Grubstakers - Episode 25: David Rubenstein, William Conway, Jr, Daniel A. D'Aniello & The Carlyle Group (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 23, 2018

This week we begin our 2 part series on The Carlyle Group. Whenever people are at war someone somewhere makes money, and from our research these 3 gentlemen stand to make a shiny penny covered in the blood of those slained for profit. Sean meant to say George Bailey instead of George Meany and he's sorry. All of this info and more right here on Grubstakers!

Welcome to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. This week we're talking about the Carlyle Group, specifically its three co-founders David Rubenstein, William Conway, and Daniel D'Analo. We're going to talk about their involvement in the defense industry, their coincidence connections to the September 11th attacks, and their major bankrolling of U.S. war on terror and foreign policy. Find out more about this bloodthirsty private equity group today on Grubstakers. they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race i am proud to be gay i am proud to be a republican you know i went to a tough school in queens and they used to beat up

the little jewish boys you know i love having the support of real billionaires 5, 4, 3, 2, soccer to me. Hey, welcome back to Grubstakers. Sean P. McCarthy here, as always, joined by... Andy Palmer. Yogi Poliwal. Steve Jeffries. And we got an exciting two-parter for you this week. Deuces. And next week.

And we're going to talk today... Dose-parter. Today we're going to talk about the Carlyle Group. And the Carlyle Group is one of, if not the largest, private equity firms in the world. And it's very interesting in that, unlike most private equity firms that are based in New York City, Carlyle Group is based in Washington, D.C. And the reason for that is they— Sean has a petty internet grudge with a guy on twitter who who's really annoying and sean sean found out that his dad works for the carlisle group so he was like

oh shit we got to take this guy down uh which was almost literally what he texted me no no don't don't cheapen my desire to talk about issues of war and peace and government corruption and all these things. His name is Connor Arpwell. Look him up. Sean went deep state and then didn't even consult us and said we're doing the Carlo group. We don't even usually meet on this day. This is a democratic institution. Look, if you're implying that this podcast is somehow about my petty Twitter beefs, I'll have you know.

No, I'm stating it outright. Yeah, we're not implying anything. We're literally calling you out. Well, here's what I'll say about this. And I don't want to belabor it for those not interested in a Democratic Socialists of America Twitter drama. Sean, none of us are interested in this. You brought it up on purpose. Except for me, because I'm attached'm attached to like every shitty internet people so like sean was like huh this guy connor arpwell's dad works

for carlisle group and i had to look up who this who the guy was and then i just got sucked into how shitty this guy is on twitter great right yeah well look the only thing that bothered me is that essentially everybody on twitter including connor arpwell was saying yes my dad works in finance that doesn't make me a bad person and it's just when you say that word finance people are like oh it's it's george meanie you're going to the carlisle group and you're getting a loan to start your small business it's not like oh yeah my dad like uh uh gave muhammad otta the training to fly the building into the tower, which is a more accurate description of what the Carlisle group does.

So, I mean, I wanted to do this episode. Yeah. It's partly out of pettiness, but also I want it to kind of hopefully explain a little bit more about the Carlisle group and what people mean when they say quote finance. And if you're wondering what Connor Arpwell's like,

that would trigger such a reaction, if this ever gets back to him, he's going to call Sean an ableist reactionary. Well, he won't be wrong, but... I don't know if the Carlyle Group only taught people how to fly planes and not land them. I don't know if that's what they did. They did provide training

for the Saudi Arabian National Guard to control the populace, let's say. SNG? Listen, Lenin had a rich dad, and if you point out that someone else has a rich dad as an argument, then you are ableist against rich dad-havers. It is true. Vladimir Lenin also donated several thousand dollars to Hillary Clinton's campaign against Bernie Sanders

and sells buttons for $8 a pop. $8 a pop? Or is it $7? I don't know. It's $3.50 for shipping, which was an unforeseen... That's a strange amount for shipping. And then $4 for a pair of buttons.

Michael Arpy is a managing director at the Carlisle Group. He's been so since 2010. And he's Connor Arpwell's father. And another thing is, like, it's fine to have a rich dad. But maybe when the fact that you're kind of changing your name to hide the fact that you have a rich dad is a little suspicious but i don't want to belabor the point i just want to say a managing director at the carlisle group has an equity stake in the carlisle group this is millions and millions of dollars net worth it's how you're able to buy a seven hundred thousand dollar condo in washington dc and i've just been like being able to buy a seven hundred thousand dollar condo in washington dc is recognized under the dsm-5 um but uh uh my point was uh there there

was another kind of uh pushback on you know internet twitter drama where they were like well a person's father doesn't matter for socialism a A person's father, you know, it's not relevant for socialism. That's what Jesus said. But clearly, this is like a liberal bastardization of socialism, because on Grubstakers, we practice jushi socialism, which means that Connor Arpwell must be punished for at least three generations for the crimes of his father. And the other point is just,

if you're going to talk about privilege or whatever else, And we dance in large groups. You do have to acknowledge wealth privilege, which is like, you know, obviously if your father made a lot of money doing 9-11, then you're going to have certain material advantages, and it's kind of disingenuous to hide that, uh,

in your advocacy. And, you know, maybe, maybe sit down and let the workers speak. You know, people, people called him a wrecker for some bullshit.

He pulled with, um, uh, Medicare for all campaign. And so he started selling buttons that said DSA wrecker. And I hope that after this, he starts selling buttons that say, my dad did 9-11. He should sell buttons that say, 9-11 phone call recipient.

