. It's not physical security. I know some people who do, like the CEO stuff, which is very demanding because obviously they're going all over the place. Yeah. And then other people find other things to do outside of this. You know, I hope the writing thing goes well, but I also know how competitive it is and how I'm being realistic about that.

Yeah. But I think something like corporate security of getting into that. And, you know what the thing is, and it's an adjustment when you see people, a lot of smart people do really well out there. But you have to adjust. I mean, the private sector is not the public sector. And we spent 20-something years in the public sector, it's an adjustment because, and you know, you're going to, you know, you're going to, you know, you've got. the job security is great. Yeah.

But then you get the private sector, you better get your shit done and we'll just throw you out. Well, in the public specter, like you're saying, the job security is great, but let's not paint the picture like it's all rainbows and gun drops.

No, it is absolutely not. Right? No, you're right. There's a cost that comes at that, but it's, you know, in the military? Yeah. Best day is the first and the 15th.

Yeah. Because I don't give a shit what's going on in the world. I get my fucking paycheck. Exactly. You know, and so that's awesome. And it's like, oh, well, if I have a heartbeat,

and I stay at every two years. I get an incremental bump or you get a cost of living allowance. It's, I hope it's the best way to describe it. I don't think it's a system that is designed to indoctrinate people. Yeah. But I think it can if you're not careful. It's just kind of laid out.

And it's laid out. I hope people can, and I'm not knocking military service or public service in any stretch, but it's laid out for the benefit of those that you are serving and not necessarily yourself. And so just remember that. that going into it. Yeah. And I think, though you're absolutely right. I agree

with that 100%. I think you have the job security, but the job is still really hard in demanding, but there's an just, I just know guys who have done it, and I know guys who've done it very, very well. And it's usually the guys you'd expect to do very, very well doing that. But you know what I'm talking about, too.

Then there's the other guys who they don't even want anything to do with that. And I can understand that, too. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's not what you're jammed. And, you know, if you just say, hey, I get in my retirement. now. I've saved up. I want something lighter. I'll just go be a starter at the golf course

and have an easy life play, a lot of golf and I may not make as much money, but I'll be able to do what I want to do. I'll see, you know, so there's no wrong answers, but I know people who have done both. I'm still, I'm looking to see what that'll be. I don't know what it'll be, but you know, we just want to get back to the middle of the country

and do that. And we only have the one kid, so once he's out of school, we're not tethered at anything. So, Yeah. We'll see what happens. What path did you actually take? We've been obviously bullshitting on all the inside assassination attempts from the Secret Service. You're waiting to just ambush me with this.

You've been waiting forever. It's like, really? I'm just kidding. If I'm honest, like all that shit came to me real time. I was like, oh, fuck. What about this one? I kind of sense that. Yeah.

What led you to the Secret Service, though, in the first place? Yeah. So I went to Benedictine College in the Texas, Kansas. Great school, played ball there. so I could get more CTE after high school. So football? Yeah. You played football, right, too?

No. My mom wouldn't sign the permission slip. Oh, really? She thought it was too dangerous. So we played in the 80s and 90s, so we just hit each other in the heads. I got done great school, got one of the stay in Kansas City, got hired by the Aletheth Police Department, which is a suburb of Kansas. Did you knew you wanted to go into the law enforcement track early on?

It was funny. When I first went, I signed up as a journalism major because I liked to write. And then I realized in about one semester, this is not for me, because I like creative writing, but I didn't like trying to write about factual crap. So I switched to criminal justice because I didn't like the idea of being in an office. I didn't really, and I really did have in my head that I eventually wanted to be a federal agent,

whether that's FBI, Secret Service, whatever. Did you have a family history of that of any kind? No, well, what's funny, the only... Well, now we do, but before my great-grandfather, who came over from Ireland, was Thomas McCormick. He moved to St. Louis, and from 1899 to 1925, he was a cop in St. Louis.

And I literally, one of my, on my desk, because I got up from one of my relatives, was a picture of family became sergeant and stuff. That was really it that I was aware of. I'm not aware of anybody else since then. Now I do have a nephew down in Ocean Springs area of Mississippi. He was a cop. But he... Not like some crazy family legacy.

No, it's not like one of these Chicago families where it's like grandpa, dad, son. It wasn't anything like that. Yeah, that's just their thing, like a fireman family or something like that. It wasn't like that. So I wanted to stay in Kansas. You got hired by Olathe, which was kind of like my, I call it my graduate school because I was kind of naive. Small town, small college, partied, had a good time. Go to Olathe PD.

And there's a great group of guys and people there. I've still attached to them. I've still close to them. I'm so far removed from them. But I remember, like, when I was with my FTA, I think it was like the first or second of week. And I was like 23 years old. And I think everybody has this, I assume everybody has this moment in the military or in law enforcement. We're like, what the fuck have I got myself in?

Because I go. Watch a little bit too much law and order, did you? Yeah. I was like, I go, I'm just went to the academy. They weren't this mean. But anyway, the, so we went on a domestic and. The old DV. Yeah.

And so I'm with my FTO. and it's a shots fire domestic thing. We get there, basically the mom and kids come out to us. The dad's inside. She said she heard shots. Anyway, we're watching the front door. He comes crawling out. He shut himself in the chest.

A suicide attempt? Yeah. I've seen it happen before where they're trying to make a point to their, I don't know what the situation was, but they're trying to make a point to their lover or spouse by shooting himself in the chest. Or maybe they just don't want to fuck up their head. Do they go like a fucking extreme angle?

I think he just went like this. this. That's not a good way to prove a point if you're not serious. That's the fucking ticker right there. I know.

I don't know what he was using but you can understand I'm 23. I'd never experienced anything like this. Yeah. So I'm like... So he comes crawling out

with a fucking chesswork. And the guys are giving they got the guns drawn. He's crawling out. And this is like a pretty nice suburban neighborhood, right? He comes crawling out and the one thing I learned

is the other cops on the scene are experienced guys calling them, you know, I'm doing, You know, I'm doing my part, but I'm not, I'm basically have my weapon drawn at them, but I'm not doing commands because there's a mild freakout going on the side.

You're trying to figure what the fuck is going on. Maybe that journalism wasn't a bad idea. So, anyway, and they're like, so they pull them out, they're checking them to make sure. And here's the thing I picked up on. I remember this because yesterday. They're asking them who shot, you know, they already call it. And then they're like, Brandonberg, cover the door. And I'm like, okay.

And then, you know, start covering the door because the door's still wide open. Just throw a few rounds in there. Yeah. You know what I mean? Just get their heads down. Yeah. Yeah. Bap, pop, we're good.

