Julian Dorey Podcast - 🤫 #100 - Special Agent Jim DiOrio: Inside The Psychology Of A Legendary FBI Undercover Agent

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

(***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Jim DiOrio is a Former FBI Interrogation Expert, Military Veteran, Undercover Operative, and Savage. A member of West Point’s Class of 1986 (along with his roommate and former Secretary of State/Director of The CIA, Mike Pompeo), Jim served overseas as an Army Ranger in the late 80’s and early 90’s before leaving the military and joining the FBI. He went on to spend 10 years as one of the most successful undercover agents in the Bureau’s history––and another 15 as a ferocious Special Agent In-Charge and heralded FBI interrogator around the world. Basically, he was the guy who told Captain Phillips he could have his boat back.    Currently, Jim is the CEO of J3 Global, an international crisis/security firm (or as he explains it: “I’m Ray Donovan with more experience”). In his spare time, he also owns a Jersey Mike’s because why not. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Intro; Jim talks about getting in meditation; a funny story about Jim’s dog; Thinking of life “in sets”; Jim talks about how he wants to be viewed when he’s gone 21:14 - Jim analyzes his West Point classmate and friend, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper’s, new book about his time working for the Trump Administration; Reacting to the “policy requests” Trump made during his Presidency 42:34 - How the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary positions work in the executive branch; Trump wanted to bail everybody out of South Korea and Esper disagreed; Why did Esper write the book now?; Endless Wars and debating military outreach in the US 1:01:10 - Why did Esper take job if he knew Trump was crazy?; The two sides of the debate over guys like Esper who comment on Trump; The moment Esper had had enough; Jim reflects on the cool guys at West Point; Jim explains Esper’s style and personality 1:20:38 - Jim goes through the backstory of his 9 year career as an Army Ranger; How the military gave Jim instantaneous rank at the FBI 1:34:32 - Jim discusses his own PTS and how he spots it in other people; “War is hell”; Survivor’s guilt; Jim tells a story about a time somebody pushed a woman in bar; Why Jim went into the ocean at dark 1:52:28 - Jim explains his Undercover career at the FBI; His previous undercover experience while in the military; Jim’s lifestyle while undercover; How Jim infiltrated groups undercover; “The ask” moment; Why bad guys always come back to chase the answer 2:19:02 - Jim expands upon his interrogation approaches; How Jim gets in people’s heads; How Jim’s fear of dismissal played a role in his skill as an interrogator; Taking interrogations home with you; Chip on shoulder vs boulder on shoulder; Understanding a criminal’s actions by understanding their childhood, environment, and background; empathy for criminals? 2:48:09 - Jim gives some of the details about his role in the mission to rescue Captain Phillips from Somali Pirates off the coast of Africa in April 2009; Jim discusses his role in the investigation of the 1996 TWA 800 plane crash ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

was the captain phillips situation one of these time crunches no no no that dude he went you know they were like two seconds from plus he saw his two buddy he saw his two buddy's shit all over the inside of that fucking little dinghy so that goes pretty quick what happened can you take us through the story we never talked about that one what's cooking everybody i am joined in the bunker today by the most requested guest we've ever had on this podcast and that is my good friend special agent jim diorio if you are not familiar with jim he was here for episodes 48 73 and 74 73 and 74 were supposed to be one podcast, but we were there for six hours, so we made it two. And he is an absolute pleasure to listen to. The guy's one of the best storytellers I've ever heard, and his career has been insane. If you

don't believe me, check out his bio. I have it all written in there, at least the high-level details, and you guys can get the idea. Today, at the beginning of the second time stamp, so about 20 minutes in, we got deep on Jim's buddy, Mark Esper, who previously was the Secretary of Defense under Trump and just wrote a book about the whole thing. So we had a nice long conversation there. And then, of course, there were a lot of great stories as always. And Jim even went pretty deep into his undercover work at the FBI, which is something he hasn't previously discussed much because there are things he can't discuss. He wanted to make sure he was comfortable to be able to say things correctly without going into things he's not supposed to. And I thought he did a really, really good job. So I hope you guys enjoy. If you haven't heard Jim before, you're

in for a treat. Check out those other episodes. And if you're on YouTube right now, please hit that subscribe button, hit that like button on the video. And as always, we'd love to hear from you in the comment section as well. To everyone who is on apple or spotify thank you for checking out the show there if you haven't already be sure to hit the follow button on either one of those platforms and leave a five-star review if you have a second that is a huge help i look forward to seeing you guys again for future episodes that said you know what it is i'm julian dory and this is Trendfire. seem to do it if you don't like the status quo start asking questions hank fucking schrader

what's up man what's going on man back again in the bunker let's go you are the most requested guest in here by far and there's there's a few now but you are you're the guy it's always like when's jim coming back if they only fucking knew me they would never request me but we'll be fun to hang out we'd have a good time you have like a little online not a little you got like a big online fan club now yeah people are like jimmy d fbi jim i want to you think they'll buy my books when we start writing i think they're gonna have to especially because you seem to want to do, instead of your own memoir, you want to do fictionalized stories on the basis of real shit. And let them figure it out.

Yeah. Let them figure the truth out. I think people are going to love that. And I can't get in trouble. Exactly. I don't have to pass through all that bullshit, like, hey, let me send it to the Bureau so they can review it for 30 years. You'd be fucking dead forever by then.

What are you writing about so far? Oh, man. I'm just – you know what it is? All right. So I hope some of the audience is going to love this. Some is going to be, oh, my God, this guy is soft. But I don't really care because it might turn them on. So I started doing meditation.

Really? Yeah. And Sheila kind of talked me into it, like we've talked about before, always the guinea pig for something new to use at her nonprofit, right? So I was like, all right, yeah, I'll go to the class. Weird stuff. I mean, it's weird, and I was as cynical and skeptical as i normally am with anything you kind of go into this room by yourself with this person this teacher older guy place yeah an older dude and uh next thing you know like i'm like fighting it and then all of a sudden oh my god i'm out like a light 20 minutes and then i started coming out of it and then all of a sudden oh my god i'm out like a light 20 minutes and then i started coming out of it and shit started racing and the whole deal with transcendental it's different than your normal meditation because normal meditation you're supposed to just back off you know you put the

cut every thought this no they want it to flow how does he get you into it so basically you're thinking elevator right so you're thinking of going down to the bottom floor letting all these thoughts come to be and then as you rise back through let it happen like no oh let me think about why i'm thinking about richie my buddy from belmar when we were six and how we fell into this lot of new condos being built like just let it go that's a good thing so what i do is i do that for 20 and then i come out and i write for an hour and the shit i'm remembering that i never would have remembered otherwise is amazing oh so you have drills now so you can kind of tap into it yourself yeah and so it's a whole routine so meditate 20 write an hour jump on the rower i got the rower right behind my desk i row for 500 meters i hop

up and then i let it go if i can write for another 20 minutes i do if i can't that's it the day's over exercise and physical activity is one of the ultimate keys to unplugging unlocking creativity and writing especially like to get in that flow state when you get the blood going you're like oh yeah let me try that sentence oh yeah you know i'll put that one right there like yeah it starts to just kind of like it loosens up your whole body it's and it's it's true for anything but especially with writing i couldn't agree more yeah and it's great because i'm i'm actually let's say let's say i flow on something for that you know hour and then there's three or four other things that i think about but i'm kind of like yeah you know? I'm not going to do it justice if I write about these three or four other things.

So I mark them. I have them in there, and I'm like, that's something to come back to. And I think the meditation has been wonderful. Now, you're supposed to do it twice a day for 20 minutes a day. It's not practical for me. I can't. That's a lot. I can't find the time.

So you're supposed to do it in the morning, in the afternoon. You're not supposed to do it when you're kind of laying, trying to go to sleep, which at this age, at this point, I'm falling asleep. If I lay down on the couch, it's over. It doesn't matter. My dog Gary is kind of like, he's licking like, what's going on? I love that you have a dog named Gary. Big Gary. I told you the story about we had a guy

come over to repair the furnace no unbeknownst to us his name was gary so we did not know that oh no so he starts to go down the basement and gary follows our dog gary follows so i yell gary get the fuck up here and the guy the guy turns around goes I do? And it was a disaster for everybody. So I'm like, oh, my God, your name is, okay. Yeah, he goes, well, I introduced you, you know, myself to you. So, yes. So there's, you know, big Garrett, my buddy, my dog is looking at me like, hey, you got that guy. You know, you got him good.

You know, I just had a bug with him. But, yeah, I think that that kind of uh been eye-opening for me and it lends itself into something else that i've been thinking a lot about and um i want to say i saw this quote not long ago i don't know who actually made this statement but what it was is something along the lines of do something a hundred percent for six months and you'll be astonished at the accomplishments you know what you can accomplish and that's big for me right now because uh you know i'm kind of all over the place and and and not as much shiny nickel chasing as i used to be it won't take long to tell you neutrals ingredients vodka soda natural flavors It won't take long to tell you Neutral's ingredients.

Vodka, soda, natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added. Neutral. Refreshingly simple. But it's kind of, wow, I can focus on that. I can focus on this meditation slash writing really hard for six months and then see where it goes. And I'm going to try to kind of use that kind of, I guess, mantra to move forward in other areas of my life i'm very excited about you sounded really excited about it i think people you know this is a new

thing it sounds crazy for me right because i mean like you know you got me coming in here all the shit i've done in the past then oh he's meditating now you know and people are going to be like that's a strange dude that's a strange but but that's okay they might i'd try it give it a shot tm look at it try it for 20 minutes really there's nothing to it there's no you don't need to go to the class um you could if you want to i mean i'm not getting paid uh to talk about it but ultimately i would give it a shot i would give it a shot is it something you would have ever considered during your career? And I'm just thinking about like the, all the different directions your career had, because you were obviously an army ranger.

There's a lot of crazy shit there. I know you're in touch with yourself and stuff that you unfortunately had to witness and be right next to, but also then, you know, you were an undercover agent for part of your years at the FBI. You were in some of the highest stress situations with, depending on which case it was, some stone cold killers. This has got to be like, I can't relate to that. I never had to do that. I never want to do that.

But that's got to be some sort of traumatic track on your life. You know what I mean? Like you can't because you're making friends with these people you know and then you have to leave it and then remember what a monster they were and all that and so it seems to me like if i were ever in those kinds of situations it's hard to imagine not going a little crazy and something like meditation does seem like a life hack that that could help it if you're actually like if you give it a chance and you're in it. Yeah, agreed. I think it's a fix.

I wish I had the capability back in those days to be able to look at something like this and say, well, let's give it a shot, honestly. And I've read up on it now since, and I think it's Norwich University up in Vermont, which is a military college. They've actually gone to that as part of their curriculum. So they have their Corps of Cadets meditate. Wow. And they've done some studies and some research as to not only academic performance, but mental health issues during the pandemic, right? I mean, things just along, emotional kind of, I guess, struggles that military folks have,

because you're so often encouraged to compartmentalize everything that happens to you along the way. And the results are pretty astounding. I mean, honestly, it's pretty good. So I wish I did have that tool or at least exposure to that tool especially at West Point especially there you know because you really regimented as to kind of maintaining an organized lifestyle and with that as we've just talked about with with that and pursuing something West Point for 47 months, right, comes astounding results, or it comes a struggle to just survive.

So I kind of think about, and that can lend itself into my military career, that can lend itself into my FBI career, and even life after. And so it's refreshing, you know, to have this TM, but also to have a little bit of a pattern you know the the meditating the writing and then the exercise and then repeat if you can you know i haven't been able to do obviously the meditated meditation is not something you want to do back to back but um but the other cycles i've gotten to the point where i'm actually doing two sets you know so i think about i think my life is becoming something where i'm thinking about

sets now right at 59 years old uh diorio's we we just don't you know history says you're not going to make it past 75 or 80 now i'm going to shoot for more than that because i really like you for 120 definitely i'm gonna go as much as i can as much as i can forever i'm gonna be on here this is episode 6 000 we're you know in the middle um but but i think that if if you look at your life that way so at six let's just say 60 years old right right so i'm hoping for five sets of five i'm hoping for 85 breaking it down now yeah five sets of five so it's talking to my brother who's 10 years older he says well i don't you know i probably have three sets of five i said why don't we go five sets of three this way we both have sets we both have five sets and he was like i

like that you know so um we were think we were talking about it today went to a funeral of a family member who's 95 turned 95 years old passed away right i mean lived a great life and he basically was ready you know he was he was definitely ready he was ready to go he had done everything he wanted to do really good generous kind man with great advice and i looked around his funeral mass today and i'm like wow there's nobody here you know there's no there's no friends there's no colleagues of his there's no peers of his it's family but it's clearly the next generation yeah they're all dead it hit me right it really but it hit me hard because, you know, as you know, I have a new grandson. Congratulations, by the way.

What's his name? Sal. Sal. Sal Vitor, right? Fucking Sal. So Sal is six weeks old. And after the initial, like, oh my God, and the crying and the typical Italian stuff in the hospital, throwing yourself on the ground, the whole deal, I got it together.

And then I thought to myself, this kid's going to walk to my coffin. Oh, boy. That's humbling. Yeah. And when you think about, I want to make sure when he walks up there, he says, that's my grandpa. That's my papi. He's a good dude. Yeah.