But yeah, I mean, I just wanted to kind of explore what the Carlisle Group actually does. And some of the things are pretty horrifying, especially in terms of, you know, destroying unions and benefits for a lot of workers in this country, which is what all private equity has been involved in. The Carlyle Group is kind of more a military industrial complex version of it. And I just wanted to talk about that in particular. And it's totally unrelated to any uh twitter drama or um uh psychopathic uh um urges that i might have to just constantly yell at people online

yes all of this was true before sean got those psychopathic urges i'm selling the buttons you can buy my psychopathic urges buttons. It's going to be on our Patreon. But I guess let's just kind of move on to the Carlisle group, unless there's anything else on DSA Twitter drama. Whoa, Zushi socialism? What is that? Juche. Juche.

Oh, I thought we were sushi socialists. It's the North Korean version of socialism. The only true version. Socialism and the Kim family is God. Oh. Just the way Marx intended. I mean, he taught Trump during his vision. Yeah.

But so the Carlyle Group itself is, as we mentioned, a private equity firm, Washington, D.C. based, and it's heavily involved in defense. And there's a documentary that's on YouTube called The Iron Triangle. There's also a book called The Iron Triangle. And a journalist wrote about essentially the Iron Triangle being the Pentagon, Congress, and industry. And it's kind of at the confluence of the military-industrial complex where the Carlyle Group has hired George Bush Sr., James Baker, and Baker... They picked up George Bush, Bush James Baker Richard Darman is over there who was a former budget director in the White House Arthur Levitt the

former SEC chairman William Kennard the former FCC chairman but the point is essentially like Michael Lewis the the guy who wrote the big short Michael Lewis the guy who wrote the big short called this access capitalism that's his quote where essentially the Carlyle group has been big in getting particularly former Pentagon people to come into the fold after they leave government and then

both lobby and advise as to how they should invest in defense and also as we mentioned you know James Baker George H.W. Bush, these people have been very influential in helping the Carlyle Group get involved in Saudi Arabia. He also wrote Moneyball. Yes.

Access Tonight is my favorite nightly program. But I guess we should just kind of start with the early history of the Carlyle Group, and particularly we're going to focus on David Rubenstein, but there's also Danielle D'Angelo and Greg, or sorry, and... I don't have a clip for this one. Andy, every time Sean stumbles, play the clip of names.

Every time. Who the fuck are these people, Sean? Alright, so there's three particular... There's three particular people in the Carlisle Group. It's David Rubenstein, William Conway, and Daniel Dianalo. Dianalo or whatever. Fucking some Guinea name. I don't know.

Is that the catch me outside girl? But the point is, these are the three primary co-founders of the Carlisle Group, along with a guy named Steve Norris, who left in 95. And these co-founders have each been valued by Forbes at about $3 billion net worth as of July 2018. And I guess we should probably just kind of talk about David Rubenstein to begin with. Now, it all started when they realized that on-base percentages were more valuable than was previously assumed. So David Rubenstein is born in 1949 in Baltimore,

and he grows up in a modest home in Baltimore in the Jewish neighborhood. His dad was a mail sorter for the U.S. post office. His mom was a homemaker. And I did just like that Forbes gives David Rubenstein a self-made score of 9, of course, for 9-11. But so David Rubinstein, he grows up in Baltimore,

and he was interested in politics at an early age. In 75, he graduates from Duke University and then the university of chicago uh he spends two years at a corporate law firm um but then he serves as a um a counsel a lawyer for senator birch bay uh a democrat from indiana at the time and then a year later at the age of 26 this is from all right all right a year later at the age of 26 um uh rubenstein joins the carter administer no he joins the carter presidential campaign as a policy aide and then he's uh subsequently hired as a deputy um to uh president carter's domestic policy advisor and then according to the new yorker, he threw it from 76 to 80. David Rubenstein helped Carter write memos,

prepare for press conferences, and help draft the State of the Union Address. People said that while he was working at the White House, he was very shy. He didn't really talk to a lot of people. Oh. Yeah. He said anybody... He'd be a complete psycho. He's he's like oh he doesn't get the talk

i've tried to get oh into every episode by the way if you've not noticed he was uh he was notorious for when uh people criticized his uh foreign policy interventions like arming the al-qaeda in afghanistan he called them ableist. But so, yeah, so he was in the Carter White House from 70s. You know what not arming Al-Qaeda is? Reactionary. Yeah, so he's, you know, a quiet guy. Oh, and also in the White House, this is where he meets his wife, Alice Rogoff,

who we can talk about in a minute here. But they would later go on to, they separated in like, they married in... Yeah, they married in 1983. I think they actually separated in 2005 and then officially got divorced in 2017. Yeah, it's interesting because online, in some websites it says she's still his partner, even though they have now officially been divorced for over a year. But during that time that they were married they lived apart from one another. She lived in Anchorage and he lived on the

East Coast. And it's like, what type of marriage is that? Some Oleg Deripaska shit? I read that she hosted Barack Obama for a dinner. Yes, she's friends with... Obama cuck David Rubenstein. She's friends with the Obama family. Now, David, some of your opposition to the carried interest loophole closing has upset me greatly.

So I decided to assert my dominance over you. Where is your God now? She lives out in Anchorage, dominance over you. Where is your god now? She lives out in Anchorage, but she also flies Cessna, and she's crashed it more than once. She crashed it recently in, like, she avoided a

house and then hit, like, an eagle nest tree and then crashed in the water and then left unscathed, which, by the way... I will say, her defense, that's just kind of what you do with Cessnas. It's like... You fly a Cessna more than three times, you're going to crash it.