Nobody out there listening to this, do that. Fucking joking. So, anyway, the lesson I learned was, is how these experienced guys were super calm, asking what to do. They're already, because they know this guy's probably going to expire, which you did. But I just remember, I mean, I was in an apartment at this time, I literally had like a box springs and mattress on my floor. I had what would back in the day

for the people who don't know in the 90s you had a boombox They don't know do they They have no fucking idea Michael do you know what a boombox is? He's like 17 years old I don't do boom boxes What is it? It's the thing you put on your shoulder It wasn't quite that mine wasn't quite that But I can afford that fanciness

You're like somebody's skating in Venice Beach In like the 70s or 80s Yeah that's what I think of Mine had a compact disc player Oh fuck yeah Yeah Michael's an old soul He knows a lot of things

about the glorious U.S. history that we grew up in. I remember laying down on my box spraying a mattress going, once again, what the fuck have I gotten myself into? But then, like I said, you start roaming. And also the other thing that I found to take away from that first year or two, you know, in my early 20s, I'm showing up with these domestics, and you have people who are in their 40s and 50s whose life is a mess. And you go in there and you've got to make a decision.

And what my FTOs did, and I still don't know those guys' names. You know, it's funny of those years. You remember their names. Yeah, for sure. Tell me, make a decision. Like, we went on one, and my FTO was like, make a decision. You know, I don't give a shit if it's a wrong decision. Just make a decision.

He was teaching me something. It's like, you can't sit here in him and Hall. I know these people are old enough to be your parents, but you've got to figure it out. And he says, and if you make a really bad decision, I'll stop you. But just make a decision. He goes, you'll probably be right. If you stick with what I've taught you and what you know and what you've seen. Well, freezing is the worst thing you could do.

You just need momentum of something. some kind. You can at least make a decision in course correct. Yeah. But it's like if you're ever on the receiving end of an ambush, if you sit there in paralysis, that's the most dangerous thing to do actually. You're actually better off making a move and, you know, technically or tactically the wrong direction and correcting from it. You're still moving. Moving target is harder to hit than a static target. Exactly. And even like with, even with like, and I always go back to sports and football a lot of times too. It's like, okay, you may make the wrong cut or something like that, fix it. You know, make another decision, but don't stop.

stop. You know, it's interesting with that story you're telling about the DV, the first one, and then the subsequent ones. I wish there was a better way that the law enforcement occupation could be portrayed. Yeah. I don't think people realize how much officers or first responders in general respond to those type of situations. It's the fucking worst.

Yeah. I did a very brief ride-along. recently. And one of the, actually the first call was a DV, alcohol involved. Always, almost always.

And it's just, you're, they're trying to do the best they can with what can only be described as a shit sandwich. And then, but then they eat that shit sandwich. And it's like, hey,

guess what? Yeah. Here's six more in your fucking computer. Yeah. And they're blacked out. You know, they're going from call to call to call some nights. And some nights,

nothing happens. The weight of that, though, and it's not even weight of that, I worry about people who, I use the analogy of a tea bag. Yeah. You know, the longer you put a tea bag into a cup of water, the darker it gets and the more that that just spreads out.

Yeah. And the people who have this as an occupation, they live in that water. And the weight of that, it's, again, everybody wants perfection at all times. Like, cops should respond perfectly. And I mean, yeah, you should always aim to do the best that you can. but I don't know how you accurately describe the impact that that has. Because at the end of the day, cool, you got a sweet Batman belt and a body cam and a vest. You take all that shit off.

You're still a human being at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. And you're still going on with the rest of your day. And it does. I think it does build up. And just like. Oh, I know for a fact it builds up.

And everybody has a different tolerance level. There's a reason why life expectancy for officers after they get out, like heart disease smokes them at a statistical rate that is shocked. Yeah, it's a joke almost within cops that they don't live long. I wondered that, so when I left after five years, I was like, how do these guys do this for 25 years? How did they do it for 30 years? And guys do. Some guys do, and some guys get spit out the other end of the meat grinder. No, you're absolutely right.

I mean, because I remember going on a call where literally we show up there. It's day shift, and we show up in a call and there's a child who's not breathing. Now, it comes up, you go there, I remember I had gotten there a little bit after some other people, and they're giving CPR this. I'm literally an infant in the living room, and I go to the dad, and I can see the dad's ashen and stuff. I go, and I ask them, I go, is it, does he have a condition? He did. They knew this was going to happen. Yeah, it doesn't make it any easier.

No, it doesn't make any easier. And you have six hours left in your shift. You leave that call and you park and you ask somebody, or you ask someone of the other guys, hey, you want 21, you meet somewhere. You go, hey, dude, are you all right? Are you good? Because, like I said, even just the five years I did it, I can remember that like it was yesterday. And that's, and that was just one call. You know, that was literally one call and one shift.

So now you times that somebody who's five five. They've had 25 years of doing that. Yeah. Scraping up families off roads and accidents. Yes, accidents. When I hear about accidents or I hear about those type of things, yet people don't realize these are happening all the time. Even the people who are oblivious to all this, you live in the suburbs. Oh, it's safe here, and they think the cops are just there to harass.

Or they're nice. There are cops who are our friends and everything's fine. They don't know what the cops are doing. They don't know they're going to domestic calls and sometimes really nice neighborhoods. It's not like all this stuff happens. All the shit doesn't happen in terrible neighborhoods. Those type of calls, and those are, as you pointed out, are dangerous calls. You don't know what you're getting into because also the people are acting irrational.

And emotions are super high. So how did you lateral from that piece? job over to the Secret Service. So back in the day, the Secret Service is still in Treasury before they went to DHS because this is pre-9-11. We worked, like I said, with those agents. I loved it. I wanted to be

a federal agent anyway. So back then, this is funny now because everything's online. Like, I literally used an electric typewriter and, like, had a packet of stuff, walked it into the Kansas City field office and gave it to them and go out, you know, this is how you start the process.

Well, back then, the the speciality in charge is like, come in my office and just talk to me. It was really informal. Now, all you wanted to do was just give me a chat because now it's a lot more formalized and how the hiring process is done. You've got like a USAgov. Jobs, whatever. Very different back then.

And what here's what, now here's the fucked up part. I went to the whole process. It's a year-long process. Of just application? Just, well, the application, no, the application, then they do a background check. Yeah. They do some testing. You do a PT test.

This is back, like I said, back in the late 90s. And there's a lot of similarities, a lot of differences. Then we do a polygraph. And the polygraph's like four and a half, five hours. I'm telling the truth. Is it a lifestyle poly or a criminal poly? Well, it's a, I don't know the difference. It basically covers everything.

It covers a lot of things lifestyle. Like it's going to cover drug use. So like security clearance polis, there's ones where they're just going to ask you like professional jobs. There's other ones where they're going to dig into your lifestyle. This is everything. This is life. This is everything from.

you know, have you committed a, have you going to act if you had been caught doing, that you weren't caught doing that if you had been would have been a felony. So let's say you. What if your answer is probably because you're not sure? Yeah, it's all yes or no. Maybe because I've done some really stupid shit. And that's the thing also. When they prep you for that, they're like, you know, yes or no. And so I'm like, well, and that's what I'm thinking in my head is like, well, that doesn't seem right.