Right? So it kind of has taken on a new meaning. And my brother and my sister, who are both grandparents, have said something like that, but it doesn't really click until you are yeah there's something about like when you see life come from beyond you like in your in your lineage which i've never experienced that but people are just so clearly changed by it's got to be such a beautiful thing but yeah i mean that's really it's kind of a heavy way to put it but you know i i think when you're trying to live your life and i always appreciate you talking about this stuff by the way and working in all the mental health things too that's that's worth saying especially after the last time we were on here a lot of people really appreciate that and i

knew they would but like when you're looking at your life it's kind of it's like a mic drop when you can simplify it to something like that you simplify it in in a funny way to like five sets of five or something with years but then you also look in the eyes of your new grandson and you're like, oh, wow, what do I want him thinking? What do I want him saying during what will be a bad day for him when you're in that coffin? 100%. It's heavy. You know, it's like the Stephen Covey book, the seven – what is it? Seven essentials or whatever, the seven qualities of highly effective people

oh yeah characteristics and he his first is begin with the end in mind right so think about what your wake looks like what your funeral looks like and what you want people to say about you right and this five sets of five is a different change for me and certainly thinking about always thinking about mental health because we have to maintain um you know that kind of pattern of consistency with taking care of yourself and we've talked about it before being kind to yourself stop hating yourself there's no reason to you are what you are there's no there's no other chance this is it so we might as well really figure it out for ourselves nobody else is going to figure we can't worry about what other people think, who they are, what they're doing. It doesn't really matter. It sounds simple when I say it, but it's a struggle for me. But I stay in the game, if you want to, I guess, simplify life as

a game, but it really is. You stay in the game and you take all the experiences that I've had along the way in different areas of my life. And now I see, I finally see what that's done for me in this writing piece. Like it's helped me to not only write stories and chuckle and laugh and think about people in my past that I've known that, you know, dead or alive. Um, and I say, wow, there's the lesson in that. That's what it is. And maybe two years ago, that would have been a completely different lesson you know some type of um you know anger or jesus diario why didn't you do this right you know now

it's like well that's the way it was supposed to be you know it's supposed to happen that way for a reason and and i think meditation helps that piece as well um that's pretty cool that's how you should and just from my seat just some asshole giving his opinion That's how you should. And just from my seat, just some asshole giving his opinion, that's how you should look at it. Because, like, you know, you were in this stuff for, call it, 35 years straight. You know, nonstop, high octane, highest octane there is at both the army level and then the government level. And it's like, I'm sure a lot of that went by way faster than you could ever appreciate. And, you know, it's boring at the government as we've talked about in the past in the sense that everyone gets the same stupid fucking paycheck

it's not much and you just kind of do the job but the people who are in the highest places the jobs they got to do the things you had to do are pretty insane and i think it would be very simple not simple it would be it would be a poor trap to fall into that a lot of people probably do of being a little desensitized to that and not thinking anything of it and like also hearing you talk about being reflective and all that and having a solid perspective on that is awesome to hear because you know people that listen to this podcast they would never know this and i love that they would never know this and i love that they would never know this because you're just a superstar on here but i always got to yell at you off camera

because you legit like don't think anything of anything you've ever done you're way like i love humble people you're way too humble and i get pissed at it sometimes because i'm like jesus christ relax like i know not a lot of people do this stuff but to see you like even if it's through something like writing which gets unlocked by meditation to see you reflect on that a little bit and understand that like oh yeah that's some wild shit not a lot of people did that and then you get to put it even through like a little fictionalized version who cares that's exactly it and you know you you make a great point and i think part of it is that being kind to yourself right and you have helped me to be kinder to myself you know i'm not

where i probably should be or want to be but it's sure as hell getting better yeah um and i think that's important is is to just think about life that way let's be kinder to ourselves you can you can't really treat other people fully you know the way they deserve to be treated until you treat yourself that way and so you know just thinking about those people in my life that I've known that have gotten that early, have established that way of thinking early and looking at their accomplishments, not just with their professional accomplishments or what they've done, you know, in the limelight, more so what they've done as a person how their families are how their friends are how they you know how they actually really truly are concerned with what other people need

what makes other people tick and really good at it and it doesn't matter what age you get it at you know uh you could get it some guys some guys it, some people get it as kids, truly. It takes some people a little bit longer, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. And I'm in a great spot to be able to reflect on things that I've done now and utilize that information in order to just kind of, I guess, subconsciously mentor other people just be around and say oh the oreo's the oreo's okay with that you know you could i think i just

carry myself a little bit differently and and you know we're going on five years of retirement shit you know so i mean that's that's a long period of time. From the FBI, at least. Yeah, from the FBI. And so you're thinking, that's what? I mean, going on 250 weeks roughly of retirement. So that's, I'm going to say, that's 500 polygraphs, basically, that I didn't have to take. But, yeah, I mean, I just think things start to loosen up. And then I talk to friends who are still in the Bureau, who are still in the military, who are still in the agency and still doing things. And I think to myself, wow, the stuff they're kind of caught up on and in, I was there. And I'm able to say to them, stop.

Doesn't matter. There's dopes everywhere. Just because we're supposed to be the knights in shining armor or you think that your agency is, there's dopes everywhere. Just because we're supposed to be the knights in shining armor, you think that your agency is, there's dopes everywhere. So just go with that and make that decision that you're going to think about things for yourself, and you're going to fight the battles you need to fight, and you're going to lay back on things that really you can't change certain people.

The perspective of the outside. Exactly right. It's a beautiful thing. You know who else has some perspective of the outside now right you know it's a beautiful thing you know who else has some perspective of the outside now your buddy oh yeah it's written on your mug right now your buddy defense secretary esper no doubt about it what what is going on there so i i and full disclosure i know you've read the book it just came out if for people that don't know he was under trump and then was fired right after trump lost the election like before his term was up but you were roommates with him one of your roommates at west point yeah a good a good friend um you know a guy that i've become closer to in the last

year or two um you know the thing for me is i i've heard and i'm about, I'd say I'm a couple, probably three hours into the listen. I'm listening to it and it's great. It really is. It gives me time to shut it down for a minute and think about something or whatever. But I think what's really, what needs to be known, and it has fractured my class of 86, my West Point of 86 really on social media yeah and the book in the 60 minutes interview now how many people you think actually read the book nobody's read the book you know nobody's read the book but but they watched the 20 minutes of as you and i have talked about 60 minutes where they can make anything look like anything else and can i say this absolutely on the record because you and i said this off the record yeah yeah i can't maybe it's just i'm so

hyper aware of edits because of what i do you know and like we keep a free-flowing podcast my goal is to not edit anything but like sometimes if someone pauses for 10 seconds to gather themselves of course i take that out do you know how i sit here on volume 110 to make sure as if no one even knows that was ever there like i know perfectly yeah and then i watch something like 60 minutes these are the worst all every one of those editors should be fired these are the worst edited interviews i've ever seen someone will be talking about something and then they'll cut to a different camera at a different volume level that was probably a half hour later his hair's out of place and then it's about something entirely new

and i'm watching it i'm like doesn't, maybe I'm the only one noticing it. Maybe only people who do this notice it, but I'm like, Jesus Christ, like it's not, there's no flow to it. No flow. You're absolutely right. And so if you take the 90% of people, probably a lot of the folks in my class who are interested to watch it, right? Because it's appealing to us. It's appealing to have a friend that, you know, on a different level and that's on you know a major telecast right so it's appealing but you know until you kind of do you read you still have to do your research you still have to grind down on what what you think or whether or not you knew him or others in the class that well enough to understand

the dynamic right can you explain to people what he's saying right now for those who are not familiar yeah so i mean bottom line simplifying it is he was so distraught mark is an extremely serious we all take the oath of office several times right so you're commissioning your day one at west point you're commissioning, you're day one at West Point, you're commissioning as an officer. Mark has taken it several, I did it as an FBI agent, I did it as an FBI supervisor, I did it for other reasons back in the military. You take the sacred oath, and it's basically, you know, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. That's what it comes down to. It's not to support and defend any particular person, any particular party, any particular belief particular belief it's the constitution of the united states and we've talked about this before you know the constitution and and the thought process behind federal prosecutors and all those

things but in this particular instance mark was faced with some challenges not only as the secretary of the army but then as a guy who was bumped up to secretary of defense and there were some other issues that happened that that allowed him that opportunity thank god he had the opportunity to do it and and you know there was there was another guy that i think his name was shanahan who was really good who was the acting secretary of defense for a while mattis left after mattis left he was mattis's vice got it and then mattis leaves and then of of course, we can only kill our people and have smiles on our face. So they find stuff on Shanahan personally, on some divorce that he went through. Who cares?

Exactly. And there's no ex-wife that's going to be like, oh, yes, he's going to be wonderful. It's just not going to happen. Hence why I told you before, the first thing we ever did on any kind of public corruption case, my guys would come in and sit down. What should we do first, boss? Interview the ex-wife.

Oh, God. Because you will get everything that you need. Why do we care about it? Well, I like that, but why do they care about it? So, you know, Mark is elevated. He's confirmed, I think it was a 90 to 8 vote in the Senate.

Trump only had three of those prior to, like in 2017, early 2000. This is 2020. Esper's getting a 90 to 8, right? That's pretty damn good. Well, how long, because he, hold on, he got fired via tweet on November 9th. I remember that. It was like right after the election. Yep.

How long was he in there? A year? It was about a year. Oh, yeah. I think he was acting for quite a bit of time and then finally confirmed and became Secretary of Defense. But remember, he was in the Pentagon the whole time because he was Secretary of the Army at the time. And before that, he was part of the military industrial complex at Raytheon. Absolutely. And also a guy who was back in the Pentagon and traveling the

world doing good work. Like what? I don't know the exact... I think the book's going to explain a little bit more. I don't know enough about Marx those years to be able to comment on it really you also can't say maybe but what what happens is um guys now in the class and you can tell the guys that really are making these huge accusations or judgments yet i know they don't know them because of what they're saying right so mark is mark is a um he's he's a black and white guy right so and he expects you to be as prepared What are they saying? and also that you're responsible for. So take it back to West Point, right? In any class at West Point, there's five people that rise to the top in the leadership portion of that place, right? So it's kind of what we call a whole person concept. So it's your academics, which we know who was number one in our class academically,

Mike Pompeo. Athletics, right, which they rank you in athletics as well. And then there's also a military grade, a military score, which combines your leadership. It combines your understanding of tactics. It combines your ability to look at, you know, kind of battles in the past and come up with a clear, concise explanation of why that was so important and why that was changed, you know, changed the way modern

warfare is or was the worst thing that could have possibly happened, right? So, it's kind of, that's the levels that West Point brings you to. Now, within that, there's five particular people that rise to the top in any class. Mark was one of those guys. Steve Cannon, another one of those guys. Him I'm not familiar with. Steve's president. He was president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz, my class. Oh, you've talked about him.

And then now he's Arthur Blank's CEO. So he manages the Falcons. He manages the Atlantic United, PGA Superstore, Home Depot. He's got a lot going on. Oh, that's how you were doing the stuff with the Falcons. Correct. Correct. So Esper was a guy at school, smart guy academically.

I mean, clearly a smart book guy, but also a guy that was just a driven leader. He's from a Western PA town. The same town actually where General George Marshall, one of the heroes of World War II and a five-star, came from. So Mark was a guy that just standards were everything, so even at school. And it didn't matter if you were his friend. It didn't matter if you were somebody that he really didn't know in the class. If there was a standard to be met

and you weren't meeting it, Mark was going to tell you, and he was going to go to the next level with that. That's never changed. So these guys are like, oh, there's still people in the class that hold him accountable for something he did when we were 21 years old. For instance, hey, I got to go out and I got to, you know, I got a sports activity this afternoon. And before sports activity at West Point, i don't know if it's still that way you get inspected you go in your uniform not your sports uniform you go in your west point gear right with

your shoes should be shined and everything else now most guys gonna look and say like wink wink nod nod hey you're okay you know even if your shoes are a little bit smudged or your belt buckles not shine. Not Mark Esper. But it wouldn't matter if it was his roommate or somebody he didn't know. So to be shocked and surprised at that, to me, is ridiculous. And there's people who you're saying that people are raising that. Oh, my God. He's a treasonous, you know, because he told Trump that we can't shoot people, protesters, during the George Floyd situation.

Let's back it up. Let's get into some of this stuff now, too. Because, you know, anything that you were telling me, especially while this was still an active presidency, was obviously lock and seal confidential. What's nice is now he's putting some stuff out there. Yeah. lock and seal confidential what's nice is now he's putting some stuff out there yeah but so less from him more from what seemed to be mike pompeo and some of the other guys you had over there i heard a lot of this stuff from you i heard what was going on behind the scenes and you know this is always a weird territory to wade into because whenever you bring up biden or trump

or something you know there's people who immediately like perk up and want to punch you in the face so they're like all right am i going to say yes so we're going to have a diplomatic conversation and we'll let people draw away what they will but what became clear to me as an outside observer from the things i was hearing is that donald trump's trait of not giving a fuck went so far beyond the realm of just getting around bureaucracy that it actually got to the point where guys around him – and I don't want to make this sound wrong for their sake. But people around him had to find ways to massage the conversations with him to avoid traumatic situations. I know one of them was – I remember this one when it was going on and you were telling me about it. He wanted to unleash the U.S. Army on five cities or something around America during George Floyd to shoot to kill.

And Esper had to be like, we're not declaring domestic war right this is bad but we're not doing that you know you can't really do that and in the book i know one of them that we can get into was like he said something about he wanted he wanted to send the missile to mexico yeah and say it wasn't us or something like that and And Esper had to say that can't happen? I don't know if he wanted to be like, it wasn't us. I just think it was, let's launch a missile into Mexico. For what? Because that's the only way we're going to be able to control the border. In his mind.

That's going to send people over the border. But take the other, I think it starts with the handling of a narcissistic person right how do you handle that in in a way where you maintain the constitution you you maintain the safety of the american people national security the safety of the military right which trump isn't a guy that's going to think about now he he probably loves america but he doesn't understand does not understand what it means to be a true soldier a true patriot for this country right you know well you do more you do yes you do yes you do you know yes you do and and there's there's not any of us that wouldn't write a check you know

at least in my group of people and i think you're you fall right that wouldn't write a check, you know, at least in my group of people. And I think you fall right into that. You write a check. And I have let so many people say, well, I'm so sad I didn't get a chance to get deployed or I didn't do this. It doesn't matter. Did you write that check? And that check was to the United States of America for up to and including my life. I'll write that check, a blank check.

I do need to have money first. Sign it. I'm just letting you know. Well, I mean, but you have your life. So you can write your life. But ultimately, so you're dealing with a guy who's a narcissist who really doesn't understand what it means when you do things or you say things like that and the knee jerk that goes along with that. And then you've got people that have to come together who are brilliant minds. You know, brilliant minds.

They've served their entire life thinking about national security, and they have to come up with options for you and then solutions and recommend to you why that's really not a great idea to start shooting people in protests. But these are so ridiculous. This is the thing. They're so beyond the pale. Before you even have to explain that, your mind already has to be racing like, he's saying this shit. Here we go again.

Yeah. Well, that's what the book, and obviously I've got independent knowledge from the book, but the book will explain why, how often it happened, why it kind of happened, what was going on at the time, and then what the result was of the gathering of the powers that be in the National Security Alliance to kind of get past it, right? To have to put up with the screaming, the yelling, the insults, and then ultimately the realization that, yeah, we probably can't do that. And the way they would do that is be factual about what would happen. You know, here's what's going to happen should you choose to do this. Like, do you remember when that, I think it was like an unmanned aircraft was shot down,

one of our aircrafts, one of our surveillance planes, I can't remember exactly where it was, but it wasn't long ago, shot 200 million dollar piece of equipment right gathering information and intel over it was over one of the waterways and it was basically to determine whether or not there was movement right so um trump's reaction to that was initially well let's bomb you know let's bomb the shit out of the people and i think it was the iranians that that wound up oh was this the soleimani thing i don't think it was i don't think it was the iranians that that wound up oh was this the solomani thing i don't think it was i don't think it was but basically trump says hey let's let's bomb the shit out of i think the i think the iranis i think so that was what it comes down to i remember this

this and this was when esper was first in office correct and you were like the son of narcissistic son of a bitch like obviously solo General Soleimani was a bad guy but it was like There was a risk that there was gonna be something after that by making that decision no doubt But but what the only thing that got him that got Trump kind of thinking about it Was when they put the number the expected number of deaths The body count on it They said look even if we do it because he's like well fuck it just do

it in the middle of the night won't be people there so they said well you're gonna kill you know we imagine it's gonna be 150 people 150 people and he backed off because good he backed off but but you know it was but it was he was but it was, he was ordering that launch, period. He was ordering that hit. Now, how many times do you think, and I'm asking you to role play here because you technically weren't there. But just judging his brash New York businessman style, how many times do you think he just like walked in a room like, we need to bomb all of them, kill them. And people are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay. I think often.