She went to David Rubenstein's flight training school for the Cessna and so she only learned how to take off and not to land. Right, right, right. I might have mentioned it already but like my grandpa died co-piloting a small plane so i'm like yeah they crash everyone that's just what happens yeah this is like a grub staker's official position yeah you never get any assessment that that well

i mean that's sad it's like i one day want to get a pilot's license and fly cessna but so uh you you guys will know when the final episode of Grubstakers is coming. As soon as Andy gets approved for his pilot license. We threw him a party when he gets his pilot license, but it's more of a going away party. We're not actually getting into the plane

with you. Oh, yeah. We'll see you after. I like the idea that she like crashed into the eagle's nest tree because she was looking for the black eagle trust fund well that's one thing the like article mentioned is that like it is a federal crime to mess with the eagle property but even in the article they're like uh we think she'll get away with this like and it should be fine wait what's the eagle they know they know bush senior uh which one the the conspiracy theory or the actual eagles? I don't... Whatever Yogi was just talking about.

Oh, she crashed her plane into like a habitat for eagles or something. Oh, an eagle habitat. An eagle nest tree is trees that eagles nest in. And she crashed part of her plane into the tree, avoiding a house, and then hit the water. And so even if she wasn't avoiding a house if she just happened to destroy an eagle nest tree it is like a federal crime because they are endangered and also they are a national bird car and so uh it is one of those things where you know like you can't you can't fuck with eagles um so yes they have a special uh exception

if you're driving a Cessna. It's bound to happen. They have a special exception if you place the calls that made sure Bush Sr. was not at the Pentagon that day. But so in 81, David Rubenstein takes this job with a mergers and acquisitions group. Mergers and acquisitions? Not quite yet. And I'm sorry, this is from a New Yorker profile. Most of my biography for David Rubenstein

comes from a New Yorker profile. It'll be up on the Tumblr. So he takes this job at a mergers and acquisitions law firm in 1981, but he feels like legal work bores him. He was apparently devastated when Reagan beat his boss, Carter, in 1980. But later, he would go very close to the Bush family, and he jokes in some joint interview he did with um uh george w bush and bill clinton that he actually almost helped right right george w bush become president because he fucked things up in the carter administration so then reagan won and george hw bush became vice president you know just like this kind of like power is incestuous um no nepotism here yes uh and so the quote he says

about this mergers and acquisitions law firm is um uh quote he says i realized i was going somewhere that wasn't going to take me where i wanted to be um which would of course be saudi arabia to uh train the secret police um but so he gets into leveraged buyout. But the first thing he does is he meets this guy, Stephen L. Norris, who would be one of the co-founders of the Carlyle Group. And Stephen Norris is a lawyer at Marriott at the time. And in 1986, Stephen Norris, again from the New Yorker, he learns of a change to federal tax code, which was initiated by Senator Ted Stevens, who was, of course, Alaska's senator, who said, you know, Internet's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes or whatever. Right, right, right.

And he was also adorably corrupt in addition to being meme worthy. But so Ted Stevens passed this thing. the internet is not a big truck it is a freezer full of two hundred thousand dollars in cash um uh ted stevens got something passed in the federal tax code which allowed alaska businesses to um basically uh in the 1984 tax bill, Alaska corporations could now sell their tax losses. So what the way it worked, and this is from the tax coach for you.com quote, let's say you're a profitable corporation and you have like a $4 million tax bill on a $10 million profit. You can find like a needy Alaskan corporation with 10 million in lawsuits losses so you pay that corporation however much it wants say two million uh for the right to take their tax

loss on your own bottom line really so then even though you didn't actually incur any uh tax law any loss that year you take on their tax losses and then you can completely write off your tax bill and so this became known this lasted from 84 to 88 or 87 and it was called the great eskimo tax scam and it was um not the the not to be confused with the uh great eskimo scandal where Congress people were caught having sex with the same interns and I gotta try them and uh you don't actually gotta hold on hold on

yes remember when Andy would take 90 years to do drops hold on keep waiting you guys remember when Palmer but so Hold on. Keep waiting. Do you guys remember when Palmer... Sorry, I'll have that queued up for next time. We should probably just have it in the drops at this point.

But so essentially where Stephen Norris and David Rubenstein first go into business is they help... Yeah, so they broker the transfer of about a billion dollars in losses in a single year, earning them $10 million in fees. This is in 1986. So they set up a business that matches companies with native Alaskan businesses that would in turn, you know, sell their losses to those companies so they could write off. And again, this is just kind of like ridiculous tax accounting scandal that that's how they made their first 10 million was they did this in 1986. But then in 1987, this loophole was closed. And so in 80s, and so what happens is Stephen Norris and David Rubenstein are meeting at the Carlisle Hotel kind of regularly in Upper East Side, New York. And this is where the name Carlisle Group comes from, you know, from the Carlyle Hotel. And as we mentioned, they want to, after this, you know, tax scam gets closed down,

they want to set up a private equity firm. But they have the idea that, you know, a lot of people at the time didn't understand that they would set it up in Washington, D.C. Because as we mentioned, you know, David Rubenstein did work in the Carter administration. He had a lot of Washington contacts because of that. And so they had the idea to, as we mentioned, access capitalism. And they would kind of come into defense later. But the entire idea with setting up the Carlyle Group in Washington, D.C. in 1987 was they would use

contacts with government to utilize private equity techniques to make a shitload of money. At the outset, we really didn't envision entirely where it might go. We saw it simply an opportunity to take advantage of Washington and the people here and the access that people had to transactions. What's great about these drops is that Sean gave me a list of all these audio clips from the documentary, and they're all just saying what Sean just said, but better. They don't stumble for 10 minutes before saying it. But yeah, no, that was Stephen Nor norris uh who was as we mentioned a co-founder of the carlisle group he left in 1995 um i believe he's a multi-multi-millionaire but