Yeah. My answer is C. Yeah. I had the same reaction. So anyway, I passed a poly, so they hadn't convinced I was lying. I was like, God, is there something my self-subconscious? Because it wasn't like I was a Pollyanna in college, but I didn't do drugs or anything. I didn't do anything wrong.

I was just excessive. And so I passed it. They go out to the PD and one of my sergeants goes, I never had them visit the PD without the guy getting hired. So I'm feeling really good about myself. I'm like, I got this. I get a letter. and it basically said better qualified appellants got it or something like that

so I didn't get the job after going through over a year of this I'm convinced I have it so I got my hopes way up so I handled it with a lack of grace that I previously was known for and I was just like you know fuck it I went on you know I was like broke up on my girlfriend

I was just like you know whatever You just went out really grip of parking tickets fucking speeding tickets that day Nobody's getting up no discretion here pal fucking warnings for you asshole I got you for five over. Yeah. You're one mile an hour over the speed limit.

Don't worry about my radar gun. It's plus or minus three. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so long story short, this ASAC at Kansas City hits me up about six months. He goes, hey, Mark, I don't know why they didn't hire you.

I strongly urge you to reapply. Reapplied. I never heard of this happening to anybody else. Reapplied. They kind of did a background check to make sure I hadn't. Thank God during my. Yeah,

Make sure nothing changed. My meltdown, I didn't do anything stupid. But then I got hired eventually. And then I went to the Secret Service and in training at Fletsey. My second day was 9-11. How was that? It was. I feel like you guys probably didn't train much that day.

No, we didn't train for like several days after that. So we were in the classroom when it happened. And this is our second day. It was Tuesday, obviously. It was a second day. What do you do on the first day? Like paperwork? Yeah, I think it probably, shit, I don't remember.

I was 27. probably we I don't know what that we did in the first. We probably got a uniform, like almost nothing. Like an admin processing day. Orientation, things like that. This is down in the federal law enforcement training center down in Glintu. And so this in 9-11 happens and we go out or somebody walks into the classroom. It's like some plane ran into the World Trade Center.

And we're thinking like a Cessna or something. That's what I thought too. Yeah. And so we keep going. Mind you, there's an NYP, former MIPDI in there. And we're like, then it said somebody just blew up. the second or something like that and like we all go out into the hall and there's these mounted TVs and we're all you can imagine all kinds of different agencies all looking up all these

trainees and it's like it dawns on you real fast um now we were super motivated after that as you can imagine so even we though we had no classes for a few days like every we were training we were PT in like crazy because everybody was fired up um but yeah it really put a uh so once we got out and we you know we're out of training i go to chicago field office and we were busy as hell because we had picked up all kinds of protectees after 9-11 because you know how you remember how it was that it's like everybody's like what's coming next you know people young people it's funny now because I have young agents I work with who they were too young to even remember it and uh what people don't realize them was just how paranoid the country was like we were just expecting for another attack to

happen well it was such a um not that they're you know the world trainer center had been blown up from underneath before yeah there had been terrorist attacks but as far as complexity and kind of well So it's just about to say it was kind of out of left field. Looking in the rearview mirror 20 plus years, it seems like a lot of the data was there, but it wasn't filtered appropriately. So it wasn't really out of left field, but we'll say as far as like your average civilian, they went from probably never thinking about that to going, oh fuck. If that can happen.

Yeah. What else could possibly happen. Yeah. Well, yeah, everybody. Well, don't forget the threat levels. Yeah. Yeah. Dumbest fucking idea.

Today's an orange day. Everybody's just like in Starbucks. like, which one of you motherfuckers is Osama bin Laden. Like, but the guys, the guys are like, yeah, it's like, it's like mad max. The guy's got spikes coming out of his like shoulder pads. It's like, come on people. Do you remember that shit, Michael? I was one.

Yeah. See, that's, we have, we have agents. We have agents. I mean, good agents. For a couple of years, for a couple of years on all the major news networks, they would put a threat code every fucking day and talk about it. I'm not joking, dude. like today is an amber day

or they'd get intel like it would be like a red day but they would give you no other information about it basically just scaring the shit out of people they're just kind of randomly saying I guess it's red today well they would have intelligence

of some kind but they're obviously not going to share the intelligence or how they got it they'd just be like on Fox News or CNN today we're at an amber alert people just like literally just like a fucking Salman Lottin's here at subway sandwich shop with me it was so stupid It was a very strange.

Well, the thing is, we had missed, in our lifetime, we never experienced anything like that. Like that generation just like, wait a second, something that drastic from overseas. Like even after the Oklahoma City bombing, which we lost agents, because our office was in that building. Oh, that's right. So I can't remember the number, unfortunately. Did they kill that motherfucker yet? McVeigh, I don't know. Didn't he get the...

Didn't he get the... Did somebody kill him in... I hope somebody kill him in present with a dick. just fucked his face right until he died Timothy I feel like he was executed Maybe I think you're right I think he got the death penalty Oh I spelled it wrong

It says final statement So I'm guessing June 11th 2001 Was his death date Yeah so that happened in 94 if I'm not I was in college in that day Did they execute him Michael? I can see Oklahoma executing a motherfucker You don't think it would take long in Oklahoma

You wouldn't think Of course it was federal So I don't know how to take so That was definitely a federal crime Yeah that's a federal crime But I wonder if it's the state that you Commit the federal crime And it will actually execute the death sentence

Because some states don't allow for you You're just gonna get life Without the possibility of parole So I don't know that's a good question Executed by lethal injection Yeah Well I hope that they fucked that up And it was super painful

Yeah you hope there's a way to Fuck that guy Yeah I mean But remember at the time though The difference between that 9-11 At least from art I mean I remember being a college and we saw that were like, holy shit.

Once again, we hadn't seen it. Probably the closest tragedy was the challenger in my lifetime before the federal building. I watched that live at middle school. I was in sixth grade when it happened. They wheeled in the strapped TV. Yeah, on top of the roll. Yeah, they did that same thing. And they're like, well, just wheel that out.

And also, your parents are on your way to get you. Yeah, exactly. I think I was in Miss Springer's class in like sixth grade and a half. It's funny how that stuff gets stamped on you like that. I'll be honest. I remember the setup of the TV more than anything. Like it was like the classic public school. Yeah, totally.

It's like they moved the overhead projecting screen away so they could put the TV there. And when the TV comes out, it's usually like, hell yeah, we're going to be amazing. It was supposed to be awesome. It's like, you know you're either going to get a video or you knew that day. It's Challenger. And of course, it was the teacher. Oh, fuck, that's right. That's right.

Was the last name, the teacher that was on board that? Michael's like, what's this Challenger? Is this Buzz Light? You're, I know what it is. I hope it's, you don't know shit, Michael. But, yeah, that's why it was so big for the school. schools. Yeah. Because Yeah, they were putting a teacher in space.

Yeah. And of course in the 80s, there were no counselors for the children to get over their trauma. Yeah, that was a wild one. It was crazy. And how people were remembered that's crazy. Because also, it felt like, at the time it felt the shuttle program felt so invincible because they had so many successes. And then this one happens in, I think it was McCullough. Yeah, I think that's what her last name was.