And then two minutes later, he's like, ah, ah you're right we're not going to do that versus like he's pounding the table we're doing this no matter what or never you're right we're not going to do this just be pissed and just not talk to you for two months that's a problem so so you know if you're if you're sitting if you've got a seat at the table and everyone else at that table respects you. And you've got a guy that's just ignoring you. Whose problem is it? His. Yeah. But yet you're feeling like you've got to be fucking kidding me. Like cut you off.

Not allow you to talk. This is a guy. This week I've been manually reconfiguring my 8Sleep app just to like test around different temperatures to sleep on and see how fast my body gets used to certain things. I've talked about it in the past. I love sleeping cold. But like do I want to sleep at the very cold or like extremely cold metric or do I want to sleep mild cold or like just like a little bit cold? And so I've been doing something different each night. But it's amazing how aware my body becomes of what the mattress is doing

because I'm like thinking about it. And then when I look at the statistics the next day, I can correlate how I felt with what I actually ended up getting. Like how fast did I fall asleep? What, how many times did I toss and turn throughout the night? Like it'll show you in hourly increments as well. So you can see like when you were at certain stages of sleep, whether or not you're sleeping great or not so great and then i can figure out over time like oh well maybe i like sleeping on minus six as opposed to minus eight so cool the eight sleep pod pro cover i talk about every week and comes in queen or king sizes it goes right on top of your current mattress and it is wired directly into the app i speak of where you can measure all these things and understand

why when you sleep on an eight sleep pod pro, you can sleep six hours and feel like you slept eight. It's a beautiful thing. So if you use the link in my description along with the code TRENDIFIRE at checkout, that's T-R-E-N-D-I-F-I-E-R, you will get $150 off your own Eight Sleep Pod Pro cover today. Once again, make sure you use that code TRENDIFIRE at checkout to get the $150 off. But you will get the actual pod pro cover you will get the app obviously that you'll download to come with that and it will change how you look at sleep forever so check it out mark esper is a guy there's there's not a harder working guy out there

this guy this guy and his wife i mean and his wife geared up they geared up they have three kids you know so i mean they i mean There's a lot going on in life. I know that just from my situation. They geared up. They strapped up, buckled up, and went at it. What do you mean? When he became Secretary of the Army, he locked down. Let's go.

We're going to solve these problems. There's something called night court that they used. And basically, literally, it was at night. They would go through the night, and they would get briefed by every single person that had something to do with that program until they determined what the ground-level problem or ground-level opportunity was to either budget cut to have better strategy and tactics to have better logistics whatever it seemed to be whatever it was he was getting to the bottom of that and he is i know for a fact he's what he's got one of the best bs meters in the history of the world right but he'll even tell you that he does he just knows and and it's not it's not that you have a BS meter, and I've said this before. It's the fact that you get to the bottom of something.

And when people know that they're not prepared or when they know they haven't done what they should have done, they'll start fucking up. They'll start kind of wavering and then, okay, I'll go to it. So if you can get it to that point you're you're in great shape right you're going to actually solve the problem or have opportunities for solution that you can provide when you've got a narcissist in their own realm and all they're thinking about is how it makes them look all that work kind of goes out the door right unless he leaves you the fuck alone and just says and for a while he was doing that until he felt like he was, you know, his narcissist being was was upset. His ego and his moves were getting blocked.

Essentially. Correct. Like it seems like the line in the sand was after like the Floyd riots where he's like, no, we're not going to declare domestic warfare on the United States. One million percent but but even like i think if you if you do some research on you know on esper and and mark milley um you know the the chairman or the joint chiefs yeah that guy if you do some research though on those guys and i know things have gotten sour but but him i don't like but i get it you know but kept – there's this – their offices sit next to each other in the Pentagon, right? So for obvious reasons, right? There's been no – in the last – since the Reagan administration, there's been no chairman of the Joint Chiefs and secretary of defense that have interacted except on a conference table in front of everybody else.

Why? So the doors have been shut nobody knows but the first decision esper made when he became secretary of defense was to open the door between the offices and they knew each other obviously they knew each other from from being secretary of the army you know he was his boss there and then he became he was his boss when when millie was um you know the chairman of the army right so i'm gonna i'm gonna come back to something on that before we do though this might actually be a good spot because i don't even know if if i have any bit of an educated

answer around this but what is the difference in the job roles of the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs? Because very often, not always, but very often, like defense comes from the military, right? And so the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is literally like a general in the military. What's like the write-up difference? Obviously, everyone reports as Secretary of Defense. He's top dog. But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is top of the Army? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is top of the army chairman of joint chiefs is top

of the military so so it's it rotates the branches of service rotate that chairman position normally that's normally the way it works so uh you know you've had um you've had admirals that have been i think um the crystal i think and um you've had air force you've had the marine commandant the marine corps not dumford i think not long ago was the chairman so maybe they rotate that out and so it's basically i think the idea there is never to kind of allow one branch or the other to think that they have you know more say than others so that and what it does is it fosters open communication among most of the branches the secretary of defense is their boss what so so basically he's a policy guy he he's like a here's my i mean esper esper says in his book i

wrote a two-page visionary statement that's it just two pages of what i wanted to accomplish first as the secretary of the army trump read two read two sentences well if he read any of it and then and then secondarily what i wanted to accomplish my vision what i wanted to accomplish as the secretary of defense right so at that point it's up to milley as the Joint Chiefs to execute the portions of that vision statement that apply to the military. It's up to the undersecretaries of not only the Army, but the undersecretaries of defense to accomplish the policy portions of that visionary statement so the sect defense takes i guess kind of takes in what the president and the speaker and all those people have in mind in their platform and then he takes his own vision of what he thinks national security should look like and then he kind of dovetails those into each other now in this case how are you going to dovetail, shoot those fucking people in the leg, and then

fucking launch a missile into Mexico? Okay, we're done for today. The other one that I didn't even know about that Esper writes in his book, he talks about he's in a pretty high end meeting with all of his, it's called like senior

executives, basically it's all the senior executive leaders that are under the privy of the Pentagon meet once, just once a year. He's in that meeting. He gets a phone call from Milley. And Milley says, I got to see you right now. He says he wants, the president, Trump wants to evacuate every American citizen out of South Korea. When was this? This was shortly after, basically,

Esper takes over as Secretary of Defense. Why did he want to? Because North Korea is going to attack, and we want to move those out. So they finally have to sit and talk to him and say, let's talk about all the things that does to the world. Well, what does that do to the world in that case? Why did he think they were going to attack them?

Just everything. I mean, who else isn't going to want everyone's going to now pull their folks out of south korea it's going to empower north korea that crazy son of a bitch to maybe now say oh we got him on the run let's hit him up right weren't they in a good spot at that point though they were in a great spot but that but that's the shit that this guy, he got so pissed off at the fact that he felt like North Korea was disrespecting him and his administration that he decides, well, we're going to pull everybody on South Korea because this guy's definitely going to do something. But that's the shit that, think about the time away from the true mission of the Secretary of Defense or the office of the Secretary of Defense, what they want to do, what they need to accomplish. Think about the time and energy that's wasted by this president making statements like that. And here's another thing, too. The people of these friends you're talking about, these ones in particular,

they're all conservative guys. They're from Republican backgrounds, like literally in office in some cases and you're more of you're you're interesting though because you don't if i give you a good idea and it's not and it's not conservative values you'll be like sounds good to me yeah if it makes sense for the security of this country. I would go beyond just that topic. I'm saying like in general when I've had conversations with you. But I'm saying like – I'm an open thinker with that stuff.

I am. I have to be. I think that's great because that makes you not normal. But like as a basis, you're a more conservative guy, right? So it's very telling to me when people, especially like people I happen to know in your case and love and and know everything you're about and then therefore the people closest to you who you've known for 40 years at various levels like when all these people who are also on the same side of things are saying a lot of the same things you know yeah as i said to you off camera, if even 20% of this stuff is true, it's problematic.

And by the way, this is not to say that like, I think it's great that we have a geriatric fuck in office right now. I think that's not great at all. And I, you know, God knows what the hell is going on behind there. I don't think he's calling any shots,

but you know, maybe there's able-bodied people who are, I don't know. Right. Like that's, this isn't a situation where it's like, well, fuck this.

So yes to that, no matter what. i think we have problems across the board but when you're looking at what trump did to capture attention and captured the hearts and minds of people like i i talk with people who are still like trump people and they're not at least the ones i talk to none of them are mean or whatever. They have one, two, or three reasons that, by the way, aren't related to missiles in Mexico. Right. That they, for their own life. Yes. Absolutely.

Makes sense to them. And he speaks for them. And so I empathize with that tremendously. Just like people, like, I'm not a Bernie guy, but I listen to people talk about Bernie and the things, the one, two, or three things that he really stands for for them. And I'm like, I empathize with that, too And then you hear the guy talk and you're like, okay, all right, I get, I get where he's coming from on some things. But like, to me, I don't believe in extremes. I view Trump as an extreme. I view Bernie Sanders as more of an extreme type guy. And I'd love to bring our world back to a place where we have middling, right? If we went

Democrat, Republican, and they were just moderates over and over again, that'd be great. So when we talk about this, I think it gives it a lot of credence when someone like you on a long-form podcast like this, and even if Mark ends up doing something like this, can walk through all these different things you saw. And I guess the last point there that's important to say is Mark Esperam isn't any meals. He's a wealthy guy. He has a – this is not – he doesn't need to sell a book for money. He's got a lot of fucking money. My question is, and I don't know if you know the answer to this personally.

This would be more for him, I guess, but maybe you've talked to him. Like why is he writing a book now why didn't he say something the day he got fired i mean the dude got fired on twitter he had all the current the social currency to say whatever the fuck he wanted after that agreed but i just don't think that's him you know and i think this book the reason i think you and i started talking in this in this podcast initially about therapy and therapeutic value of writing and getting your ideas out, I think that's what you're seeing. You're seeing a guy, because this is a 20-hour, 22-hour listen. This is a long book. It's a long book, and it really goes back to his days.

He talks about taking the oath at West Point with 1,500 others of us in the Class 86. He talks about taking the oath at West Point with 1,500 others of us in the Class 86. He talks about our graduation. He talks about his commissioning and his branch decisions and his time in Desert Storm and the Chinooks that flew him into Desert Storm and all the things that go with that. So I think this is therapy for him. And it's just out of character for him to ever kind of fire off on anyone when what happened to him happened and um you mean like right away yeah i just don't think it's it's something that we're trained for at school it's something that we're trained for at west point honestly is to not is to is we've talked about this before you know don't react respond take the time to respond and i think that's what

you're seeing here and within this response is some really helpful information you know not only as to what was going on and why mark made the decisions on in the white house in in the oval office but also some of his ways of doing things and and we talked about that earlier on too. Focus hard on something, one thing for six months, and you'll be astonished with the results. Well, that's what this guy did. This guy found so much within the budget and the organization and the value of different agencies that weren't really even understanding what their mission was. You know, and I think looking at the Trumpsters, looking at the Bidenites, looking at, you know, the Clintonites, looking at the Bernie Sanders people, what it all comes down to is what makes

sense to you. What's impactful in your life that mirrors some of the things that that the most things that that person is doing right and when i look at trump people they're all pretty much they're they're financial guys let's be honest you know most of them are financial depends where you're looking it does but what my point is in your circles they are in my circles they are because they're guys that have brought i brought the. And I've learned more over the last year in talking with you. I've learned more to kind of look at those people for what they really are, you know, and why they're really like they are. And I have my own beliefs, and there may be things that are totally wrong about individuals. You know, I think a lot of it goes to they're just,

they're not confident in themselves, right? So their story kind of tells the way. And hence my issues. It mirrors my issues. But mine is more along the side of, I don't think the confidence is the factor. I just think that I always feel like I'm not giving myself, I don't want to give myself credit.

I want others to give me credit, right? So I kind of back off. Well, you can't do that, especially when you have a message to deliver. So I think long story short on this is Esper has a message to deliver. And the message talks about how valuable it is to be sacred to the oath that you took and also to kind of stay in line with the things that you believe are in the best interest of the most people, which are not only the military or not, I should say, not only national security of all the citizens, but also the well-being of the military. And he is extremely focused on that.

You know, the military family. You know, he talks about changing one. What he did is he changed. This was an interesting story, and this will kind of give people an idea. So he gets a note. He goes to visit Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, which is the home of the 25th Infantry Division, historic, you know, wonderful division commanded by some of the greatest

generals to ever walk the face of the earth. And he goes there just on a visit to kind of talk to the commanders about some of the things he thinks they could be doing better and some of the things that he wants to hear, some of the things that they think he can do for them in order to kind of get to the bottom of this whole policy deal, this whole budget cut deal, this whole how do we figure out what's most efficient equipment, all this stuff. And what comes out of it is there's a military spouse, a woman that says, you know the one thing that bothers me, Mr. Esper? And he's like, no,

what's that? I have to come from the gym after I work out. I have to drive home, change into respectable outfit before I can go to the PX, which is basically the Kmart of the military, or the commissary, which is the shop right of the military. I have to go home before I can go because there's a policy that says I can't be dressed in gym clothes and go to those stores on the posts at Schofield Barracks. So he said, well, tell me a little bit more about that. And this is Mark. And she said, well, it's a half hour ride each way. So I leave the gym.

I got 30 minutes to get home. I got to throw something else on. And then I got 30 minutes to go back. In the meantime, it's getting closer to school being over. So I got to run back out and do it again in a couple hours. I just don't understand it. So Esper writes a letter to all of the post commanders across the country across the world that have px and a commissary they all do and he says simply what that hey i met with this person where

there's no response everybody's like no we don't we don't agree we're not going to change the policy well isn't he he's the secretary well he wanted to see what the flavor was right so comes back a couple of weeks go by no movement on it so he writes back and says well you know i'm going to change i'm changing the policy and basically the policy is going to be it's at your discretion commander but i do believe that people should be able to go in the px with you know as long as they're serviceable as long as they're you know not cutoffs or exposing body parts whatever you can do that and still nothing finally he just says this is what's going to be and the military families look at him and say thank you you know it's just it's just a matter of simple shit or hey changing policies so that school teachers that are licensed in washington state when her husband was assigned to Fort Lewis are now certified

in Fort Leavenworth because by the time they get to Kansas, retake the tests, get certified, do their student teaching and become tenured, he's on to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. So he changed the policy that if you have a teaching certification and you're a military spouse, any state in the country, you're now a teacher in any state where you rotate. Simple things like that. So that's how Mark Esper sees things. Now, take it to the level, he's working on all those things with his wife. He's budgeting.