not actually a billionaire like the other two because he was bought out in 95 before the public ipo um but yes you have more than four million dollars would that make you a multi-multi-billion millionaire because a multi-millionaire that's probably like two and up. Right, right. So multiples of two. So that would be like four would be the minimum for being a multi-multi-billionaire. This is the shit you think of when you're only like in the single digits of billions. But so, yeah, as you heard Stephen Norris say in the clip, their entire idea was to make money doing what is essentially legalized bribery right like let's be clear about

excuse me what the revolving door does it's like oh you're selling access and you're hiring people who have access and you know because you understand where government procurement is going you are insider trading on government procurement and government contracts and these kinds of things. They saw a market and they decided to innovate. But so it's really with this guy, Frank Carlucci, who is Reagan's Secretary of Defense, I believe from 86 to 88, after the previous Secretary of Defense had to step down for the Iran-Contra scandal, where they were selling coke on the domestic market to help fund their murderous right-wing insurgency in Nicaragua. Imane. They're like, let's find someone who's on the level.

Gotta find someone that's on the level you're gonna find someone that's cool you know frank carlucci was setting up policies while he was in office as secretary of defense that he's now capitalizing on as chairman of carlisle group right and so the argument is that essentially while frank carlucci was secretary of defense um i believe like i said 86 88 I believe, he was set, he set up a long-term procurement system for the Pentagon where, like, whereby various companies would have, you know, long-term deals. And the argument has been made that Carlucci essentially, like, knew what companies would be coming up on Pentagon contracts that weren't publicly available knowledge. Right. Including BDM. And so, BDM. And so BDM and later United Defense.

And so as we mentioned, you know... Well, what's BDM? It's like ropes and pulleys and shit. You know, it's a lot of leather play. They had the entire contract for the U.S. Army's BDSM operations. They're like, we like bondage, we like domination. Not big on sadism, but big on masochism. So it's a bunch of people who don't want to inflict anything on anyone

else but themselves. This is a multi-billion dollar country. And they had foreknowledge. Foreplayknowledge. But no sadism. But so according to the New Yorker, BDM was Ford Aerospace's defense cult consultancy.

And so it was through BDM that they purchased United Defense, I believe, as well as Vanell, which we'll get to Vanell in a second. But so they were able to... Big Dick Energy. Right. So in the early years, Carlisle Group struggled a little bit. But with Frank Carlucci coming on board, as soon as he left the Reagan admin in 1989, and then in 1992, he becomes a chairman. So he's like a big director of the strategy all the way up to the second Iraq war. But it's really in 1991 that Carlisle Group starts hitting the big time because, of course, of the Persian Gulf War. But it's really in 1991 that Carlyle Group starts hitting the big time because,

of course, of the Persian Gulf War. So as we mentioned, Carlucci comes in in 89. And then at this point, because the Cold War is ending, a lot of defense firms are undervalued in these kinds of things. And so Carlucci advises them on which defense firms to buy up in their private equity group, including BDM. And then as soon as the 1991 Gulf War breaks out, all of these defense investments skyrocket. So the Gulf War is just amazingly good for the Carlyle Group for a variety of reasons. And particularly as well, it was because after the Gulf War, they were able to really get involved in Saudi Arabia, which would have consequential effects on lower Manhattan in about 10 years. What?

Oh, but that wheel was set into motion under Carter. Yeah, most likely. What's that Italian dude's name? Carlucci? Frank Carlucci, yes. It's crazy how that last name, like I'm sure there's plenty of people named carlucci they're decent people but it just screams corruption oh yeah carlucci uh bought homeless people turkeys he had a bolster good good reputation for for the priorities right um but so um frank carlucci uh uh gets them involved you know heavily in defense and this is mainly what carlisle group um becomes and so uh what happens

in um uh 91 of course is the persian gulf war and then after that a lot of kuwaiti and saudi elites were very grateful for the united states military intervention that of course threw saddam hussein out of kuwait uh protected saudi arabia saudi arabia was very worried that saddam hussein was going to invade them we We stopped all that. So what happens is now James Baker... And all it took was carpet bombing. Does the carpet bombing match the dreams? They unveiled their precision carpet bombing of Iraq. It was very controversial when David Rubenstein called his book,

you don't get to three billion without a highway of death or two. But so through James Baker, the third, he was in government for a long time. He was George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State. He joins the Carlyle Group when he leaves office and uh you know clinton comes in and so he probably had a lot of experience that would help them out there's nothing fishy about this yes so james baker the third um uh i don't know if we have the drop for him maybe maybe not but essentially uh the stephen norris talks about how james baker

the third's job was to set up the meetings with Saudi elites. He is the guy who got them in the room with all these Saudi elites, including eventually the bin Laden family. The bin Laden family became significant investors in Carlyle Group until controversial events forced them to part ways. But so it is just kind of an interesting thing where they became the go-to Western private equity company involved in Saudi Arabia because they were hiring all these former U.S. officials to lobby for their behalf in Saudi Arabia. And then the other part of it is it kind of gets warped where, as we've mentioned, Saudi Arabia is one of, if not the biggest state sponsors of terror, terrorism in the world. And yet, you know, Carlyle Group has all these investments over there. And they have like all these government contracts, all these

former officials working for them. So it's kind of an open question where maybe some of our kind of soft response to Saudi Arabia's funding of terrorism is related to the fact that if we were to, say, crack down on Saudi Arabia, Carlisle Group would be out a lot of money of their existing investments. So they have an interest in keeping our relationship good with, again, a genocidal dictatorship terrorist state. The Van Lund family. No, that's not it. What a tease for later. And this became a huge arena for corruption. Oh, wait, that's Saudi bribes.