I'm looking it up right now, see if we can find it. Yeah, wild. So how long is the Secret Service Academy? So you do three months down in Fletsey. That's basically a police academy for a guy who had been through a pop. It was kind of like review. And then you go to Beltsville. There's a rally training center of Beltsville, Maryland.

They do a lot of protection and other stuff. There's also investigations, but more gear to what we do specifically, not generally. So it's six months. And then you're off to your field office, start your investigative stuff, and in your phase one and in phase two protection I've had a weird career because I got done

with the presidential protection I've been staying in just protection for like 15 years that's a little unusual usually you'll go to headquarters which I'll never do frankly uh hold on

Krista McAuliffe yeah Krista McColliffe okay that's her last I know I'm just glad I got her last name correct that's her on the left far left but just tragic because it was supposed to be

kind of like a celebratory thing Yeah, it had deep ties to the educational system. So a lot of kids were sitting there watching that shit go down live. And also is I think, I don't know what, I mean, there was a lot of PR leading up to it because of her being on there. Because the shuttle, remember the shuttle launchers became really common. It seemed like. Went back in the 80s. I mean, I was a little kid, but.

Yeah. Yeah, we watched that one live, Michael. It wasn't even on like 1080P though. It was like. Yeah, I'm watching the video right now. It's pretty low quality. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was the 80s.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was like, it was like, 86. Michael. I think it was 86, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. It would have nine.

Yeah, I was, yeah, I was sixth grade. What job would you have wanted to have in the Secret Service? You never got the chance to do. Or were there any? Really not. You know, I got when I wanted. You know, when I first got the Presidential Protection Division, that was a big deal. I really wanted to do that.

It was cool. Also having a historic president, like President Obama. to protect for five years, five to half years, I guess. I got to be a supervisor on the vice presidential protection division with Pence. And I went here to do protection. I didn't go there to be non-operational. So it's been fun. And I've done other stuff, but honestly, I mean, really, really there's nothing.

I mean, the kind of assault team would have been cool. And they were great guys. And they work. I think of all the people in the Secret Service, they train hard. They have a, they're in high demand all the time. They're always getting tapped with more stuff. And as you know, it's like there's never enough. It's like there's just never, you're seeing that throughout law enforcement.

There's just agencies. If you go around the country, and it's just, you know, every agency, every law enforcement agency just needs more people. And of course, like we were talking about earlier, you need quality people because you're the law. And so you're the representative of the state. You don't want people doing stuff they shouldn't be doing. So it's a hard deal to do. Do you think that counterfeiting has gone up in volume or down in the deal? in the digital world

down I don't like I said I haven't been in investigations a long time but I just know talking to The agent Seems like a lot of people just don't use cash out

No no A lot of people We go up when you go out to the field That's or we hear about the big cases You know I'll read about the big cases That the field offices have done And the investigative sections have done It's not

Yeah it's not like we get people are I think there's a lot of overseas stuff though There's some of that kind of fuckery going on with different countries But Like I said, it's not my forte, but just anecdotally talking to the other. It's just seeing the cases they've worked. Of course, for a while, there's a lot of, you know, everything's done electronically nowadays.

Yeah. And there's still, believe it or not, there's still scams going on all over the place and those type of thing. So some of the scams that people fall for. Yeah. They worry me for their intelligence level. Yeah. And a lot of those people, too, they go for vulnerable people. They just, because they go out there and they just throw out the net and see what they catch.

Well, they wouldn't throw out the net if it didn't work to some degree. Exactly. No, you're right. Some of the stuff you see, like I see you'll get the email scams. I love it. Like, hello, good sir. I am a Jordanian prince and I have put $24 million in your account for you. I'm like, fuck, I've been waiting for this email my whole life.

They wouldn't write that shit if there weren't people that fell for it. Yeah. Well, that just did it. And it's like, how the fuck do you fall for that? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like sometimes it's older people, lonely older people, I think. Yeah, sometimes I think it is just dimlyded people.

Maybe at 80 you shouldn't get the internet anymore. Yes, that's probably true. Yeah. Or, yeah, or somebody should help you with these decisions. But that's the problem. I think people are making these decisions on their own. And, you know, human frailty, all that stuff. Yeah.

And yeah, but if you're falling for that kind of thing, I think a lot of times there's got to be something else going on. If you fall for it just for lack of intelligence, there's a real issue. You bear off out there's some other issue going on. But again, what's their return on? Like, the net they're throwing, I mean, it can't be that. Fuck, I have no idea how people create it, but they have to be getting enough response that's positive for them that they are doing it. Yeah.

No, I agree. No, it's got to be lucrative on some level. And, you know, like the stuff that's happening overseas, a lot of those guys probably don't have much money anyway. That's probably the most lucrative thing they can do. So, you know, even if a person sends over $2,000 for that guaranteed $20,000 they're going to get and then they never hear from them or whatever the case is, $2,000 for a guy in, you know, Nigeria or. somewhere, it's pretty good money. Good advice for people is don't send money to anybody. Yes.

On the internet. Yeah. Good idea. Yeah. Good idea. If you're Vindmoing somebody, you'd know well, verify that. Yeah. I heard what is getting people now is AI voice calls.

Uh-huh. Like replicating calls for help. I did hear about that. That's scary. That's super scary. That's super scary. And that's, yeah. that in that case, I guess they would have, like, for instance, if you, if my brother hit me up and it sounds just like my brother, who sounds just like me, frankly.

That would be, you'd be far more likely to fall for that. Yeah. Especially his phone number showed up or something. If Michael called me one day, it was like, Andy, somebody's going to kill me, unless you give me 500 bucks. I'd be like, kill that motherfucker, obviously, right? 500. But that would be tough, right? I don't always I'll give he's two.

I mean, the software out there, I watched the podcast. I forget, it was, it was Rogan and somebody else, but it was a multi-hour podcast that they never did. Yeah. And they were sitting there having a conversation. And it wasn't perfect. But if that's like V1 in five years and you can't tell, that's a different type of counterfeit. Well, all that stuff is scary because images and how sophisticated, it's getting, how fast it's getting. It's snowballing.

And it is scary. Like when I heard that, too, it's the same thing, especially. Would that type of counterfeit fall into this Secret Service purview? I would imagine. That's more of a scam, so I don't know. Yeah. Well, here's the thing is, I mean, there's a lot of crossover. I mean, the FBI investigates this.

It's not worth the sole agency doing these things. Yeah. And the FBI is much, much larger than we are. I mean, that's what the other thing people don't realize is that we're not very big, never have been. How many sworn? I don't know what the numbers are now, but I think back in the day, we used to always, the rule of thumb was we were always agent-wise, I think. Just agents, I think, was 3,000 to 3,300. That is smaller than I thought.