He's worried about the security of the troops and whether or not their mental health is in place and what it looks like to recruit better because we miss recruiting goals because we have recruiting goals because we had the standards too high and he hears that standards are too high he he actually makes the standards higher so we don't want to attract yeah those folks you know that are where we were not long ago i wonder if they had moved the standards too high or if no i just think they were like pull was lower it was lower I

mean he did a study there's about three to four hundred thousand kids 17 to 24 that are interested interested and possibly going into the military out of high school that's it three to four hundred thousand kids out of those something about 20% that would qualify. So when you think about that, how are we going to maintain an Army or a Navy or a Marine Corps or an Air Force or a Space Force at this point, when that's the pool of applicants that are going? Well, what he decided to do is tour out to all these different cities, urban cities, and talk about the value of becoming a soldier, the value of what it means and how it lines up your life and how it builds your resume and how it's attractive to employers when you're done and how it makes you some money that you're not going to make any other way

coming from where you're coming from. My only thing there, and this isn't a Mark Esper point, this is a general machine point here. It's like, to me, that's what we hear about, like the stereotype a lot. Now they go to poor environments and say, here's some hope. Be in the army and everything. And someone like you, you made the choice to do it when you were 18, went to West Point, went to the highest end of it and whatever. I think that's a little different than people who feel like, oh, well, that's the only great choice for me.

And so there's a lot of cynics out there. And I try to not be cynical, but rather more hyper aware of it where we do see a continued cycle over and over again, regardless of party in charge, where we get ourselves into some sort of endless war over and over and over again. And when you look at the past, a lot of the past 40 years and the conflicts we've been involved in, dating back to like Vietnam, 50 years, it's like, well, some of it you're legitimately asking for what? There's plenty where that's not the case. I would argue, especially like after 9-11, Afghanistan absolutely had to go there. Didn't have to go to Iraq never

should have been in Iraq you know what I mean and so it feels like when you look at the cynics and what they'll say and and where I'm like they have a point there is like oh yeah sacrificing more people to the war machine and yet a guy like him is in an awkward position there no matter what because a this is his whole life like he did this and he legitimately made the choice to do it but also b like he does have to field an army he's the secretary of defense it's what he does yeah an efficient and effective army too yeah and an army that's taken care of and believes that they're being taken care of so their mental health is in place you know so that they're getting everything that they nothing more but everything that they're entitled to get for doing what they do you know and and you yeah i mean listen if if you took if mark esper came to rumson you know after after a couple of glasses of uh of voove champagne you know they'd be like yeah

our kids don't do that shit they're gonna go take a an internship at uh at goldman you know and we'll see you later i mean they'll fly'll fly the flag high, and they'll talk the talk, but at the end of the day, their kids ain't fucking going. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's so interesting to me, man. It is. But, I mean, my point is about Mark is get to the bottom of every single issue within the military, every single one, and he really did. What were his expectations though

and i i asked that because because he didn't come in in 2017 he came in in late 2019 what mid-2019 whatever it was he already had buddies who were there mike pompeo had been there since day one at cia and then state he had i know there's other guys i'm forgetting their names who who were around it had seen it you know especially as you described like a black and white type guy did he not know what he was getting into here and if so why did he do it i think when when they ask him that question and i think the book is kind of leading towards this it's his his constant fear after is a bad, his thought that if he, you know, if he didn't, who would now come next that would not be able to survive the onslaught put on by that Oval Office,

right? So he knew if he left, like people said, well, why didn't you just, you know, why didn't you say something? And he said, well, I needed to be there. I needed to be there to protect the Army, to protect the Armed Forces, to protect the soldiers. Nobody else was going to do that in his mind. Now, that might not be right.

You've got to go like Ryan McCarthy or you've got other guys that are there that are doing the job. You know my thoughts on Lloyd Austin. We don't have to go through that again. But at the end of the day, it's kind of he really has that concern and that thought for the soldier. And the greatest job, and he says it, and I'll tell you the same thing. The greatest job I ever had in my life was as a platoon leader, as a brand new lieutenant at a West Point, leading young soldiers and older non-commissioned officers and earning their trust. Earning their trust. That was the greatest job I'll ever have.

I'll never have a better job than that. How long did you have that job again? You have it a short time. It's a year. Maybe if you're lucky, you're a platoon leader for two years. If you're lucky, if everything falls into place and you, you know, you don't get moved up to what they call battalion staff, which is several different positions. One being operations, one being supply, one being logistics, one being admin. So, and that's the normal natural progression and then you take a company after that or you take a battery so that's the levels and after that until battalion command and he even changes the way that they

select lieutenant colonels who are guys with 20 years in to take command at that next level and i totally agree with the way he did it but But like, that's the guy, that's, when he came into these jobs, the reason he took these jobs, Secretary of the Army, Secretary of Defense, is because he knew he was back in a team leading, leading soldiers, now leading highly, you know, highly educated, great leaders, people who made a difference and have impactful personalities and ways of doing things. And he felt that that was important. And I get that.

I get it too. And I'm sold. Because by the way, he didn't need to write a book to say this. I've been hearing this from you for three years. So I've been sold on that and I'm comfortable with that. But people out there, they weren't a part of those conversations. People listening right now, they don't know you personally like I do. And again, we all have to do things based off opinion and feel and what we think of other people. But there's two ways that people can look at this that I see, like when I look at the madness of the crowds. People can either say – I guess the most common would be like people who detest Trump and whatever. They would say, oh, guys like that.

They're in there doing God's work, protecting our country from Donald Trump. The people who love Trump could say, look at that. The inside deep state government is taking control of everyone. And there's the fracture. You just explained class 86 fracture. Yeah. it and here's the thing him aside defense secretary and cabinet aside when people are looking at the government as a whole not even with trump involved there is an element of like these bureaucracies this group thing big tanks they control everything right and that's fair i feel like sometimes a guy like mark who again where i'm like at least a little indirectly tied to this

situation in particular it's like you're in a lose-lose because if he comes out he could be a lifelong conservative like he is military man do this job for for the soldiers and to take care of them and i know he took that seriously as a west point guy the dude behind screen name x out in fucking utah like he may feel differently and he may and and i get his cynicism too like oh who the fuck are you going in there mr raytheon senior executive. military industrial complex person trying to protect this country from who God sent, Donald Trump? And even if I disagree with his opinion, I understand how he gets to that. Yeah. No, and I do too.

And I respect that. And I think it all comes down, you know, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about, the simplification of our thoughts, right? The simplification of finding meditation able to open up things to me that make sense at this point at 59, right? So what, if you could look inside and say, what, where were the incentives given everything else being the same, financially stable, healthy kids, the ability to work pretty much any job that he would want to have worked before jumping into government right what's his what is his incentive i truly believe a guy like that it's all about taking care of the soldier maybe even first taking care of soldier when i say soldier i mean when i say soldier i mean you mean airmen, seamen, the whole deal. And then also protecting the national security of this great country.

How do we do that? And people don't – think about your daily tasks. I think I thought about when he was talking about this stuff to us separately about the shit he was doing with this night court and having – they called it Esper sweats. I mean he would sweat you you know to get the info and people were stuttering and stammering high level people doing that and i probably would have been doing the same thing if i wasn't prepared right i think about that job and then i think about the things that we all stress and stroke about you know day to day whether it be um you know okay i've got to get this piece of paper you know

i don't even know i don't even know what people literally think about getting to work getting their kids to daycare where am i going to put my kids in daycare right all those same things that are so important yeah to the to the american Now take that to, he's got all those same concerns that we do, but he's also got a job that's life and death. Yeah. And if he doesn't make the right decision or if he doesn't stand up for the rest of us, we've got a problem. And how many things do we not know about that happen that he stood up for that he can't

write about you know how many things do i know about that i can't write about or talk about that still wake me up sometimes i wake up sometimes and say oh my god i'm glad wow glad that's over or i'm glad i don't have to do that i mean i still i still wake up standing in the door of a of a c1 ready to jump. And I tell you, I have, I don't know if it's a control thing. I don't know if it's now I'm getting older. So I'm feeling like, you know, I'm no longer immortal, you know, and I've got a sense of mortality finally. And maybe it's because my grandson was born, but I can, I've been having more of those thoughts. Like, holy shit, I'm so glad I could have been dead there.

Or I could. been having more of those thoughts like holy shit i'm so glad i could have been dead there or i could so i think it's kind of the things that he thinks about now i give him so much credit at my same age to be able to to stand inside the door and to to make those decisions and to make them fairly and to make them being well researched well prepared and now he's just trying to tell that story as a as a bit of therapy you know he's a listen does he like i mean i think he said it i mean i think the the really the the straw that broke the camel's back was the walk over right during the george floyd riots he walks over to that church that was being vandalized in his mind holds the bible up and he drags along millie and he drags along esperie and he drags along Esper. Esper turns around from there, goes back to the Pentagon,

gives a speech about why we're never, the military is never politicized, ever. And that's the other thing he thinks about. Basically politicizing an organization that is the only thing that we shouldn't be doing it's been it's been happening for a while now it's been happening a lot it's really and i think iraq is what opened it up and and part of that by the way i i get it i do get it but he's right in a in a utopian world it should be something that is just america right period and soldiers should be punished based on

their actions not based on somebody else's political views yes and what i mean by that is look at these i don't even know how many it is they say it's four maybe six west point cadets that were that did coke now the sad part is it was laced with fentanyl right so they wind up almost dying but you're fucking gone. Sorry. Why are we dragging our feet on these kids? Because they can run a football? And beat Navy?

We didn't beat Navy last year. But my point is, like, I worry about those kids. I'm sad for those kids. I'm glad those kids are okay. Higher standard type deal. We don't do that there. Yeah. We shouldn't be. mine i hate this sound and esper in my day it was black and white bro no little blow he's going to see you later abc you

later i remember no ripping lines in the back i was a freshman and there were two seniors who were two of the cooler guys because you can really have an issue if you've got a company and there's 36 companies at west point if you've got a company, and there's 36 companies at West Point, if you've got a company that has a reputation of being what they call a haze company and they just light your ass up for no particular reason just because they want to keep that reputation going from the 1940s, these two guys were cool dudes. Like they would call you in, you okay?

Come on in. Come and sit down. Well, a week before graduation, they both got booted you know why they were selling cocaine they were cool guys yeah they were fucking stoned all the time of course they were cool come on in let's listen to michael jackson you know i mean like but we didn't know that but but west point you know nowadays i'm not so confident that it wouldn't be like oh you know it was we only sold a little bit you know call me a cynic but especially in the 1980s, I don't even care if it's West Point.

There had to be snow on these campuses. Oh! I mean, because now I know what it is. It's nuts, but I'm just saying. Hell yes, it was there, but it wasn't tolerated. Sure. And you never wanted to put your fellow classmates in a position where they had to report you, right?

That's the difference between the West Point Honor Code and any other Honor Code. your fellow classmates in a position where they had to report you right that was the big that's the difference between the west point honor code and any other honor code cadet will not say naval academy says the same thing air force academy what they don't have is a toleration clause a cadet will not lie cheat or steal at west point nor tolerate those who do right that's a tough one that's a tough one it is because it gets into into the whole snitching thing and all that. And I get it. Look, you're holding, this is the highest education of Army men in the United States, right? So it is a different standard. It's supposed to be.

Yeah. I'm not a part of it. It's supposed to be. And, you know, I just think that Esper has carried that over to where he is today and where he's been in the last year and where he was 40 years ago. Call me crazy, but I truly believe, and some of this is probably a little pie in the sky, so that's fine if people laugh at some of this. But when I sit in here and you get to do it, other people now have been through here a hundred times doing it and everything. It's like, you know, the world kind of stops and we talk for a long period of time we talk for three hours and i'm definitely not perfect as far as reading people i don't think i ever will be i don't think anyone's perfect but i'm i'm above average because because well you're i know

you're really good at it better me but i'm above average because i do this right i believe that if i gave that guy three hours to go back and forth and answer even some of the questions that i've had you answer on his behalf today i'd have a pretty good feel for where he stood on things i hope to do that when he's done this book tour i'd hope to have him in here yeah me too to do that because i i hate to see anyone regardless of their left or right be pigeonholed into a political bullshit back and forth battle especially like if they're genuinely trying to do the right thing you know i like i i think i think it's important for people to know what goes on. I just hope it also doesn't have the opposite intended effect because you did have such a media onslaught on Trump

where there was ridiculous things thrown out there, even by his standard and everything, to where what happens is then people are like, oh, they lied about this, this, and that. I don't believe anything. And that's unfortunate, but it is true. It's the way it is. It happens, and it has happened, and it will continue to happen. thing you know and that's that's unfortunate but it is it is the way it is it's it's it happens

and it has happened and it will continue to happen but you know i i i agree i mean i think you would hear you would figure out who the guy is and and like i said it hasn't changed yeah it's he's run the course of time it's it's a test of time that mark esper has passed. You know, I mean, I just, I saw him last year at the Belmont. We went to the Belmont Stakes. And as you know, my buddy, Terry Finley, owns a bunch of race cars. He won the Kentucky Derby, the whole deal. Doesn't Mark own one with him? Well, Mark is now, you know, getting interested in that.

Never before. Yeah. Never before. Like, you know, he actually loosened his tie at the Belmont. What the fuck? Mark Esper loosened his tie. That's unusual. What the fuck? Mark Esper loosened his tie. That's unusual. You know, that's unusual.

I didn't even have a tie. So, you know, but that's, it was good for him to loosen his tie up. You know? So it's kind of, you know, it's kind of like when you think about it, he's, you know, he's kind of seeing things from a different point of view, but at the same time, he is who he is, you know. But perhaps the gloves are off a little bit. I think the gloves are off. I think things just worried him a little bit. Yeah, that's fair.

I think he was worried. You know, I think he looked and said, wow. And he's the kind of guy, he's not, he's answering that email right now. He's not waiting on that email yeah he's answering it now he doesn't have to meditate to answer the email he don't answer it's not a big meditation guy i don't see him being a meditation yeah maybe you know maybe i'll get him into it you didn't do any meditating like you said back at west point there's none of that no med meditating maybe was passing out for 20 minutes at your desk while you're trying to

do calculus after boxing class we used to laugh at that after boxing yeah so i had 7 30 boxing class as a freshman oh i love that 7 30 a.m and we need to do that regular college it's good stuff you know but it really is the first time that you say whoa like the old tyson line you know everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face were you orthodox or south no i was an orthodox guy they teach it that way but there were dudes that have fought coming into school right and it just it was strictly like it didn't matter you could be you just alphabetically or whatever however they tried to do it by size never fucking worked yeah not for the newark brawler no they'd just be i'll take you out you know you it just lines up that your schedule you know you're kind of going to be

with oh my god look at the size of some of these dudes you know so um you would get pounded even if you won even everybody even if you won you got pounded because you're getting it you know you're getting hit i mean you're getting hit right i mean I mean, I had some fights coming up as a kid, but they were over in two seconds. This is, you only do minute rounds, right? So three one-minute rounds. Minute rounds? Yeah, three one-minute rounds. What is this bullshit?