OK. Oh, yes. How did I miss this one? Yeah. Well, so and the other thing that the Carlyle group starts doing in Saudi Arabia is in order to bribe Saudi officials, they start setting up companies in Saudi Arabia, which they would in turn appoint some influential Saudi, either a member of the royal family or just like a son of one of the elites.

They would appoint them as the chairman of this company. So what happens is Saudi Arabia- I do have this one. Because instead of just paying a bribe to somebody in the royal family, now you could set them up in business. Right. And you could say, well, this business is part of our offset commitment to you that goes with this arms sale. So we're going to take this son of this prince and create a

little company for him that's going to be funded by Boeing. But all Boeing's doing is recycling the money out of the arms deals. They get $9 billion. They kick some of it back. So Carlyle, I think, was brought in to try to put some legitimacy on this process. Right. And so, yeah. I like Sean agreeing with the thing that he learned this from.

That's exactly right. Yes. That was the documentary The Iron Triangle. I'd like to think that's how Sean treats his inner monologue as well. Yes, yes, these are thoughts I'm thinking, yes. But so, yeah, so Carlisle Group is, of course, selling weapons to Saudi Arabia at this point after the Gulf War

because, again, they're heavily involved in all these defense industries. And then they are kicking some of this back in the form of bribes, which are all illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But, you know, it doesn't stop you when you're this influential. But it is interesting just like how deep the Carlisle Group Saudi Arabia connection goes and how it kind of has a negative effect on U.S. foreign policy because so many vested interests are at stake. Well, it's a good thing that they're doing it so visibly because that means that they're going to get caught for all these bribes. And people are going to go to jail.

People are going to go to jail? I mean, obviously, we're not breaking the story. Everyone knows information already. And that's why we're just shedding more light to a situation that's already well lit. Well, the Foreign Corruption Act, you know, it was made for a reason. And these guys are clearly in violation. And girls. And girls.

Shout out to the ladies. The other thing they do in Saudi Arabia is through BDM, they buy a company called Vanell. Yeah, daddy. Through BDM, they buy Vanell. And as we mentioned, they later sell BDM for like a 650% profit in the 90s. But while they're running Vanell, Vanell is doing this thing where they're training Saudi Arabia's National Guard. And of course, as we mentioned, Saudi Arabia is a repressive dictatorship that regularly beheads people for uh protesting and these kinds of things so when you're actually like uh providing the training for the national guard you are of course training a uh military force that would that is used to suppress domestic insurgency and domestic

dissent yeah i don't know maybe this is fucked up but i didn't know they had a national guard was this made by vanell or did they have their own group, and then Vanell trained them? You know, it might have been set up in the 90s. Because that's something that when McCarthy mentioned it, I was like, wait, I didn't know they had a National Guard. And then part of me was like, well, I don't even know what branches of authority that they do have. Not to say that they wouldn't or shouldn't, but I just don't know.

That's great. Because National Guard seems so like, and it just feels very American, like, oh yeah, the National Guard. But then, of course, other countries have their own National Guard. Yeah. Yeah, you take two days every month.

And you can go back to, you know, not being able to do anything about the beheading. 28 days a month, you don't know what to do. Two days, you're the one chopping heads. That's probably where some of the princes will join the National Guard so they can get out of participating in the genocide in Yemen.

Take a day off. I just like the idea of two days a week you have to go shoot at women drivers. No, I'm just kidding. No, they made that legal now, because the new Prince is woke. Ladies, start your engines. But so, and also Vanell, though... Vanell...

You have no idea how much power comes with a sad trombone so bdm is their real foray into uh the uh kind of defense industry uh in the 90s in particular they get involved with saudi arabia they're helping train the uh saudi national guard but it is really um the september 11th attacks that um take car Carlisle to the next level of profitability. And there's some very suspicious things that happened with the Carlisle Group on September 11th, the day of, because... Most likely coincidences. Yes. Pure triple parentheses coincidences.

Happenstance? You never know. But so the annual investor meeting of the Carlisle Group is held on September 11, 2001 at the Washington, D.C. Ritz-Carlton. On September 11, in somewhat of a horrible coincidence, the Carlisle group was holding their annual investor meeting here in washington dc at the risk carlton hotel george persignor was at the meeting the carlisle group said that he left the night before september 11th uh and was on his way to some location in the midwest it's interesting to say the least because as as we mentioned, you know, Ben Lawton's estranged, allegedly half brother was there at this investment meeting, as well. And I talked to someone who was at the meeting. And they told me that the whole crew of Carlisle, including Frank Carlucci and James Baker and David Rubenstein, along with Shafiq bin Laden, who was a representative of the bin Laden family and their fortunes.

We're all in the same room together watching the events of September 11th take place. Right. And so it's just one of those things that's a little strange because september 11th was extremely profitable for the carlisle group so it's like you know this is not a tower seven podcast yet but the more research we do what's that dude's name sarik safif what's his name the bin laden brother that's in this room during this? I'm going to say Sariq. I know I just listened to this. What was going through Sariq's head? I bet he was...

I guarantee he was thinking, this is the safest room to be in right now. I'm a building three truther. What? That one wasn't hit by an airplane, but it was still destroyed. That's like the Hilton, I think. Oh, yeah, we talked about that really that happened

well i mean there was just a bunch of little buildings underneath the towers that were crushed oh but it was not they were not hit by planes how did they collapse all i know man is if you fold a $20 bill you can see the twin towers and they folded the other way and you see it burning you fold it the other way it's the Pentagon man it's in our money man capitalism is corruption the killing of brown people is funded by the Carlisle group just to fuck with us the Carlisle group hired a

former treasury secretary and had him do the 9-11 design on the US currency before they carried out the attacks hey hey hey trust us it's to be super cool. I don't get it. Are the buildings on fire? Trust me.