It's very small. And I don't know what the numbers. honestly, I couldn't tell you what, you know, over, because you have uniform division, the agents, of course, all the admin staff. There's also we have PSTs, which are like security technicians. A lot of those guys do drive. I mean, they're armed and they're, and they do a lot of the stuff with, like, the transportation section driving and all kinds of other things.

So there's all kinds of positions there, special officers. I think they still have special officers. They may have changed that name. But so there's a lot more people, but once again, compared to like the F-F-F-F-E. FBI and other agencies not that big. And that's why when we do, let's say when we do protection, we work really strongly with local police, military. One thing we play well with others because, A, we have to, because we do our mission.

Yeah, we're the ones coordinating all this. We're the professionals that are charged with doing this, but we have lots of help. And that's why we work really well. And I think we have great relationships with those groups because of that. I mean, it's really emphasized in our culture, frankly. It's like play well with others. We need their help. We need to build those relationships because it's...

Well, if 9-11 showed anything, it showed the vulnerability of not playing well with others. Yeah. Because like I said, in hindsight, and I don't... I'm not throwing judgment at anybody who was operating in that system 20-plus years ago. But in, you know, with the hindsight now, it's like, fuck, man. A lot of those data points were kind of there. Yeah. Well, that's the thing.

Yeah, the hindsight. And that's, you know, once again, reactionary. It goes back to that same thing. We were reacting to the mistakes. We react to. And people had the information. So much information was there. It wasn't like we were completely, we were blind to it.

It just, we didn't put the pieces together. Well, if it was anything like the SEAL team's pre-9-11, absent an enemy, we just fought each other. And by that, I mean, we were fighting for relevancy with budget. Yeah. And so because there was a limited budget, teams were focusing on, like, geographic areas in the world. They weren't sharing best practices. They weren't sharing Intel, which is fine until something happens. And then you all need to work together.

You're like, oh, shit, we don't speak the same language anymore, which can be dangerous. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and sometimes maybe being static like that, does that. It creates that issue. It's almost better to be busy, have a focus for your mission so that you don't focus on the BS, the other BS. So you've been out of for a while. Where did the idea for the book come about? Did you decide to actually put metaphorical pen to paper?

Because I know you write on a laptop. Yeah. Because you were in the coffee shop writing your second book today. So, yes. So Finch jumper came to mind. So I've been a reader. I was been a writer since I was a kid. Finch jumper came to mind.

I was like, I kind of had started to stop with some ideas for a novel. And then I'm like, I'm in the gym and going, let's start with the Secret Service agent suspended for a sex scandal in South America. So why did you just pull something directly from the headlines, though? I mean, like, you should have gone with something made up. It is made up. I mean, the fuck it is.

Well, no. It's a completely different country. It's a completely different country. But it very. But it was inspired by that. So what happens is I come up with the idea, a suspended secret service agent. He finds a kid, a wife of a senator, the senator's running for a primary election for the presidency.

Has her wife kidnapped. She escapes from the kidnappers. The secret service guy finds her. They start investigating it. And basically it's a satire. I know, are you very aware of a. Carl Heyson novels, by chance. No, not at all.

So Carl Heison, a real successful novelist writes a quirky, funny mystery set in Florida. I think he works for the Miami Herald or something. Anyway, he kind of inspired me for this, because it's a humorous political thriller. It's had great feedback. Actually, National Security Advisor,

former National Security Advisor of Robert O'Brien for Trump read it, called it the Veep meets House of Cards. It's not a bad endorsement. No, no, it was a great endorsement. And I was like, God damn, I wish I had thought that. That's a great summation.

So basically, there's a lot more to it than that. I've had the feedback's been fantastic. It ends up being, they started investigating it themselves, but then there's a metro cop. There's Russian agents. And it kind of makes fun of Washington, D.C. today in a real even-handed way. Yeah. And it's really satirical. And it's been really good.

Having been in Washington for so long, you know, it lends it some credibility. But I did my due diligence. I took it the legal. they read it. I took it to our folks with the media relations. Did they ask you to change anything? No. I mean, that's when, the one thing I'll say about the Secret Service, because I was a little nervous about that.

I mean, I'm writing this. I don't know where this is going to go. The one thing about writing fiction that I learned is it's all in your head. So I don't know what it's working. I'm putting it down. I don't know if you read it, if you would get the same reaction I want you to get or whatever. What process did you follow when you were writing?

So I had several scenes in my head initially. And so what I did is, I'm more I'm not a plot overplot it. I have ideas of where I'm going to go and then I start writing down these ideas. And I take it, I have an idea where I'm going with it, but I don't know frankly how the hell I'm going to get there quite yet.

Which to me, with writing, that's more fun. Now, I understand, I could be wrong about this. I'm a fan of Jack Carr as well. Yep. And I've read what he's done. And he's a much more of a plotter, it sounds like, where he really gets into that. But, yeah, mine is as I'm going,

but I had several scenes in my, head and and then I try to work I worked at that day but then I start creating characters I had some characters but then some characters oh this is what you know I'm thinking of my time it took me about four and a half years to ride that's what I was gonna say did you so did you write every day did you set like a word goal for yourself every day a chapter yeah so what I did is because obviously I'm not a full-time writer I'm to have this my real job of what I would do is I go and spurts sometimes but I would try to make it it got to a point where I was like treat it like a workout even if you feel like not going to the gym that day

force yourself to start writing. Some days, you might get 100 words. Other days you might get 560 words. But keep at it. Also, I found, and every writer will tell you this, is a consistency, just like a workout. Consistency is more important, really. Yeah.

You can have like a really killer workout and wait five days. I have a killer workout when you're better off just all those five days, have good workouts each day. You're actually better of having a mediocre workout each day than a huge valley in between the two. Yes, exactly. And writing's the same way because it is a muscle. And because you're using a different part of your brain as far as a writer

concerned than you would as an agent or even in the military, it's just a different thing. And I'm learning all this as I'm going. So by the time I got done, I was like, I just feel pretty good. And you met Eddie's husband. Yeah. He was the first. So I've known him for 20 years, more maybe. And he was the first one to read it.

And he goes, Mark, this is pretty fucking good. And I'm like, do you think so? because the one thing the other I've learned about doing something like this is it brings out you become a neurotic so now I understand actors and artists more because it's like you always give it to him going you're going to like it because you don't know once again I didn't know if it worked well I was going to ask you too how did you know it was done I knew what I was trying to get to so fence jumper that I had one of the ideas I had was the ending right and so I knew if I could get there but the question was how do I get there and then I started and what's funny is I got to a certain point I'm like oh because towards the end I want the I want the pace to really pick up because I'll tell you about the satire and humor but it actually gets really fast pace that's why I call it a humorous political thriller um how many total words uh 95000 words okay so and this copy is for you by the way so I mean if you I don't know if you have time you probably don't have time to read because you're busy but I got a flight tomorrow we got five hours in the Minneapolis St. Paul

airport makes a great doorstop you know paperweight now you'll I think you'll enjoy it because you got a good sense of humor and and people have said that's, I mean, I feel like it'll be very similar to Jack's novels. And by that, I mean, from somebody who comes from the world that he comes from, people probably don't realize his books are nonfiction. Yeah. But they lean heavily on very accurate descriptions of equipment. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've read the first three of his terminalist series. And I've watched the series obviously. Yeah, he gets way into it. He's a big time into the gear.