Three one-minute rounds. At West Point? You just pound the shit out of each other. Come on. Pound the shit out of each other. One-minute rounds. One-minute rounds. And it's hard.

I'm disappointed in that. I'm telling you it's hard. I know it. I'm telling you. There's no boxing that's easy, but I'm disappointed. It should be each other. One-minute rounds. One-minute rounds. I'm disappointed in that. I'm telling you it's hard. I know. There's no boxing that's easy, but I'm disappointed. It should be three minutes. They were a great at bounce, and then you would jump in the shower at 100 miles an hour, what they called pinging at West Point, which was moving your feet at 120 steps per minute. You're just basically going. You would ping all the way back from the gym all the way to the calculus classroom,

which was Thayer Hall, which had like 50 sections of plebe calculus freshman calculus you go in there your your nose is still bleeding you're a little but you're groggy you're still sweating even though you took a shower you're in full uniform and you sit down and okay let's talk about you know the proofs involved in this uh differential equation from problem number one yeah You know, and I mean, that's kind of the way that place kind of brought you up and brought you through. So the rest of this stuff is just, you know, take your pounding and then fucking get in and make the solution, you know, figure it out. And that's what I think he kind of brings to light in this book

is you got to take your pounding sometimes because it's rank. you know figure it out and that's what i think he kind of brings to light in this book is take you got to take your pounding sometimes because it's rank and he's a he's a we're all yes sir you know move forward we're all military guys but the end of the day we also have minds of our own to think about well wait a minute time out there's a problem you know and i think that's what the school kind of teaches you is how to kind of how to how to how to like i said instead of always reacting you're responding more yeah in your personal life in your private life so there was no time for meditation the only time i would meditate is honestly when i was like holy shit i'm gonna pass out in this calculus class because i'm so beat we had a dude muddy park in my class korean national korean national

greatest muddy park it was like me young or something but we call them muddy so we're standing in class basically what would happen is and you you would open the windows especially in the summer at west point because it was blazing there was no air condition in the academic buildings and we were kind of um the the um chemistry labs were on the first floor so chemistry physics, all your different sciences, some of your engineering classes, first floor, windows, West Point windows, old school, old-fashioned. You know, the 1802, they built these buildings,

so they're floor-to-ceiling windows, and you'd crank them open. And if you started to fall asleep, the professor would either throw something at you and say, stand up, or he would say, stand up, you know, go to the back of the room. Well, Muddy's in the back standing. He gets too close to the window. Next thing we know, we hear like, ba-da-ba-da-ba-ba-ba-boom. He's out the window.

He's like laying on the ground. Professor never missed a beat. Never missed a beat. Just said, all right, problem two. You know, and we're like, you know, sir, sir. He's got a broken neck. Yeah, I know. I know he just fell out the window, that's where he belongs next you know and that's kind of like that's you know i kind of think about meditation you know those thoughts have come back to me during my 20-minute sessions so um but um

but you know i'm just i'm happy to have a guy that's utilizing this skill to not only tell the people a story about what he experienced, but also to kind of help others. I'm sure. Sure. I'm sure he's helping others. We'll see how it ages. You know what we have never really talked about on here? Yeah.

Is like the service, the years after West Point. Yeah. And like where you went and everything. Yeah. So my understanding is it was like what, like six years maybe, something like that? I had close to nine, believe it or not. No shit, it was that long?

Believe it or not, close to nine. And I had some significant periods of obviously training, which is cool. And I had something called a branch transfer which is one of the coolest things because you get to experience um you get to experience a couple different missions that the that the army has but yet you're really not um you're not changing you're not changing your life you know you're not. You're not leaving a certain area. But you're basically going from, hey, I used to be, not used to be, because my mission was to fire huge cannons at the enemy. And now I'm thinking I'm the guy now that cleans up the mess after you fire those cannons or does a little bit more right and so the whole piece of my training that led to my

operational skills all had to do as we talked about before interrogation work right so um intel the army civil of it civil affairs division is basically the special operations uh intelligence gathering branch organization right so um and you immediately are teamed with folks that were the guys i looked up to that i became later so your cia guys your fbi guys um you know your your your delta guy or two your, your Delta guy or two, your Ranger Regiment guy or two. So it kind of was a team, very small level teams concentrating on, you know,

I mean, counter surveillance, counter intelligence. Where were you stationed? So the homestead is in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. But, you know, you're basically you're rarely at Fort Bragg. You're being sent. Yeah, you're gone.

Not long missions. Now they're more under, like even Civil Affairs now does something called a 918-9. So they're deployed for nine. Doesn't mean they're in the same spot. You could be deployed for nine just away, right? And then you're flying around. Then 18 months home where you're

basically taking and digesting and analyzing all the information you gathered and providing it to operational units and then nine more deployed that was not the way in my day so it might have been nine days away one day home three months away wow you know two months home my my focus was was pretty much South America and Africa so um and then the training was was really good so the training portion of it was wait a minute wait a minute minute. Yeah. This is like, because you graduated in 86. I graduated in 86, spent three years in the artillery. So not deployed. Short deployments, operational deployments. Including South America?

No, not when I was an artilleryman. Okay. No. South America was interesting in the 80s with the U.S. It was interesting in the 90s and the 2000s and today um so and then separated by a master's degree in south carolina so um the army sent me for my master's so oh god got it got it so so but uh at the same time there was a lot of mission friendly work there. You're practicing your skills. I don't know. I guess let's just say, hypothetically,

you were a boss in the FBI who hosted a civil affairs team to learn counterintelligence in a large city in the Northeast. That's shit you would do, right? So that's cool. That was some of my favorite work was actually and i do it to this day for clients it's the same thing counter you know if i counter surveil you i basically am teaching you how to live a different lifestyle how to do something different you know not be the same pattern guy who comes in you know um puts his kid in the car the same way every day this is what andy

bustamante was talking a lot about he he went through that guy's galaxy brain i mean he yeah he's a special guy yeah in a lot of ways he broke down the different like he was talking about the patterns of what was it called someone's patterns of life yeah or something yeah and so he would explain how from a spying perspective all they would need was the smallest derivation and like things that me well not you but someone like me we'd never look for that but the smallest derivation says that's outside the realm of normal they could spot someone he's like there he explained one thing he's like there's seven and a half billion people whatever there is in the world like the movie schindler's list

there's only one red dress the little girl in the red dress right that's what we're looking for so he goes we can immediately eliminate seven billion of those seven and a half and now we're looking for. So he goes, we can immediately eliminate $7 billion of those $7.5 billion. And now we're looking in that $500 million, and we're looking at those people to find the smallest derivations, and then boom, we got them. And then you exploit it. Yeah. Drive it through and exploit it. So similar, you know, that's kind of – we're coming up in the same – you start as the same training person. And then you kind of branch out into the things that make sense for your specialty,

whether it be under presidential orders or whether it be under, you know, JSOC orders, whether it be under Pentagon orders, whatever that might be. And so my life kind of continued on that same path, but just in a, I guess, in a mentoring role because I always looked up to those guys who were bureau guys or CIA or agency guys or Delta guys. When I was a young captain, you know, serving in the civil affairs unit, I was like, oh, there's a lot. And there is a lot to learn.

I mean, they'll teach you everything you need to know and like that and make mistakes. And it's like your best coach in sports, right? You think of your best high school coach. It was a guy who let you make the mistake 20 times and then said, okay, here's the way I'm going to destroy you for making that mistake. You'll never make that mistake again once you know that. Same thing. So that was most of my time. And then when I –

You were in the field, though, too, right? Like you were out there going over the shoulder, doing the damn thing. Yes, definitely. But more of mine was utilizing those skills, which are innate. All of us that come out of West Point have those skills. Using those skills in order to gain – not gain. That's a bad – in order to accomplish your objective whatever that objective might be in your world different different for me than it is i take my buddy stan

who was a logistics officer who was then assigned to exxon mobil in the 90s who then would transition similar to me transition to a company so you can you know my company's a little different right his company trades my company didn't trade uh on the market but you know he was kind of part of that um i guess career path process so you're saying there was a yeah so there's a you know he's going off to he just he's retiring so god bless you stan you know how much i love you and he's retiring going off to we're trying to buy places in the same spot in florida we will and he's going off here with a ton of stock options i'm going up here with just a shitload of options so i look at it right so um but it's the same

pattern and somebody just asked me yesterday do you ever think about did you ever think about staying in i was like yeah definitely yeah why did you i kind of did though and i always answer that i kind of did in my mind i did well nine years that's not too many and i took that and i transitioned it over to the bureau's pension program right so in my mind i i did. In my mind, I did. You know, once they, there was like this touchy day at Quantico where they were like, okay, here's the deal. You know, you were in.

So you have to, you know, they're telling each individual different information. Like what you did here, you need to sign off and resign your commission in the reserves because you can't do what you were doing and do what you're doing here. So like I checked it all out. I'm like okay but i get i get all this time back and then the person said not only that but we'll give you your west point time oh so you still had some you were in the reserves when you know no i i couldn't i had i had to resign my commission yeah so they

were saying you had to do that correct got it so it. So, you know, so I gladly did that because I was able to say, oh, wait a minute. So you're going to give me all that active duty time, that nine and a half plus West Point. What do you mean? Give it. They gave me four. They gave me 13 and a half years seniority on day one in the bureau. Oh, oh, they. Oh, they like transferred the credit to the bureau itself so i

was like oh wait a minute so i remember i remember like now this now your career makes more sense so i was thinking to myself like i remember thinking wait a minute like did i did i just screw that like did i just sign i couldn't put it together and then i wound up making a phone call to a couple of guys who i trusted and they were like no dude you did you did great like that's the way to go you know and then it just it was seamless and so there's this whole the big thing believe it or not like you know money obviously you don't do those careers for money you know and i think that's kind of why every once in a while i get that like these guys that you know make a lot of money you know because i didn't but um but i got so much better stories but at the end of the day not in their mind but in my mind but um you

know you kind of think about all of the time that you have in and whether it's of value to you when you look at it on paper and it was it made i got a 33 year retirement package at 54 years old but also you're walking into the bureau with a huge dick huge you know you've got the big thing is the money's one thing but the big thing is your leave time what do you mean so you accumulate hours of leave for each pay period in the bureau so the army's different the army's 30 days a year and and uh you'd have to take that that's saturdays and sundays and everything so you get 30 days a year which is nice it truly is i mean it's four weeks plus right the bureau when you're a brand new agent you know hey how you doing whatever um you get four hours per pay period it's not until you

have 15 years that you get a full day per pay period so i within a year and a half you had it so i was you know i was gathering 26 days a year plus 10 to 15 sick days, plus, you know, temporary duty days. So I just saved those all up at the end of time. And when I retired, I couldn't really take leave. I mean, honestly, I just didn't have the time. I'd always have either something going on or whatever. Retired, I got like a massive leave check, which made me feel pretty good, right? I mean, that was good.

That was good stuff. So the advice was great, and I kind of stepped into it, but I felt like I did really well on that front. So that was always protected for me. And then doing what I love to do. I think I've said this before. There was probably five or six days in my career across the board, both careers, both years, 33 years, that I was like, fuck, this sucks. You know, and all that was was basically me.

It wasn't them. It was me. Or like a boss. I had one boss that I was just like, oh, yeah, yeah, this guy's a boob. And I felt bad for him. And I tried to talk to him and say, no, man, I would, you know, be careful about that. You know, don't do anything. All right. What am I going to talk to him and say, no, man, I would be careful about that. You know, don't do anything. All right.

What am I going to do? And so then I just immediately would ask for a transfer. You know, like, hey, whenever you get ready. And they were glad to give it to you because they just wanted a guy like me the hell out, you know, of their area because I was causing too many issues and problems. In their mind. I wasn't. But in their mind, oh, you're going to make me work. Oh, shit, I can't do my crossword.

You know, I can't go to Dunkin' Donuts six times today. Okay, let me leave so you can do that stuff. I know it's important to you. So that was kind of my career path with stops internationally, both operationally active and training active. So you may be in Costa Rica on a mission, or you may be in costa rica on a mission or you may be in costa rica doing training or you may be in venezuela you know you may be in um i mean someplace in africa training but you may be there actually doing a mission and never the two and hence the one piece that you and I share

back and forth on my writings there's times when you know you let down for just a split second and and it could come back and chop you across the neck right so so that's kind of the way I've led my thought process throughout my career you know it's just kind of the way i've led my thought process throughout my career you know it's just kind of separating obviously i'm always careful bringing this up like when you when you start going to a place like that and i don't think we've really even touched any of this on the podcast so you know you stop at the start or wherever you want to but you know how much these days all these years later outside of maybe some experiences when you literally are writing some fictionalized accounts that are very parallel to exactly some things like how much do you still relive the the worst you know the the your your brother's dying next to you uh less and less

but uh which is really good and i attribute that to my wife um we've talked about that before and um less and less and i think it's all your perspective of how you look at it um and i kind of this is going to sound really weird but i truly do believe this um if you know if not me then who if i was there i was supposed to be there and i should have been there for those people right on both sides on both fronts what do you mean on both fronts both fronts whether it be it be watching it happen to somebody I love or making it happen to somebody I didn't. So I think war is hell, right? War is hell, but I think I've said this to you before.

More of my craziness came later in the jobs that I did later. How do you define, like when you say craziness, because like I'm crazy. Out of control. That can mean a lot of things. Just out of control. So let's, you know, if we could go back to what we were talking about with your training,

with the training at West Point, right, and how it's very regimented and you're really not leaving any stone uncovered, unturned, and then something happens happens hence boxing class before calculus you know so all of us and it happens it happens on other levels day to day to all of us it's just i think that we're appreciative of being able to transition out of it quicker because of our perspective now. And I say our, I mean my wife, you know, Sheila and I, right? So I don't know if I've ever really talked about this, but hypervigilance and how terrible it is.

And you can, if you're astute at reading people, very much so. And you could do the job I did easily, probably better. And you can see it in each other. I can spot a PTS, whether it's at a Panera or on the beach. I can spot it in two seconds. I have been in places eating lunch at home and I've had somebody come up and say, are you okay?

Wow. Yeah. So it's pretty evident, but that hasn't happened in a long time. What things are you looking for? It's the hypervigilance piece. So picture your routine, whatever your routine is out there, whatever you do in the morning.

I have a habit of usually putting the coffee pot on, taking the dog outside. It's early. It's mostly dark when I take the dog outside, kind of looking around and then getting in, getting ready for my workout, whatever I do or going and doing my thing. So that's a really healing piece for me now. I could smell the ocean breeze. I live close enough.

I'm so lucky to live close enough to the ocean. Picture that being a disaster. of a gunshot go over my head and i see a car like pulling into my driveway and they're looking to hurt me and i hear and i am looking in i can't get out of that i can't get out of that sense now it's not none of it's happening it's not happening but you hear me it's happening you hear that sometimes yeah that's hyper vigilance so there's guys that can't get themselves out of it there's girls that can't get themselves out of it. There's girls that can't get themselves out of it. Is that like a, I would imagine it's some sort of a hallucination? Definitely. But it comes with the real sounds and smells.