But it is like, you know, I mean, I guess when you look at any sort of... September 11th into Wingdings. It's got two airplanes, two towers, and then it says Carlisle Group, and then it shows the Star of David. Coincidence? Sean showed me this.

Sean got it tattooed on his back. It's right underneath the Iron Cross tattoo. The Heritage Not Hate tattoo. It is one of those things where you look at you know any sort of event or conspiracy theory or whatever people ask the question who benefits well uh if you're looking at 9-11 who benefits is the carlisle group and another thing uh we didn't mention yet but so frank carlucci again reagan's defense secretary and the guy who really

made the carlisle group he's since died, but he was, you know, a multimillionaire in his time. Frank Carlucci was a member of the Project for a New American Century, which you might be familiar with as a neoconservative think tank, which was putting out these policy papers advocating for essentially imposing democracy through military force, you know, invading Iraq, invading Iran, setting up functional democracies there to stabilize the region. And so it just happens, you know, this guy is, while he's there, he's also a chairman of the Carlyle Group, which has all these defense industry holdings, and would, of course, and did, of course, benefit tremendously from a massive military action. So it is, it's hard to tell where their actual genuine ideology and the profit motive begin and end for these kinds of calculations but it's just pretty horrifying to think about

oh and we mentioned you know george hw bush was there george hw bush was uh employed by the carlisle group for the uh longest time um he was their official uh female greeter all right i don't know oh because he's groping women yes that's what you're saying yeah uh so is that a thing george h gropes yeah oh yeah he's a big groper yeah george hw got me too yeah yeah i like that it's like you know when you're like on the brink of death and you're trying to like, uh, resuscitate your reputation from Iran Contra. And you're just like, well, I should,

uh, squeeze the asses of every woman who takes a picture with me. Um, after, after, uh, Barbara Bush died, I said that George H.W.

Bush was probably doing a lot of grief groping to get through it. Uh, um, but so yes, George H.W. Bush was hired. He's a monster. Well, no, he's a valued Carlisle Group employee, Andy. You know, I think the lesson we're taking away from this is when people say Bush did 9-11, the one that they're thinking of didn't do it. However. He left the meeting in the morning because he had to grope someone in the Midwest.

I've got to be there at nine o'clock to grope this woman. So George H.W. Bush, as we mentioned, his secretary of state, James Baker III, comes on after the Bush administration. He comes on to the Carlyle Group in 93. Georgeorge hw bush joins the carlisle group in 1998 and so primarily what he's doing is fundraising for them he's going to kuwait and saudi arabia to get again you know the elites of kuwait and saudi arabia to invest with the carlisle group to you know buy defense contracts from their companies these kinds of things um but he's also giving speeches on behalf... Hey, you ever want to get on the ground floor of a 9-11? He's also giving speeches on behalf of the Carlyle Group,

which allegedly he was paid about $100,000 a speech for. And then another interesting thing about George H.W. Bush's involvement is that he helps the Carlyle Group get set up in South Korea. Again, you know... George Bush Sr. is a fundraiser. He is the kind of guy who can go into Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, where they love him,

pack the house, and get these guys to open up their wallets and give money to the Carlyle Group. That's his role. But if you look over the history of this company, George Bush Sr. has clearly met with business leaders, one-ersini has clearly met with business leaders, one-on-one, met with political leaders in South Korea and in Saudi Arabia,

and that would lead one to believe that he's doing much, much more than just giving speeches for the Carlyle Group. Yeah, it's the best part about this documentary is they green-screen these people to be talking with sinister-looking conferences in the background. What, really really but then when they get to the 9-11 part they're just talking with 9-11 in the background so you can see like the the building smoking and like people jumping out as they're like well you know it is just kind of a funny coincidence it's like the idea that like george hw bush gets a lot of money for just like when he does those

speeches and packs the house he always peppers in it's great to be here and and then just like city name he does applause lines yeah yeah that's how he gets the big bucks i like to think while 9-11 is happening in that room everyone's just saying coincidence coincidence just like that's they're just repeating it to one another. No real conversations happening. It's just a lot of coincidence, coincidence, good to see a coincidence. Another funny thing is when David Rubenstein,

for his show, he has a show on Bloomberg Television, believe it or not, but he interviews various billionaires and influential people, and he did a joint interview with both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. And at one point in the interview, clinton brings up 9-11 and you can clearly see david rubinstein motioning to him to shut it up no they're gonna no more questions um it's very minor but the graphic on that rubinstein show yes he stole from larry king and i'm mad about it. The original Jew interviewer.

It was like, ever since Larry King didn't get the phone call on the morning of 9-11, they've had a beef. um but so uh uh as we mentioned you know the carlisle group regardless of how uh truther you are benefited enormously from 9-11 and uh dan brody is a journalist he wrote the book the iron triangle about the carlisle group and actually and also helped uh do the documentary the iron triangle which you've been listening to some clips from so dan brody said this in an interview did you play the sitar yes this one's called the evil doing chord it's interesting that he he criticizes the back dealing and corruption of the carlisle group without disclosing that his brother-in-law played sitar for his documentary um so uh dan brody says this that one of the carlisle group's companies scored the contract to clean up the Senate building after the anthrax scare. If you remember, you know, anthrax was like the big scare issue right after 9-11.

The band, right? Right. They thought there were all these anthrax, you know, people getting mailed anthrax. I'm glad they got to the bottom of that. But, yeah, so the Carlisle Group, according to Dan Brody, has investments, you know, in aerospace, defense, obviously, and biological cleanup. And they also have a lot of companies or have several companies that do security background checks for, you know, government employees and airline employees and stuff. Flight training. Yeah. And all of these things, you know, skyrocketed after 9-11.