It's like fiction-esque. Yeah. And I bet you drew from a lot of your real-life experience, which would allow people, especially like his husband, right? At a chance, he's like, huh, this rings very true. Yeah, and a lot of people felt that way. And even like when a national security advisor,

O'Brien, ambassador O'Brien, it was really nice when he read it because I was like, first of all, I didn't know he'd read it. But when he did, and he told me how much he liked it, I was blown away because he's a super bright guy. Yeah, I knew he had a good sense of humor, but he really, really, really liked it. And when you hear stuff like that,

nothing for a writer makes you feel better and gives you confidence. Then you're like, okay, I have something here. And I even had a, believe I got a former special agent in charge, retired now from the Secret Service. He was a special agent in charge of PPD one time. He read it and hit me up and had a really nice compliment. And that was, you know, I was like blown away. because I had no idea he was even reading it.

So that's when writing is fun, is when people will do that and reach out to you and say, hey, what you're doing is good. You have a gift. Keep at it. So where does it go from there? So you get your 95,000 words.

You realize it's done. You pass it over to Evie's husband for a read. Yeah. And several people. Yeah. How do you find a publisher? How did you get it to? Well, that's the hard part.

And that's the shittiest part of it. You know, because at the time, I'm, you know, I'm 49 now. you know, 49 year old first time writer it took me

over a year to find so I'm trying to get a literary agent so if anybody wants a good agent out there wants to read it and so I'm available

so you're still in the process so I'm still in the process so what ends up happening it got published by a smaller publisher eventually because they like the manuscript they liked it it's a smaller publisher

so but you can still get through Amazon Barnes & Noble in those places but it's I see it is a way to get started because you only can wait so long. It's like, and then it's like, okay.

And it's, you know, the thing I've learned, I've learned a lot about the business, and it's just super competitive. There's a lot of people writing out there, and it's hard to stand out. Like I said, having my bio and stuff, just like Jack's Car's a bio. It's like that lends you credibility,

but you still got a fucking right. And you still got to be good. You can have the best bio in the world if you plop out a piece of shit, people aren't going to want to read it. It makes no fucking difference. And that's why it took so long, and it's all about revisions.

And I'm learning as I go. And my feeling on it was, I mean, that was my mantra when I was writing. It's like, if it's the worst fucking work of fiction ever, just finish it. Just finish the goddamn thing. And we'll see what happens. And so luckily, it's not the worst bit of fiction yet. So, no, I've been very encouraged, but it's only been a couple months.

But it's doing for, you know, for that period of time, for the size of publisher and for a guy who's never done this and has no real platform, it's been good. So Jack's series obviously falls around James Reeves. the protagonist What's your What's the protagonist in your book? It's James Ford Which is close But James Ford

So when I was a kid I'm not making this shit up It's in the preface So when I was a kid I would write these stories About this guy James Ford James is my middle name Ford is the last name Of my favorite actor Harrison Ford

Yep That's how I came up with the name Is that simple And so when I decided to write my first novel I was like And he was a cowboy when I was a kid Of course when I was writing that In like third grade or whatever

But when I decided to write this I got to make it James Ford. Also, it's a cool, you know, there's one syllable, syllable names, you know, James Bond, Jack, you know, it's usually these Nick Rap, all these thrillers have these kind of one syllable, first and last names that kind of punch you in the face. And so, and then Kat Sterling's, the female character in it. I've had female readers love it because of that dynamic between them because also all the characters are fucked up in this. Like he's kind of a, obviously a cad, kind of a mess, drinks too much. So you just pulled it right out of real life. Yeah, so basically, I

told you it's very realistic. So I'm saying that's what I love about Jack's novels. This is fiction. Yeah. You know, it's that kind of thing. But it's fine. I went into it.

I wanted everybody to be flawed. I'd like the kidnappers are these kind of redneck folks. The president who has a small role, you'll probably recognize he tweets in it. Weird. Wonder who that could be. Yeah. It's out there.

But once again, I did my due diligence. And that's why I was wondering what, but nothing in there. And I purposely made him a suspended agent because I didn't want him working in a capacity as a federal agent because I didn't want to get tripped up. It also made the president in a very minor role, almost a supporting role,

just almost kind of the background. It's really, of course I have a Republican senator from West Virginia, Democrat senator from California. So I kind of make fun of everything from the media to, you know, and it's funny to, what is it, like identity politics, I make fun of a little bit. But the other thing is, I tried to be even-handed so that you wouldn't know where my political links are. And I think I did that.

But what's funny about D.C. is you write something this absurd, and it is absurd in many ways. And then D.C. plays out. And it's like, it's not, it could happen. This is really plausible. I've only been to D.C. a few times. But, like, in my mind, I see D.C. as like our entire political system. Yeah. Absurd is the only term that you could use for it. Yeah. Like, at this point, I don't know if it's worth anything other than just,

making fun of. Yeah. I have concerns. Yeah. I'm really not looking for it the next presidential cycle. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get that.

And it's, you know, the thing is the secret server. We're already gearing up for that. They're already putting into place teams and things like that and doing training to prepare for the next campaign. And of course, you can imagine what a shit show. I mean, for an agent, that's when, I mean, there are some guys I know who at times, if they're able to retire and they don't know what campaigns can. They're like, this is the time to pop smoke.

I'm not doing another campaign. I don't fault, especially guys been on a long time. It's very demanding. When in the campaign process do candidates pick up secret service protection? So there's no, and once again, so there's no clear-cut way how that works. So basically, we've got the primaries coming up, obviously. Well, nobody, a lot of people are, they'll be coming up, well, I guess, early next year. So you'll start seeing Pinkpool this year.

Because Trump still has a portion of... He still has a full detail. Yeah, he's good. So he's... Same with when Hillary ran. Hillary had... Full detail, too. Full detail.