And smells, that's the creepy thing. That's the weird part. You know, and I've related to, so I think what I'm saying to people out there, if there's vets or others, and PTS does not come because you're a combat veteran or you're an FBI agent. It can come from witnessing something or experiencing something as normal but not to you. So you can't rationalize irrational thought. That's okay. You're still experiencing that stuff. I don't meanize irrational thought that's okay like you're still experiencing that stuff yeah i don't mean to laugh that that's not me i'm just that's my nerves

but you know you you've got to seek the ability to kind of get yourself on the right path because hyper vigilance is a terrible way to live and it's causing a lot of issues it's causing people to take their own lives because they can't get out of it when you were getting at the your role on either end of the spectrum there whether it was taking out the targets who weren't such good people or you know your own falling anyone i've ever really heard talk on this or that i've talked with personally there's always like i don't know if it's an element of the pts versus a symptom of it as well but there's like the survivor's guilt thing 100 100 do you still oh that's the big part of it. That's the hardest part to get through. And what's helped me there is, you know, I thought about there was one morning I opened the garage door. I jumped in my FBI car to go to work, and Sheila came running out like the side door.

She said, where are you going? What are you doing? So I'm like, I'm going to work. You didn't kiss me. And so I was like i'm going to work you didn't kiss me and so i was like oh all right that had happened 500 000 times in my first marriage you know it just wasn't part of the deal right so she said don't ever do that you know oh yeah you told this one yeah yeah so i think that's the that's kind of – Because of her experience. Yeah, her deal with 9-11, right? So whatever happened, happened, and it didn't happen the way she maybe wished it happened, whatever.

But at the end of the day, it just comes down to being able to kind of get yourself on a level playing field. Get yourself as even keeled as you can you know and meditation has helped me like I said and I've tried a lot of different things a lot of different things I think just taking care of yourself being kind to yourself helps you get to that level and then try to take it down a notch or two you know it's it's kind of like the feeling is different it's just a different feeling and it causes i was thinking it came back to me the other night i don't know how many people

i'm sure there's a boatload of people in the audience that watch that show ozark and there was an episode the other night where uh the main character um i think it's was it Justin Bateman or Jason Jason Bateman whatever he is a nor like just an easygoing like straight dude right that an accountant type and but he loses his mind and he winds up beating the living out of a guy on the road because they weren't merging properly at you know kind of a detour and he just kept going and i and it it took me back i was like man that's his form of pts was through the experiences in the show that you watch which is pretty well done you know it's a little far-fetched a little jump the sharkish but but that's kind of that's the sensation that you can't control. I think I told you the story. I hadn't had anything, really anything, that bothered me.

And then during my separation between meeting Sheila and ending my marriage, I was at a place, and a man pushed his girlfriend. And the next thing I remember... I don't think you told this. Yeah. A man pushed his girlfriend, and it was like... I saw it from across the restaurant,

across the bar, and I wasn't drinking. I mean, I wasn't drinking. I wasn't... You know, I was not a big, not a huge drinker, but next thing you know, one of my buddies

who happened to be in the responding police department, he is like, what are you doing you know what's going on are you okay and i'm looking and i'm like oh my god and i look and the guy's destroyed and i have no recollection and i said that i said i'm not trying to get ahead of anything honestly um but something he pushed i think he pushed his girlfriend knocked her glasses off is that pts or is that training though no it's because you this was this you were trained to protect because i had seen some of that yeah places that i had been yes and it it started

with a push of a woman and then it opened up into something different yes and that must have been yeah training was there but there was no normally with my training piece like i'm gonna be on top of that i'm gonna be able to stop at a point that's not gonna cause you know you can kind of i guess there's levels you know i had no level and and fortunately the guy was a really good guy. He's like, I fucked up. I shouldn't have pushed her, but, man, I gave him a beating, and we're friends. Really? Yeah.

Actually, I talked to him, not a lot, but he'll text me for holidays and thanks for helping me. And he's thanking me, and I'm thinking to myself, whoa, thanks for helping me. Just beat the fucking shit out of me. I don't even know how many or what I did but it reminded me of that jason bateman kind of scene and that happened so i think that's it's part of it is the fight you know the fight or flight piece that kicks in but you have to you're in society now you're going to starbucks in the morning you're not going to side of a road somewhere looking to jump into clear a room with potential bad people in there so i think that's um and there's guys suffering all guys and girls suffering all over the place and you could see it yeah i mean i've tried to help but you gotta be careful look what happened

to you know chris kyle you know i mean that's a pts oh yeah he was he was killed yeah killed trying to help a guy right so and i've experienced it you never know people are people are suffering and they're on medication and they're there's different things and you know mental health is a huge problem you know and in the pts community is a huge problem across the board law enforcement military people people in general do you think that coming home and basically right away going hardcore into the fbi as you did was in hindsight some of it putting a band-aid on a bullet wound because you kept it's like okay well i had to leave somalia or wherever the fuck where this crazy shit's going on.

But I'm going to find the craziest thing I can at home. In this case, the FBI working the most nutso cases, including stuff internationally. And I'm just going to sink myself into it and we'll roll with the punches here. No doubt. It's a self-destructive kind of behavior that comes with the hyper vigilance you know taking chances it doesn't matter what the chance is might be just going speeding up through a red light you know but taking chances it could be at any level um my big thing I enjoyed I enjoyed just kind of going down to the beach and you know after dark and going in the water that's self-destructive yeah i mean i'm not saying there's

i'm not saying there's huge you know sharks swimming around bayhead but yeah it could be there could be and that was a preppy too and that was okay they're very very very preppy yeah they have uh they actually wear they wear shirts with old golfers. We wear shirts. But there's a great joke about that, but I can't really tell it. Okay. But I think that's what kind of – Water was one thing. You know, maybe, you know, taking some chances with other things,

you know, saying stuff or, you know, trying to put yourself in a position where you might get, you know saying stuff or or you know trying to put yourself in a position where you might get you know hurt or something bad happened wait that doesn't answer my question yeah what what why did you feel like after dark you had to go into the well I knew the reputation of the wall like I knew hey there's possible it this is scary oh you know like touch the coffee pot and when it got see what happened got hot see what happens you know see what happens but that's the that i recognized that and said oh my god and there's a

couple instances that woke me up to that like oh shit all right i'm i'm going down a bad path and then then i meet sheila and things start to get better way way later way way later but things start to get better um but i mean i think there's there's examples of that through everyone's life and and i was i was taking chances that could have backfired in many different ways you know many different ways and you gotta really thank god i had a i had a very dear friend with the bureau who who just wouldn't take no for an answer you know he's like no man you need we need to get this straight you know and he uh he physically brought me to a counselor to a therapist you know and because he was seeing signs on the job yeah he was like what's going on you

know and he was a guy who had some some of those experiences in his life and he just knew he's like what are you doing you know you're trying to really screw this up and so um that's good that you had that yeah it was great to have that guy and not everybody has that and i was fortunate and and i you know i would say at this point once in a blue moon i'll get like a damn thank god you know i could have really put myself in a pickle on that situation the old stuff There's a couple of things dates from time to time. I'll I'll wake up and I'll be like it's that day Mmm kind of thing and I'll be shit, you know, but I'll but I'll work through it so that I bring out a Fond memory of that person or that event or something, you know, John's Johnny McHue's date is next week it's next wednesday so he's you know he's dead 12 years next wednesday yeah so and that wasn't even when you were yeah but that's your buddy that's my buddy right so i'll think about that in and think about a fun time like

think about you know when we were kids and we were playing wiffle ball or think about something, and that helps get through it. But I'm through it much quicker in everything, in every part of that disease. That disease could cause mood shifts. It could cause you to lock down and not say anything. It could cause you to kind of go away in your own spot. It's basically disconnect is worse than anything else. That's the part of it because you remove yourself from your life. You don't feel human.

And so then a lot of the VA's solution is to pop the pills, and then that makes it even worse. That's society's problem now too, like in general, just throwing pills at the problem. It is. I mean, it is. And, you know, it doesn't it doesn't help move it forward in any way so i've kind of i've kind of looked at things and said okay i'm

gonna come up with a nice memory like we're having a very small golf outing on monday with guys and girls that remember john so with johnny mack i love, but we've lost the personal touch, and we've lost the ability. We've priced out people. People can't play. People can't spend $3,500 to play golf. Right. It's not accessible. We're friends.

Yeah. Right. But they can spend $80, which is what we're doing on Monday, and we're doing a couple of stale buns and bagels, and you come out, you swing the club for four hours, and then we sit around, everybody's going to tell a story. It's 28 of us. We're going to tell a story about John and then toast him and say, God bless and move on. Right?

So I think that'll help a lot of people who have been, that's been suppressed for them because since Johnny Mac's Soldiers Fund started, they haven't been able to afford... Really, I mean, it's like off the charts. But for $80, they're fired up. Like, I've never seen people so fired up to play a shitty golf course in my life, you know, but it'll be fun, and we'll have a blast, and it'll be all

people that knew him that played American Legion with him or played basketball with him or was his dentist. Stuff that they've... The first year, we were all together then it went away so I think those are the kinds of things that helped me to Reconcile the feelings of damn, you know poor me kind of thing. Yeah, it's easy to fall down that trap too, but It's it is it's great that there was somebody there

like you said at the FBI who had at least somewhat of your background and knew what to look for and got you to recognize that. Because I do think about that, and I never even knew, for example, that you came in with 13 and a half years superiority, but now it does make sense. You just went full high octane and something i was excited to talk about with you that i've been afraid to in the past but now i feel really good about it was the undercover work and i say this because you can't give details of like who what and where and we're not going to do that and like if you go to slip on something of course i'll bleep that out and take that out so just before warned on that yeah but i had andy bustamante in here who was a cia undercover spy internationally doing crazy shit and he's same deal he can't say where yeah and of course exactly what and all that but i had a chance to get like he's had to

answer that stuff a lot on podcasts before and he has his own podcast where he talks about so he's a pro and like kind of taking you there without taking you there. So I wanted to do something similar with you because we've mentioned it in the past. You spent 25 years at the Bureau and roughly, I guess, like 9 to 11 years-ish you were on and off undercover. Yeah, I'd say I did a lot of cameos and then a couple of big ones, which which once you become um comfortable it's listen it's similar what we went through with podcast yes yes yeah yeah once you become comfortable you know it's kind of like you can talk about it and you can do it and and people trust you you know hey okay this is a go-to guy that we can do when when you say cameos maybe maybe maybe yeah maybe maybe here's a good way to go

about it can you explain the bureau's levels of undercover so when you were saying cameos that's one that could be you go undercover for one day posing as somebody versus the longer ones were where you were three years or something like that you can make a cameo could be a phone call. Mm-hmm, you know, it's not a simple scheme Yeah all the way up to Hey, I'm a recurring character like think of a think of a series, you know, like like a comedy, you know Oh, I love when that guy comes on, you know, you could do that. So you could be you know, oh here you come You know, whatever whatever the role is it could be fishing boat captain that you know Entertains all the corrupt politicians a fishing boat captain that you know entertains all the corrupt

politicians down the bahamas you know or it could be hey i gotta find out what the scheme is on this i'll call um all the way up to try fully immersed in a role that takes time to establish um how quickly did you realize you wanted to do that i didn't i didn't want to do it i i didn't want to do it i just knew that when i was convinced of the first one i just knew i was the only guy that i believed i was the only guy that could make a difference and do it it seems to me and i might be wrong about this is just always the vibe i got you did most of this work in the front half of your career all of it all of it so at quantico when you first went there is that when the first seed was dropped on you like jim

in the military in the military yeah yeah yeah yeah yes yes 100 so when i got there to quantico it was kind of like uh you know kind of like known and we won't talk about the details of how but um through mutual friends west point friends that were in the bureau meaning you had made some cameos yeah we had done some stuff and in the military and it just kind of carried over and and there were times i didn't talk to friends my west point friends for a couple years at a time because I was so worried that somehow or some way I'd put them in danger. So I think it started in the military and then I really got serious about doing it

because I saw that there was an impact to be made and it needed to be made. But the only regret I have about doing the work is losing time with really good friends over the course of time. Especially like the long term. Yes. Yes. So, but I realized the importance of the role and the importance of the case, quote unquote.

What was the longest you were ever under? Meaning out of town, no one knows where you are, what you're doing. 14, 14 months. Holy shit. out of town no one knows where you are what you're doing 14 14 months holy but but with with visits with with time in between but very specific as to nobody really there's one one or two guys that know about that and what's it like with your family top very difficult but then you can't tell them but then you start to live the life right right? So you got to be careful. You know, you got to be careful of how that goes and what goes down. And I was fortunate.

The first one, my kids were babies, literally. So I didn't miss any time. I think about that now. I think about. If you are looking to search the web privately and not have all these websites track you when you leave, check out my friends over at Privato VPN. Privato is the VPN company that gives you full privacy while losing you no speed, and you can use it on up to 10 different devices at one time, which is a beautiful thing. If you have multiple devices, you get the same product everywhere and you pay for it once. So if you hit that link in my description, you will see my landing page with the site at Privato, and you'll

see a plan there for $4.99 a month. It is is the same one i use it gives you all the things i just told you and more so check it out you're gonna love it uh with this grandkid like i think about time missed but my kids don't have any of that they don't have that sensation they don't even i think if you put a gun to their head they would be like nah he was there you did it at the right time. I think so. I truly do believe that. I mean, there were times when I was four months away or whatever, but there was an explanation for that. Oh, dad's got to, you know, and then I would see them maybe every three weeks for a weekend. How hard is that, though, to get away and Listen, there were times, I can tell you, there were times

I woke up the morning of the start of it and said, I ain't fucking doing this because I ain't leaving my kids. And how, all right, so how,

but I did it. How long, like that 14 month one, for example, where it's 14 straight. Two questions. First one's easy. Approximately how many times

did you get to visit your family over that ballpark? I would say say i would say at least monthly at least monthly at least monthly sometimes more for a day or two yeah or extend it you know because you always have a story on the other side right away i gotta go oh you want that all right go get i'll go get that you know and then you come back with it because you stop by the lab with Guarnica. It's pretty easy to get it. Yeah, you pick it up. Right, right.

So you're always – which is kind of – if you think about it, that's counterintuitive too. What bad guy always comes up with the shit? Yeah. But whatever. It's part of the job, I guess. Whatever. You know, I mean, you definitely do a good job kind of making sure you vet the people that you're going against, and they're not the smartest dudes in the world, so fucking make it happen. Yeah.