So this was hugely financially beneficial. And so, of course, you know. Wow, they own all that shit? Basically, if there's terror in the world, the Carlyle Group gets a cut of it? Yeah. I mean, it's, as we mentioned, they profited hugely off the Gulf War. And then they started advocating for military buildup and a much more aggressive foreign policy. Wait, let's go back to anthrax.

What if they did it like, you know, kind of a mob scheme where they're like, all right, we get this biological cleanup crew, then I know this guy, he's got some anthrax, he'll send it to a couple of congresspeople. Guess who needs biological cleanup now? Right, right. I mean, like, the person that says, hey, this is anthrax could be one of their guys.

It doesn't even have to be real anthrax. That's the thing. The cleanup's gonna cost money if it's real anthrax. So we might as well fake that part, too. It's a nice capital building

you got here. It'd be a shame if somebody put powdery substance all over it. Someone vomited down the hall instead of Ajax, we use anthrax. But so... Also also during that investigation

I think they mislabeled the person who did it and then he killed himself oh really yeah or the guy who did it killed himself either way a dude's dead because of somebody wanting to make money off anthrax the band he mysteriously killed himself the day before he was supposed to testify about tower seven um but so uh part of uh this 9-11 boom is a company called united defense

which carl we could not call the 9-11 boom do we i think that's there was no explosives so let's not let's not muddle the the two yeah uh so i mean he said united carlisle that is what united did on 9-11 the carlisle group bought united defense in 1997 and united defense one of their signature um uh missile programs that they were trying to sell to the pentagon was something called the crusader missileile. And so in 1998, a congressional panel trashed the Crusader Missile and said it was basically useless for the type of modern U.S. warfare. Members of the Pentagon had come and testified on Capitol Hill and said, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want the Crusader because it doesn't fit in with our priorities.

That was Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who actually she talks about in the Iron Triangle how Carlisle Group, so she was one of the Congress people who brought attention to this crusader missile system and ultimately got it shut down. May she rest in peace. Yes. She was the subject of a 2002 primary challenge in which Carlisle, or one of their shadowy affiliates got a

another black woman to run as a republic as a a former republican to run as a democrat and then got a uh mailed a bunch of republicans in her georgia district to vote in the democratic open primary for her opponent so they actually got her defeated in 2002 though she was later able to return in 2004 but it is just like an interesting thing where because she was like raising all this noise about carlisle group yeah they cut her down yeah yeah so um but so yes the story of the crusader missile uh to put it uh quickly is that um again it was this like useless missile that uh it was trashed by it's a two-parter draw it out yeah uh that was trashed by a congressional panel in 1998.

But after 9-11, Bush's fiscal year defense budget for 2002 is a multi-billion dollar increase, and it earmarks $476 million for the Crusader missile. So then I started doing my research, and I learned that the Crusader missile was manufactured by United Defense Industries, and that that company was owned by the Carlyle Group, and that the president's father was on the payroll of the Carlyle group. I don't think she said, uh, uh, enough in that. So I kind of like my description more. But so, yes.

Two joke uhs and then a real one um god damn it now i can't stop but so the point is they set up this thing with the crusader missile um to uh get it funded after 9-11 when you know this massive boom in defense spending is happening and they're like oh how do we get ourselves cut into this right so they set up the funding for the crusader missile, and then there's Congression. How do you get a missile whose name is a historical analogy for what we're doing in the Middle East? Yeah, they really didn't really think of the optics of dropping Crusaders on the majority Muslim country of Iraq.

That's the thing. They're so, like, you know, for how ridiculous truthers and conspiracy theorists are, this company is so sloppy in making it seem like they're not horrible people. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think most of it is just under the radar of general public knowledge. I think they're just, they're trying to get so much done that it's hard to keep covers on all of it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the, the, the... knowledge. I think they're just trying to get so much done that it's hard to keep covers on all of it. There's no way, so you have to let some of the conspiracy theories fester. Right, right. It all seems ridiculous. And yeah, I mean, it's interesting. What if they funded loose change to throw people off the crowd? They're like, the Black Eagle Trust

Fund, definitely not the Carlisle Group. Heavily profited from this event. But yeah, so I mean, and we were talking at the start, you know, people call the Carlyle Group finance. And it's like most people hear that word and they think banking. Well, it's like this is not what the Carlyle Group does. This is blood money and profiteering and warmongering, where the entire argument of the military-industrial complex is that... And if I've been listening to Sean at all, and that's questionable,

they're mostly a 9-11 manufacturing company. Rubenstein Airfields. The whole idea of the military-industrial the whole fear that you know eisenhower and others have had is that we might get pilot lessons half off that we might get to they they did a they did a the carlisle group did like a classic private equity takeover of the flight school where they eliminated all the unions and they cut the benefits and the pensions. They only taught half the class. I can just picture in August of 2001

it's the graduation and the flight school teacher is this Midwest guy and he's like, now where is he? Mohamed, get up here. Now this young man is the heart and soul of this team um but so yeah he had a real audible attitude but the the fear with the military industrial complex is that we might get to a

point where these private companies who make so much money from war start actually lobbying to increase the chances of war might yeah we're gonna definitely might get to that uh but it's you know you look it's a fear of a hypothetical that hasn't happened yet you look at our current war on terror rhetoric and it's like well how did david rubinstein get to three billion i mean it's uh directly linked into the the current uh rhetoric and attitude we have towards war where we are just in a constant state of war ever since 9-11 guys we're breaking new ground here i don't know if you're aware that america is constantly at war and there are people who stand to profit from it theoretically andy we're theoretically we're not accusing anyone hypothetically that might happen