So that's actually for us kind of helpful if he's a nominee because that's, if it's somebody else, let's say some other Republican, we're going to put forward a detail, especially if they're going, you know, depending on when we pick them up. So depending on intelligence is a bunch of other issues. And you can imagine, someone else in Chicago in 2008, when Obama comes out of nowhere, super charismatic he's going to get the nomination for the Democratic nomination

But he had no detail before that? No, he was a state senator and just, he wasn't a senator very long but he was so popular because he nailed it during one of the conventions and so he was a big rising star but also he's the first African American,

legit African American with a legit chance of winning in the presidency. So obviously there was some intel so we picked him up really early. So those things, type of things. And there's, I'm not sure of all the mechanisms, but I know that

there's a lot of other people involved in... Because you couldn't do them all. It's like, holy shit. You got to wait until it narrows itself down at least a little bit. And it's funny because, yeah, and like I said, I'm not, I'm not at the table when these ideas are being floated, but I don't know, I guess I don't know what, I'd be curious to know what age, like, what candidates want Secret Service Protection and

some who may not, I want the flexibility to do whatever the fuck want to do you know because we don't screw I mean we feel we can facilitate a lot of things but I would imagine as a candidate you might have a little more flexibility without us I think it probably just just as a minute it's in a person but we also easier to move but we also make you look presidential which is kind of a nice thing we do a lot of logistics yeah which is a nice nice thing but but I don't know I don't know but hopefully we'll see what happens I mean it's going to be it's just a weird time with the partisanship and the uh the back and forth and it's a it's a hard to say how it's going to play out. But obviously we're all

curious about how it'll play out, you know? That's not the word I would use for myself. I'm fucking dreading the next presidential election. Yeah. Well, that's how, and that's how, you know, and we're hoping, and we always, you know, as the regular, you know, the guys on the ground and girls in the ground, agents like myself

are always like, yeah, we're hoping we don't pick up too many people. Because when you pick, there have been times in the past, we've picked up several. And it does, it makes a hard, because you understand every time they go somewhere, we have advanced teams and advanced agents. So you're not, it's not like we're just hopping on plane and, you know, flying somewhere blindly. We're planning ahead. So you see somebody do five campaign

stops and that's just one candidate. Now imagine, now, say you have three or four candidates. You can see how quickly, how quickly your manpower is. And it used to be detail for life, correct, for presidents? And now it's 10 years. Well, it's 10 years. I feel like that's, it's 10 years, but I think that started with Bush, but it's all it takes as a stroke of a pen, I think, from the sitting president. So I don't think realistically that it's really on paper. Smaller detail, though, right? As they get older, I'm assuming like...

There's nothing like the presidential detail. Yeah. And the vice president of VP detail is not as big. Obviously, manpower-wise is because of all the things that go with it. But it's still really large. Those are the two biggest details by far. But, you know, the president and the former president and the former president and the former first lady's both get protection.

So for life, pretty much. I mean, like I said, I'd be surprised if that changes, even though the law changed. So maybe I'm wrong because sometimes these folks have, even if they have enough money to pay for their protection, I think what's probably going to happen. This is just me speaking. Not speaking for the U.S. Secret Service. It's just my personal feeling is that it's just going to stay basically the way it was. Like you said, stroke of a pen for the sitting president can probably change a few things. Yeah.

I mean, an executive order can do a lot of things. I mean, we, you know, if there is a particular intelligence about, you know, former players in the previous administration, it doesn't take much to, to get protection from us in those cases. And so, you know, once again, wherever they tell us to go, we do it. Yeah. Yeah. What's your favorite part about the job? Well, I think it's a little bit like, I love the traveling experiences I've had. And I love the people.

I really do, especially in the big details. I was very fortunate. I had really good shifts I worked with. I came really close with people in the transportation section and then on my shift, on the lifelong friends. And I think that's the part, of course, I think anything, whether it's a football team, the SEAL teams or any organization you've been with a long time,

that's the thing that matters the most. I love the travel, but I loved being a part of it. It was kind of cool. Like I said, even at the end, when you're, burnt out and you're ready to get off the president's detail. Like I said, you're, when you land on the Air Force One and you're pulling up there in the tarmac and you see the crowds and you go out the back of Air Force One, I say it in Finch jumper, I said, I kind of describe it as go, but it's like the closest thing for me was

being the tunnel before the football game. You know, you're about to go out the tunnel and you go out there and you're part of the show to a degree because everybody's fascinated by us with their, you know, the badass sunglasses and the earpiece. You know, it's kind of a mystique to it, which is why when, if we do something wrong. It's such a big news story. And people still have that. And we get, as far as law enforcement

agency goes, I think we get treated really well because of that. Because people show up. We're not there to break up your party. We're there because we're protecting the guy you're voting for. And so we get treated, I think, pretty well by the public. So, I liked all of it. I mean, when it's all sudden done, I'll be, like my dad with a

pilot here force, a pilot for American Airlines. My dad, by the way, turns 90 this fall. My mom's 85. Hi, mom and dad. They're probably asleep by now in this podcast. I'm sure they'll listen. No, they're excited about it. But anyway, it'll be, I'll be that guy talking about his job when I'm old age.

That's what guys do, you know. Well, it's a very unique job. Yeah. I mean, I guess all jobs unique to a degree, but some of them are just not even open or available. Yeah. For people, like we described, you know, the background check in and of itself, obviously not perfect. I mean, people slide through those.

Polly is a unique one and just the proximity to a job that few people are. ever have a true understanding of yeah it's yeah for sure and that's the reason why i think of you know yeah it's it's that's the reason why there is you know our association with obviously with the president vice president uh that's why we have the reputation we have and we've been doing well for at least the last 40 years so hopefully we keep having wins and and if you want to apply there's plenty of space open so young young folks who are listening to this or interested in this go to usa jobs gov. Have fun with that process.

Yeah, have fun that process. But I hopefully know that it's a good job. And if you want to do something exciting, unique, and you want something, when you're done, when you're done with your career, that you can say with pride that you did that. You know, there's a lot of jobs, yeah, I took the easy way or whatever.

You can say with pride that I did, I did a tough job, I did a necessary job that very, very few people get to do. And not a lot of people can say that, you know, when they retire, not all people can look back and go, I did that. That's pretty, that's pretty,

fucking cool. I drove the president. That's pretty awesome. I was on Air Force One. And not a lot of people can say that. And the problem is old-time agents like myself sometimes lose sight of that. But I think most of us stick on occasionally remind ourselves, you know, we're pretty fortunate. Yeah. What is, do you do social media at all? Yeah, Instagram, it's in Brandenburg 34. And where's the 34 come from? This is so gay. I was, I was, That's my old football number in college. All right, but so it means something to you. I peaked early.

I peaked early. Did you just try doing like M. Brandenberg? Yeah. See, Mark Branden, so it's such a German name. Mark Branden is like four billion of us probably because I think everybody in Berlin's named that. But, and then if anybody wants to hit me up, I don't give, you know, I don't give a shit. Should I give it my email?

Is that cool? That's a personal choice? Yeah, I mean, I'll give it out. Stand by for dickpins. I was going to say. Maybe I should be thinking about this. Michael, you're the final vote here. You may get a lot of unwanted emails.

I mean, you guys know your audience. I feel like this audience probably wouldn't be too bad. Yeah. Seems like probably mostly mature people. Don't think about it too much. Like, just what is it? Okay. Don't think about it too much.

In Brandenburg 34, of course. Yeah. At Yahoo. That's all. Yahoo. Yeah. Really sticking with the legacy platform, huh? Hey, my, what do you got?

Like one gig, one fucking gigabyte of storage on that time? Get off my lawn. I'm not changing. I'm going until I go under, baby. Do you upgrade from your MSN.com account for that? Fuck. Yeah, my computer's in DOS. Good God.