Now, the second question is, for something like that, how long is the ramp-up process before you start? Not long because you're introed by a source. No, no, no. I mean the training process. Oh, no. You had had experience at military train me really military train me with the counter counter surveillance counter intelligence and just being that i had better the bureau the bureau runs a certification school for undercover that i never had to go to real yeah because i just well they were like we're not we don't get any better we guys

like him teach the class that i didn't know that and i found out after the fact well all right here's another question like what was the longest period of time you were operating undercover when you were in the military a month um all right well that's not two days because they're different objectives sure sure we want to put so you've always been picky about your produce but now you find yourself checking every label to make sure it's canadian so be it at sobeys we always pick guaranteed fresh canadian produce first restrictions apply in-store or online for details. An FBI or a CIA undercover wants to put a dude in jail or get him to flip. CIA wants him to flip.

FBI probably wants to put him in jail. Or both. Either way. Right? The military objective, yeah. Kill him. Yeah. Or get him to cooperate. You know what I mean?

Interesting. So it's kind of like a shorter period. I'm lying when I say a month. I don't think I ever had a month. A couple weeks? See, this is still different. To me, this is different because, A, as you just pointed out, the objectives are a little more...

Totally different. Yeah, they're in a different playing field. And your mindset is different because a as you just pointed out the objectives are a little more totally different yeah they're they're in a different playing field and your mindset is different because of that you're also in this case doing it not to say this didn't happen the fbi but a lot of times it could be a domestic thing too but when you're in the military it's an international thing so you're operating as like more along the cia lens, right? So you're an international American out there doing whatever your cover story is. But I'm shocked at that, that the Bureau, I understand obviously your resume was insane and you had done some serious work. Plus I had cover from guys that, you know, it's like having a dude that's going to introduce you

at your confirmation that's going to put you, you know, let's just take it to like a government level. So you have like four or five guys that you know in the bureau that were in my world before. So they're like fucking passing you through. Yeah. Like, are you, like, it'd be like, those people that were supposed to certify me would be begging me to do it because of those guys that told them, what are you fucking crazy? This is the only guy to do it.

So you, that's, that is wild to me though, that you would go on set. Cause I, and the other thing that I can't say is like, I have the knowledge of some of these and what you did and how and who it was with and all that and it's like you know i my thought has always been i don't know if i ever said this to you but like you had all the skills it's probably captain obvious statement you had all the skills to be an amazing actor yeah oh like did you want to be an actor like i mean i remember people always saying you should do stand-up comedy i mean what the fuck nobody's gonna laugh at my family stories do stand-up comedy. I'm like, what the fuck? Nobody's going to laugh at my family stories. Not stand-up comedy.

I mean, like. Like acting, yeah. I mean, I never thought. No, I never. I mean, I never thought. Well, look at your. But that's what it is. Look at your skill sets. Yeah.

You had to go undercover with mass murderers and shit. As Leo would say. Well, you got a mass murderer. You're right next to him. Right? And you're doing all that shit. But then you're also an interrogation expert where you got to do what well you're trying to figure out whether or not you got to gain as much

information off the guy as you can and you got to totally feel comfortable oh you got to tell him everything he wants to hear which is the key to interrogation right i mean minimization is the key like you're telling me you couldn't put on an Oscar-winning performance with a script. I'm telling you you could. Maybe. I don't know. It's the highest stakes, man. I fall asleep, though, in the middle of it. Shit isn't real. What a great scene.

The audio's out again. He just fell asleep again. But, yeah, I mean, you're right. That's what it is. That's really what it is. I mean, it's an act, and it's an act across the board. It's not just an act. Like, think about it.

Like, the most I've ever talked about it is right now to you. I've never talked about it, Sheila and Sheila, right? But I've never talked about it with my ex. I've never talked about it with my brother. I've never talked about it with – I just never felt comfortable to share that information even though they realized they knew you were i don't know i don't know that the i you know that's a great i should ask your wife i don't know honestly i don't know i i

honestly don't know i i'd have to i'd have to what did you tell her you were doing inspections honestly that was the that was the term. A lot of inspections a Tuesday night at 2 a.m. But the term in the Bureau is inspection, right? So an inspection, a real inspection, well, I don't know. So there's an arm of the Bureau that's the inspection division that handles everything from internal affairs up to and including full inspections of

a field office to kind of determine their efficiency and that's a long process so you could be on the inspection team and i could just say oh got another inspection in salt lake fifth one this week yeah wow nobody knows nobody asks i guess you know it brings in extra money and you know there's a there's a little extra check something nobody asks i guess like you know and then i just never felt comfortable you know i had i had two guys that i trusted that did the same work as i did that they trusted me and we we chatted out And it's the same thing as the guy I told you about that pulled me aside. You know, he was one of the guys, right? So he pulled me aside.

Whoa, whoa, what's going on? You know, that kind of thing. So you just kind of realize that. And it's empowering, too, when you have success. It validates what you're doing. You know, like, wow, shit, we really did get that guy. Or we really did get this guy or we really did get this person and rightfully so you know there's no you know you know getting back to esper right

it's constitutionally right sure um believe in what you're doing i believe in what i'm doing so i'm doing it for the right reason i'm doing it because it needs to be done somebody has somebody has to do it why not me what were some of the different ways, like how would you infiltrate the various people and or organizations that you would be around? Did you get an intro from a source on the street? If you needed it. If you needed it, yes. If you needed to get to the point where, wow, this dude's not, he is not budging, whatever. But I rarely did because I, if you want to see my you know my you

know me well enough but if you want to see my undercover abilities just come to the store come to the store on any day when i'm there jimmy's like dad we everybody wants to talk like everybody's trying like today he's like did you see the guy he couldn't stop making i can't want it to talk to you it's just like in your way of handling things like we talked about the first time we were together you know the the deal familiarity and and kindness and familiarity yeah yeah that's access still i mean that's just you know how would you find yourself in spots and they're paid for so you know all of a sudden you're the dude that has a fishing boat you know how would you find yourself in spots and they're paid for so you know all of a sudden you're the dude that has a fishing boat you know or you're the dude that has something that

everybody wants and people are stupid they're they're not they're not money money really does talk yes money really does talk how did you know because you're it's not like you're sitting there behind a computer and analyzing this or like watching the podcast after you're you're live like in the spot just talking with someone you could tell right away you could tell if they're gonna be like how but yeah for the people that didn't though how did you know now's the moment to turn it over to business just something that just i just felt it and i was never wrong yeah i just kind of was like yep this is it you know and it's it's it's similar to you don't chase it you know you don't you you don't pace it you just let it happen the guys

who chase it are not good at it you know and it's similar to business similar to to what i do for j3 you know i don't chase it because it just looks cheap if you do you know if you chase it you're looking cheap as opposed to just they always come back like i tell every client i talk to when they say i don't think we're really gonna need it right now i said okay i'll talk to you in two months. Always. And I tell you, it's less than two months. But, okay, you ready now?

Okay, good. You know, and I just, I used to be like, all right, we got to get the business to this point. Then this way I can hire. Now it's like, no, that's not the case. Do you get actually into the character, though, when this is happening? Or in your head, are you also still fully aware aware i'm special agent jim diorio so because i i asked that because it's like i'm fred and jones son that's what used to help me i'm fred and jones son yeah that's just so you did it so there was something yeah i never thought about the bureau or the army or i'm not captain jim or whatever i'm fred and joan's son you know so you were able that's kind of what i was getting at you were

able to be present in the moment without calculating so like when you hop on somebody where it's like oh now's the moment to go it's not like in your head you were saying like when's he going to mention this thing that we studied back at quantico or you were more just like waiting for the opportunity and then naturally you're like oh wait but do you ever like because you said something like you take that shit home with you and stuff so you could without you could without revealing anything like i know you and i have talked a little bit about i don't know how deep we got into it but like in some of these jobs like you had to do hard drugs and shit like that

well you you make your choice right so you you kind of be the guy that does x y or z you know what i mean like hey i don't do and you're adamant i don't do that shit i never did like fucking coke or never that really yep i was like a boozer so you would you had no problem i was like um i'll tell you what what it was like i'm comfortable saying it's like a like a shot of booze a vikadin a shot of booze of vikadin oh you would do vikadin yeah that was the thing that's some real shit no it's real shit but it was i mean i feel better about you doing coke it was a sick now because it was a signature what do you mean it was a singer it was that was my signature oh jerry's here but it's fucking good yeah but it was half you know we our own prescribed oh so you had to bring it i would bring it yeah you had

some now there was times when you know they would bring it and say oh here i got it this week i mean do it did you have any trouble weaning off that when you were done no no not that not then but i had some trouble weaning off it when i hurt my neck how like years later years later that's very interesting yeah because that it like you say like it's like that's like i you know if you had said percocet vicodin valium if you had said below thing i would have said all right well that's not too bad versus when you say that like that's way higher on my yeah i mean everyone i know did blow so like that's not yeah i never did that i never i always looked at it i always looked at prescription drugs in the time i was doing it

in the 90s as not being a big deal now i know it is yeah but it wasn't perspective yeah it was perspective then um but that was my thing like a shot three shots and a vicodin you know that was and guys great and even if jimmy v funniest thing even the fucking even like the fakies like dudes would be like oh i feel everything it's a fucking tic tac jerk off you know but you know you know yeah but you know you know you kind of know what you got to do um to just and and to answer your question like how do you know what the time is it's like you just feel like i truly can feel the time to tell a dude a joke or to you know ask about his kid or i can feel i that just comes to me you know and and on the opposite side I guess the curse of having that is I also know when to shut down to get people to chase

and the curse of that is sometimes I do it with the family and it's not good. So I'm working on that with my therapist. Stop shutting down and going dark. You don't need to. You're not trying to get anything. What are you doing? But my head says, all right, D'Aureo, it's time to shut down. You have time to get those people to chase.

Because there's always something you want, right? There's always something you want, whatever that is always something you want whatever that is and so i've really been working hard that's the curse of being able to go get it from both sides right so you can you know the time to and you know the time to let them chase that's a powerful piece it's good chase that's a fucking power that's everything in life it's like if you if you take if you text her times, she got you right where you want her. Correct. If you don't answer the text, she's going to text you 40 times. You're in business without a doubt.

It is true. It's true. You've got to be careful with that, though. Well, because it can affect relationships that are very meaningful. Yes. As opposed to just acting. But I learned it so well and it worked so well and I always kind of got what I needed out of it that I started doing that.

And it turned, it actually, I can tell you that, you know, going dark for me is still something that I have to really work on with friendships, with never be the guy that the only time he calls because he needs something. Yeah. Well, you don't have that problem. I don't, but it's like, it's scary. That's one thing I wake up in the middle of the night to.

Fuck, did I do, you know? Oh, all right. Yeah, no, I didn't. Okay. Yeah, you should probably do that more, frankly. Yeah. To be honest with you. I probably should, and it's always that fear of like uh-oh yeah but i think that's that's the blessing and the curse of

even like what what andy did and how he did it he'll tell you i guarantee you it's it's a version of it is just knowing when to close and then knowing when to shut down to let others close you you know and um you know what it is it's it i mean it just boils down to a pretty obvious point it's psychological power of course right so this this is this is an interesting little subtopic here because you are using psychological warfare in situations of being undercover or situations of interrogating like a mass murderer or someone crazy and getting a result because there's a job to be done. very able to fall down the pathway of power and what it grants them because it what does it do it gives them convenience for their life it gives them a degree of being able to control the destiny around them so when you do all this 24 7 literally like even if you're undercover or not like you're

either interrogating people or you know getting under people's skin or you're literally undercover it's got to be pretty impossible to not bring it home and fall back to it to be able to like your your end goal is to make everyone around you happy and sometimes you can mix that with what makes you happy and maybe other people not. Like, I think a lot about what Matt Cox actually said when he was on here. You know, this is a guy who was, let's call it what it is, an infamous fraudster. He learned how to pull the wool over literally everyone's eyes. Lie, cheat, and steal. Figure out the way to do all this stuff.

Later worked for the Bureau, though, in prison. So he's on the good side now but he he says like even today and and i would describe matt as one of the most frighteningly self-aware people i've ever met like the things he's my first time meeting him off camera even on camera that he was willing to say about what goes on up here i was like wow like you really good for you like you have figured it out that's that's great but he'll, he'll even say that like today, this part, he did say on the podcast I had with him, like with his girlfriend, she can never win an argument. And he's like, and this is the connotation is this is a little, this can be, this can work against you.

This is not an all positive thing at all. But he's like, I'm so trained to go through every possible thing that could be thrown my way ahead of time why because when i'm walking into a social security office 20 years ago to get a an illegal number i needed to know every possible rebuttal just like a salesman you know so whenever something's going to be coming up it is unfortunately like a second nature in my head to just think of every possible thing she could say. And like, even if I don't have the evidence on me, I can beat her every time. He's backstopping himself.

Yeah. So like for you. He's backstopping himself. You, it's got. That's an art. It's got to be so hard to say, you know, I'm going to even the playing field. Yeah. We're not going to do any of that.

Let's just talk. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's the the it's the minimization piece that i learned a long long long probably as a kid to be honest that ain't so bad you know don't worry about it you know we're gonna do this or do that and people just respond to that because they're like oh this guy really thinks i'm all right i'm okay yeah it's not It's not that bad. Yeah, it is. But, but I want you to believe that it's not so that you'll tell me more about it. And then I just know like shutting down

is the most powerful piece in the world. You know, it's the hardest thing to do because as humans, we want to talk. We want to talk. We want to keep the conversation going because it's our own, you know, kind of, uh, self-esteem root negative core belief that we're not good enough. So we've got to keep it going because if we stop it and they stop it, holy shit, they hate me. But it works the exact opposite way. The less you reach out, the less you do, the more, especially when people need to know, bad people need to know. Just like you said, Matt Cox, he needs to know what's going on, what's happening. And I can tell you in the greatest cases ever made in the Bureau is because guys, bad guys couldn't leave well enough alone.

They had to come back and ask one more question they had to come back and talk about do you know what this if we get caught do you know to show how well I'm so crazy I know if I get caught I'm going to jail for 30 years but I want to tell you so you know what a badass I am that's always the way it was so I just wait for that opportunity for them to tell me what a badass they were toughness in the face of fear that's an interesting wow yeah right you know what would it um peace through strength yeah I I can't imagine like the you've and you got a lot of years on me too of experience the you've seen of every type of person good too but also you know the worst of the worst yeah and the amount of stuff you know like when i first met you i just i like to operate off conservative assumptions

with stuff like worst case scenarios i'm like this guy knows every single thing i've ever done he could read my mind just like okay who cares there's no like i already don't i'm a little nuts like i don't really put up any kind of guard but i'm like if there's any governor on me whatsoever there's no point putting it up with this guy because he's gonna know and then the reason i say it's like when i look at you i can't imagine living like that is because i guess i figured out in deciding to do this, like my talent, my thing is talking with people and understanding what's going on. And do it very well. Thank you.