in the united states perhaps if it's still called then. That's how far in the future this may occur. Hypothetically, do you think any of those people who stand to profit from it are members of the Washington DC DSA? And if any of these jokes don't land, that's our intention. We only learned how to make our jokes tick off. There you go. I i was gonna do it uh but so uh just uh to wrap up the crusader missile story uh there was pushback from uh cynthia mckinney and others in congress some people can't land planes and making fun of them is ableist? The disability caucus for Al-Qaeda is like, you have

to make the attacks inclusive of all people's abilities. So we're going to cancel 9-11 because not everybody can participate. Guys, we've got to cancel 9-11. Oh, God god that obstacle course it's been a sore point for over a decade

just imagining some al-qaeda lawyer filing an ada lawsuit against the obstacle course for not having a ramp we gotta melt down the monkey bars not all of our terrorists are able to access them mccarthy finish up this missile nonsense we'll end this i was so good uh so the crusader missile as we mentioned had congressional opposition but um because of its lobbying car Carlisle Group was able to keep the program... Ben Lawton's videos have a little circle with a video of someone doing ASL

for the hearing impaired. Oh, God. Now I'm just imagining an ASL interpreter being on the Daniel Pearl beheading video. They're also at gunpoint. This is payback for BDM. Muhammad Atta hijacks the flight and there's like an 80 ASL interpreter there

that everyone can understand what is going on. I wouldn't want to be ableist right now. Oh, God. Well, we're going to get some angry tweets. Yeah. Send them to Andy Palmer. We'll fire Sean again. The Crusader missile, as we mentioned, there was Cynthia McKinney and other Congress people were opposed to this because it had been trashed by a congressional panel in 98.

It comes back after 9-11. But Carlyle's lobbying is able to keep it going until they take the company they had bought, United Defense, public in 2001 uh so they of course do this ipo where everybody thinks the crusader missile is part of uh united defense's um upcoming you know profits you know their own little insider trading um and then they of course mostly exit their stake after the ipo as a lot of private equity firms do they did a pump and dump with a missile and as of april 2004 they sold all their shares in united defense and then in um late 2002 i believe or 2003 the pentagon cancels um the crusader missile system and just an interesting thing if you go to the carlisle group wikipedia you can clearly tell that somebody from carlisle group edited that because they uh mentioned that in the michael

moore documentary fahrenheit 9-11 the um carlisle group connection uh was probed but they say even though the crusader missile system was one of the few defense programs canceled by the bush administration you know trying to like fucking snakes trying to imply that this is like oh this is just a conspiracy theory when of course it was only canceled because of massive congressional opposition. I've actually got some audio from when they were like getting together to plan this

United Missile. It's easier than you think. Every person you're on the phone with, they want to get rich and they want to get rich quickly. They don't want something for nothing. There was this one time that I was selling pots

to this Amy Schubert. You know those guys who got like the beard with like no mustache or something? Well, he says that he only wants to make furniture. I don't understand. What the fuck are you talking about?

I'm not putting words in your mouth or nothing, but you just said that everybody wants to get rich. I just wanted to play the song of this pun thing. You didn't just say that. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah, I'm like that yeah like Buddhist don't give a shit about money they're wrapped in sheets and I'm maybe skip to the part you're looking for Andy no ruin people working class everyday

people everyone wants to get rich Mike welcome to the Wolf of Wall Street podcast listen everyone loves the Wolf of Wall Street you guys not want to make money I could Listen, everyone loves The Wolf of Wall tonight. Brad, somehow it's done. Boom. Sell me that pen. Watch.

Go on. You want me to sell this fucking pen? That's my boy right there. This pen. I can fucking sell anything. Why don't you do me a favor? Why don't you name down that napkin for me? I don't have a pen.

Exactly. Supply and demand, my friend. Oh, nice. We're at an hour. You want to do a wrap-up, Sean? Yeah. So to wrap up the first part of this this Plus like 10 minutes of sell me this pen I want the rest of Wolf of Wall Street in

I'm just going to get the drug scene Where they're going Sell me this copyright lawsuit For Wolf of Wall Street clips That we played without permission So Carlisle Group There was really nothing left to do But to cancel this gun program

And Donald Rumsfeld did cancel the program In a very public A public ceremony But not until The gun had been kept alive long enough that the company, United Defense, was able to go public. Right. They did the IPO for United Defense. I love the balls of doing a pump and dump on a missile.

Arguably, 9-11 was a pump and dump. But Andy, who's going to stop you? You have a missile. But so, yeah, the Carlyle Group is a private equity firm that does, you know, the usual private equity stuff, but particularly with a focus on defense, though they have in recent years moved away from that because they sold a lot of their defense stakes with the war on terror boom. But the next episode, we'll talk a bit more about the other two founders, William E. Conway, Daniel D'Analo. We'll also talk about the Carlyle Group's IPO in 2012 and how that was just kind of

like a scheme to help make liquid the three billionaire investors' holdings of that. We might talk a bit more about David Rubenstein's charity. And we're also going to talk about a couple of rather controversial deals the Carlisle Group has been involved with, including HCR Manor Care and an oil refinery in Philadelphia where they use the usual private equity tactics. And Sean will reveal a personal secret. All that

and verbal fillers from Sean next week on Grubstakers. And there'll be more offensive 9-11 jokes for two hours. And with that, I'm Yogi Pollywall. I'm Andy Palmer. I'm Sean P. McCarthy. Steve Jeffries. Thanks for listening.

All right. Wait. Wait. Wait. God damn it, Andy. Wait. I hate you so much. Wait.

Sell me this fucking pen right here. Sell me that pen. Can I finish eating first? I need it. Write down thoughts. Sell me this pen.