Come on, I'll get there. As an author, yes, sir. What is the, is there a more beneficial way for people to support you, like, via one avenue or another to get your book? Is there something that benefits you more than others? Shoot.

Or is it just a matter of sales? Yeah, it's sales. I mean, so if you go on to Amazon. Amazon, you can get it, hard cover, soft cover, Kendall. You can also get on Barnes & Noble's website. You know, it doesn't have the distribution because it's a small, so you're not going to, you know, you may get it locally in a DC area. Of course, if you have food, everybody on here, like, buys it and enjoys it.

Great Beach Reed, perfect with a black rifle coffee cup. They'll have a, they'll, it'll help a lot and you'll see more distribution and they'll do better. For reviews, you mean? From reviews, sales, of course, but also reviews. and such, but sales mostly. I mean, the more you put out there, the better. Okay.

So, you know, I'm just going to keep plugging away and see what happens. And, and I'm already working on your second one. I'm working on my second one. James Ford still. He's no longer an agent, so we don't, I'll still have to clear it. Hopefully I'm done with it before I'm done with this job. I'll give it a couple years. We'll see.

Well, yeah, even if you cut your pace in half, you've got two and a half years. Yeah, I'm giving myself two years is what I've told myself. So we'll see what happens. So, but it's been awesome. I appreciate you having me able to do this and get the same. pushed. For sure, man. And it's been a great meeting you guys finally.

I've watched you guys a long time, so. Nobody gets to see Michael. Nobody watches him. You really, you need to have like a closed confessional over there or something. That's not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea. That's actually not a bad idea at all. Especially if you get like a vintage one like from an old cathedral or something.

Michael, if we got a camera that faced you, would you be willing to wear like a gimp mask all throughout the episodes? No. Would you wear, what are those like ones where you go to like the ball? It's like, oh, a masquerade. Yeah. Would you wear one of those? You could switch it up every show too.

That's what I'm saying. Like we could get really creative with it. Maybe one with like the plague doctor mask. Yeah. Another one like a big old. Like a big dong. Yeah. Like a big dong hanging off of it.

Just teasing you. Yeah, we could do that. Wetting your mouth the whole time. It's just like it's so close. He'd be over there be just over salivating the entire time. Oh, shit. That's funny. I'm willing to put a camera on you, but you have to either.

wear a masquerade mask. Who's that? There's a country western artist that doesn't... Oh, yeah, Oliver Peck. Would you wear that? I can't remember what it looks like. Let me look it up.

He's actually considering it if I like. Okay, let me look at that. Oh, maybe it's not Oliver Peck. It is all of, it's Peck is the last name for sure. What did you do, the old school? I guess he doesn't want to be famous, so he wears like one of those... It's like a straight mask. Yeah, here it is.

Hold on. Let me pull it. It's Orville Peck. Oh, it is Orville Peck. Okay. It's still... Is the Peck have to do... Oh, I see. Michael, would you wear the black one?

I don't know which one I would wear. I was not privy to this. I didn't know the Orville Peck was a thing. Dude. Is the music good? Michael. It's okay. Let's get a camera on you, but you have to wear one of these masks.

I don't even want a camera on me in the first place. It won't actually be on you because you're wearing an Orville Peck. mask. Please tell me you'll do this. If I mean, I work for you. If you really want me to do this, we can do it. It's not a matter of what I want you to do. It's a matter of what I feel like you should want to do.

It would be awesome. You don't want to be famous. Dude, you don't want to walk down the street and people like, that's fucking Michael. Yeah. You want to be like, you want some privacy. You want him to be like, hey, is that Michael? I don't know because I've never seen his face. It would be awesome too.

I mean, if he got sued by Orville Peckle. Heck. No, we can buy that shit on the... Like that the tan cowboy hat, that's what I want you to look like every episode. We'll get your recliner so you can sit back like that. Or maybe you get like a saddle. Yeah. That would be bad ass.

Fuck yeah. Like a bike... Put you on like a bike seat but with no like padding on it, just the pipe. Your ass is completely non-budging in the show. Well, we've gotten completely out of control. I want to hear from people whether or not though they feel like you... Come on, dude. For one episode, will you do Orville Peck?

One episode, yeah, I'll do it. If people like it, though, would you continue? We have to keep going. I don't know. It's a big commitment. It's a mask. Wearing a mask for two, three hours at a time. I don't know. It's a long time.

It is a long time. I don't know how you perform in that. Nothing in this world, Michael, that is easy, is worth anything. Right? You have to fucking bleed for this. No, yeah, for sure. I don't like your level of, like, not being committed at all. Well, yeah.

It's a little disappointing. I'm committed. I got a bunch of flights tomorrow. I'm ordering of so many of these masks. I flew from D.C., and if I flew for, that would be a real treat. Yeah. You'd only put, like, you could meet the guest with it off, but then you'd put it on for the show. Right.

Well, we'll all consider it. I'll get back to you on that one. Should we start with a masquerade mask so it's not like that weird? I mean, we can do that. if you order the masks, I'll pick and choose. Fuck yes. All right. I got to figure out a camera solution there that's perfect for you.

Unfortunately, I don't think we have three cameras. We do. Oh, good. Don't worry. I'll figure out the text. You can have literally your own website where it's just on him. There's no amount of money that will stand between me and this goal. You can watch Clear the Hot podcast on like to your TV, but you can go on.

Live streaming. It's just my face. It's just you the whole time. He's in control. He has the button. there with his left hand he can pick what to choose whatever wants the camera will never be on me it has to be a little bit otherwise what's the purpose of the mask people won't see my face anyways so if the camera's never on me it doesn't matter it does the mask is we just don't have the

camera set up now but if we had a mask no amount of money would keep me from getting that camera to film you with the mask you have fuck you money so to speak no but I would find it to make this happen. All right, we're doing it. We'll consider it. That could be Michael right now. Nobody knows because it's never on your face. I feel blessed.

I just feel awesome to be on the ground level. You were here when we're actually. I've been thinking like, what can we do to take the podcast to the next level? And we've actually just determined. All it took was all you did to do is get a secret service aid in here and grill him about the kid of the assassination. Boom.

And here we are somehow. Two hours later. See the one in the black where you can see his chin, that's where he just takes the mask. That little tassels and goes over his ears with him. Very Batman. Yeah. Fuck, yeah.

Gimpy. Yeah, maybe. We'll see. No, we won't. Fuck, yeah. I'm so pumped. I'm Michael. Summer 20203 is going to be a vibe in here.

It's going to be so amazing. I cannot wait. You know who's going to be so mad at me about this? Leah. Yep. She'd be like, why the fuck would you make him do that? I didn't make him do shit. He put the mask on himself.

Yeah, under threat of firing I got nothing else That's a great ending to an episode That's what everybody has to look forward to We can't we can't top that That's a good crescendo Well hell yeah man Thank you for making the time to come out

Appreciate it Thanks brother Yep