But, you know, you improve as you do this too. And I get you in here. I get you right in my ears, staring right across from me. We don't do any of the Zoom shit. Nope. We're fucking talking. Exactly. me we don't do any of the zoom we're talking exactly and i have a lot of episodes where i get somebody in a talkative mood across from me and i ain't gotta do except study and you

know what you know what else another advantage i have and i'm sure this was applicable to some things you did in your career but it's like i have to watch it back on on the video and i gotta watch it frame by frame and then if i go to make little short pieces of content in there you know how many times i listen to someone say the same thing a certain way right so a very creepy thing that like i don't sleep well with is when i'm talking with and i just try to convince myself i'm not, but I don't do a great job. When I'm talking with people, they're not in there. I can't read minds. You're crazy if you think you can fucking do that.

But I'm inside people's heads without trying. I see every little twitch that they do. Just when I'm bullshitting with somebody at a party, I know where their insecurities are. Absolutely. I know it's like an open fucking book. And then I'm like, I'm a douchebag doing a podcast. What does the FBI interrogator think of every person they meet? That's it.

I mean, that's the key to being successful is just being in tune with yourself first, your abilities, and to be realistic about what you can and can't do. And I know my, my thing is just you chasing, you're going to chase me by the end of this fucking conversation. And I'm going to give you enough where you're like, I gotta be around that guy. I gotta ask that guy more. He knows something. I gotta figure out what it is.

Yeah. Cause it's a big thing. I mean, it comes down to trying to get somebody to tell you something that you never thought anybody would ever know. I got to do that as an interrogator. If I go at you, yeah, will it be fun? Yeah, we had guys in the office that would just scream and yell at guys, insult them, scream and yell.

At the end of it, I'm like, all right, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? I'm like, you know, you just shut them down. You know, but I know they're shit-ums. I get it. I'm not going to be friends with these guys. Maybe I will. I mean, some of them I have become friends with.

But at the end of the day, I just want to make sure we're comfortable enough to be able to discuss the worst day in your life. How do we discuss that? I don't want, I have one or two things I don't ever want anybody to know, you know, but there might come a time when somebody is a little bit better and gets it, you know, and how do you get it? How do you figure out that point? How do you figure the vulnerability? How do you figure their self, their negative core beliefs is the key to it. Are they not, I'm not good enough. Nobody will ever love me. know i'm always ignored i'm dismissed i've been abandoned my whole life you got to figure that out first what's making this

dude tick is this an abandonment issue so you ask questions about family thinking that you're they're really your thought is i really want to know or their thought is really oh he really wants to know about what my dad did my thought is I want to figure out how fucked up your mother was. That's really what it comes down to. And I'll get that through normal conversation. That's one of the keys to interrogation is through all the things that we all have, how do I get you to talk about something that you think is very normal that I know immediately, oh my God, we got a nut, you know? And it's scary on that side too. And I think the other reason I

think I was better at it is because I did always have that self-destructive piece. There was a little something there and that comes from not being good enough in your mind. You know, I was, I was 10 years younger, my brother and sister sister I always had to prove myself the silver lining is that is they drove me to be who I am you know at the time I you know I didn't think so but now I look back and I thank them you know thank you for driving me to be who I had to be even the unintended stuff even the unintended stuff you know even the ability to just talk to people and figure it out and the only people I have trouble with are the people who are more insecure than I actually am more insecure than you are that's there's a lot of things in life where people can use their weakness as a strength to get a result right and i don't like to overuse the whole

my strength is my weakness thing it is applicable though like it's not there's people who are like never do that there are things where it's like yeah it really depends on the situation and do you think part of that in this case is because when the lights are turned off and you're alone, you do know very well what those insecurities are? I'm more in tuned to my stuff than probably anybody I know. More in tuned. Yes. Yes. It's a wake up, you know, it's, it's something,

it's something that I wake up to often, you know, like man, even like you said before, I don't ask for anything. Now, part of that is that I think part of that, the large part of that is in the chase, right? Because I think it's worked for me. There's a small part of that, large part of that is in the Chase right because I think it's worked for me there's a small part of that maybe even a little bit bigger part than I want to believe that's just because I'm what if they say no you know what if they say no rejection what do I do dismissal is my neck core negative belief is dismissal what does that come from that comes from childhood yeah you know being 10 years younger right so 10 years younger and never really taken seriously because that's just the way it is in an old italian family with a lot of relatives and with a sister my sis i love my sister she's the best person i know uh you know

she had two kids at 19 years old 19 and 20 i was eight wow she's 12 years older than me i mean my my parents actually said okay time to step up at eight you know at the same time basically your childhood's over we got to take care of your sister and her kids but at the same time you're also it seems to me like what you were describing is there was a a tone of like all right run along jimmy we're taking care of this yes dismissal is is just that okay you know and then i but but again i it's the greatest gift i ever got but i will get it does keep circulating back in my life until i kind of realize why it's happening and and when i do it it's, you know, I look at it, I always think about it as like a golf, you know, you're hitting the ball, get off the tee, and then all of a sudden you're like, why did that, you know, why did I do it? Well,

because I fucking didn't turn. Well, it's natural. You feel it. Well, why are you feeling dismissed? Well, because you fucking allow yourself to feel dismissed, period. You know, that kid's not doing it on purpose. That person in your life, that family member, your wife isn't doing it on purpose. It's just what they're doing. But you feel like you're being dismissed because they've got something else going on that they need to take care of. You know, so that's once, you know, dismissal caused me to say, hey, everybody, look, it's me. It's Jim DiIorio. So I'm not just going to go to an ROTC program which by the way i think i've got buddies i'm not

saying this in a bad way i'm gonna fucking go to west point because that's i'm not going i'm not going to just be you know a normal infantry officer i'm going to go civil affairs prove yourself yeah i'm not going to go in law enforcement i'm going to be in the fbi and even today even today you know even today i'm i'm not gonna do um i'm not gonna do private investigations or following some divorce case you gotta do the serious shit yeah so so it's like look at me look at me but that works for me and i'm okay with that but deep down there is a piece that says man i'm not gonna ask you know tony guzzi steve Cannon, or Joe DiPinto,

who are dear friends, for work, because what if they say, nah? They're never going to say that, but in my mind, that's kind of the one thing. Now, that doesn't mean I haven't said, hey, I think I can help you in this situation, or whatever, in a way that I can do it in. But I think that's something that's powerful. It's powerful for me. It's worked for me in the interrogation world because the shutting, all of a sudden, I think by accident I shut down one time because I was like,

I can't ask this dude if he did this. Why? I don't know why I thought that. It was like something, you know, something. I can't even remember, like, the details, but I can remember the interview. I can remember the interrogation and i just like i kept saying oh my god like if he shuts me down now i got a lot of people outside the room and you know oh my god like what you'll be him and then i just shut down and he came to me i was like oh that's a fucking great strategy uh right now not

that i always do it you know because sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you got to choke that out to get it and tease it out. But for the most part, it kind of works, especially if you get in a situation where it's kind of dead, kind of stops. So I think dismissal has served me well. I don't like it.

I don't like feeling, and we've talked about this before, step-parenting, the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Because you're being dismissed most of the time. You're putting yourself right back in that, by accident. Yeah, you're being dismissed most of the time. Uh-oh. Yeah, and then that can trigger some shit. Yeah. But you're aware of that, which is good. I am more aware now being Sheila's husband than I ever could have possibly been being Sue's husband.

The more that I talk with you, the more I realize why we get along. Because we do have, we definitely have some similar weaknesses that are talked about. That dismissal thing, I fuck with that heavy. I understand exactly what you mean and the other layer to that though is you have to know the line between having a chip on your shoulder and a boulder on your shoulder a boulder can crush you and even when you have success it can crush your spirit. Like, I don't know Michael Jordan.

Never met him. I only know what I see. Michael Jordan is the most decorated basketball player to ever play. I all respect to LeBron James. I love LeBron. Like, great, great player. I still think Jordan's probably the best, but they're one and one, right? Michael Jordan is a miserable son of a bitch it appears like he

obviously goes out and has fun and stuff but he is completely incapable of letting letting the sales down like he's so overly competitive to people that like he doesn't that other perspective never seems to come out and i could be wrong because i don't know him but that is that is the vibe i get and it's because michael has a boulder and he cannot he has to prove himself to everyone so much it comes out and how he tips caddies right like i'm not tipping you i had to work you're gonna work you're caddying for michael jordan like it comes out in everything everything and so i do like i worry about the guy sometimes because it doesn't make him a bad person it's just like but it's still there hot and heavy

he doesn't recognize that nope me i think i hope and people can keep me honest on this that are close to me but i have a chip on my shoulder from that dismissal stuff you talk about and it drives me and there's when people are dismissive by not even paying attention or taking the time of day or if they take the time of day and then don't even have the time to come back and tell you to go fuck yourself i'll respect you if you do that i'll prove you're wrong right I'll prove you wrong. Right, but at least you're acknowledging that we're on the same sheet. Right.

When they don't do that, this thing comes in. Right? And I don't want to beat you. I want to destroy your will to ever try again. Like, if you don't do anything to not be on my side i'm on your side forever i help people i should never even help right like i love people but that dismissiveness has a power to like it'll lock you up you're done yep you're fucking done and so seeing you like how you carried this in your career i'm not sure if you looked at that way i won't put words in in your mouth but you know that prove yourself thing was able to then be

transferred into into skills yes right one 100 on that like 100 i just think i need it to be recognized and you're right like my my stone i don't think I ever had a boulder, but I definitely had a stone that could have rolled down and hurt me, but the chip is now, you know, it's silly, but it's there, and I've got to acknowledge it and say, okay, it's there a little bit, and it's mostly you know where it lies for me is, you know, impacting yourself, not impacting the world. I'm an impact the world guy.

I'm not an impact myself guy. I'm confident that if I chose a path that would have led to, you know, greater material gains that I would have achieved that, but they never really meant anything. They've never meant anything to me. However, I must acknowledge that I hate seeing other people with it from time to time that really haven't accomplished in my mind anything. Right.

And that's wrong because I don't know. They're feeling as impactful as I feel, but that's them. It's all relative, too. It's all relative to what you think is important. And it's the dismissal. What's going to get me recognized? In Rumson, would a lot of cash get me recognized? No.

Middle of the road guy. Yeah. Sheila and I would be middle of the road people in Rumson. Maybe not even. We might be on the lower end. But when I'm at the golf club and somebody says oh that's that's the oreo you know he x y or z did they look at something they find something he was a guy who you know arrested this all of a sudden that's my that's my that's my

you know resource that's my material goods the intangibles are my material goods i pull in a jeep wrangler everybody else pulls in in a you know convertible you know whatever you're doing half that on purpose though i like but that's me i mean i've never been a car guy i've never been a watch guy yep right i just never have timex iron man was my favorite watch of all time you know in my car this is the greatest car i've ever had it's got the one touch roof it's great i think i think in a way you kind of that's like part of you reminding people a little bit because the other thing is guys like you you know i think about like military people go overseas and come back

they got to see some of the shit that people fight over and just be like what are you doing you fucking idiot what are you doing what are you doing like you know it's it's perspective and they don't have that and that's okay and i and i i need to well i'm much better at it but just learn that that's okay okay. It's okay. You know, it's, it's, it's what they know. It's what they feel. It's what they think is the right thing to do. Obviously they, they believe in what they're doing. So I can't sit there and say, Oh, you know, let me judge you and what you believe in. No, that's your belief. And I'd be, I think my dismissal has caused me to look harder at people to kind of try to realize what their

issue, what their negative core belief is. And that helps. And sometimes it'll even thank those people. Like, you know, I could think of a person right now that I thought I, you know, had real big time problem for what he did and how he did it and you know what happened in the end but then i look at that person and they're alone they've got nothing and i feel bad and i think that's when you're when you've healed is when you can look at somebody and say listen i don't know what your path looked like i wasn't in the middle of it my perspective was that it was these three things but the end of the day man you're sad like you're a sad dude and i feel bad not that i'm going to help you but i feel bad that's the other side of it too because this is the

difference with like grudges and stuff when i was referring to that dramatically a couple minutes ago i mean that as motivation to where the very rare people turn into that boulder but the way i i the thing i deleted from the end by accident there that's very important to say is you get your use you drink the water from accident there, that's very important to say is you get your use, you drink the water from that cup. And when it's done, it really is done. Like there, there are people that I used as motivation two and a half years ago that now I'm like, I think that I'm like, oh, well, they are a really sad person. You know what? God bless. I hope they, I hope they do better. Right. Guys like Michael Jordan can't do that. No. They never forget it. No, they can't forget it.

And so I do believe that that's the ultimate healing piece is when you can look at somebody that you had a big time issue with not that long ago and say, man, I wish I really do feel bad. When you were going to not even just interrogate people but that's that's the best example maybe start to make study people start to make cases on them even before that how much of creating the profile was it you trying to think about what incentivizes this particular person. What is the reason that they're acting or doing what they're doing? And a lot of times that would go back to a simple childhood peace, abandonment, peace, or, you know, physical abuse or a dismissal or, you know, any of those things that are, there's only five or six of them really. And then try to build from there and say, okay, now why are they doing what they're doing? Why are they trying to move this cause

forward? Why are they trying to move this fraud forward? Why are they trying to move this complex financial situation forward? Who is looking at them differently? Who are they trying to impress? Is there someone that they have to beat? Is there someone that they hold that chip on their shoulder for? What have others said about them that's a powerful piece and with the internet now and the dark web you can find shit that people have said about certain people that you're looking at and say wait a minute this is this could be it you know this could be it and you know you talk to a guy like Raj who you hadn't here which was the greatest interview of all

time and his book is amazing you know there's people that said have said and continue to say about that guy not knowing the facts and i think it drives him to kind of put out there look so much so that he didn't cooperate that's that's he's exceptional he handles it i i i will i will say this regardless of what people think on that case or what they think the facts are or what they don't, he is one of the most classy people I've ever met in my life. And, you know, guy's worth billions of dollars. Billions of dollars. He wants for nothing except there's something that he wanted for. I have sat, because of what I i did i have sat with some insanely wealthy

people yeah and you know some of them aren't great others are great people so i don't want this to be generalized and misheard but to a man there's a number up in the nine figures where when you are sitting across from this person there is a thing there's just a little thing there and a lot of them aren't trying to do it it's in their eyes where it's like i'm me exactly you're you right poor you none of that yeah with him and i was off camera with him for at least three hours that day he was here the whole day not one fucking shred of it and then when you go through it and everything i do care a lot about intent you know well it's key it's key negligence can't be a full excuse with stuff and and i think all across the hedge fund industry there was there was some negligence especially in that era but i i genuinely think he had zero criminal intent zero and so when i look at that i'm like wow here's a guy who has

every reason to shut up throw up his middle fingers and say fuck you and go into the sunset and enjoy his life but he is taking the time to raise the issue of like hey they fucked me in some ways i'm worth billions of dollars i had all the money in the world to fight them what are they going to do the guy that has no money i respect that a lot so so do i and i think the people his critics are those that wish they could be financially in his position. Yeah. They're shallow motherfuckers.

Mm-hmm. I will say that. They're shallow dudes. And, you know, a guy like that, that's his challenge is to stay away from those sons of bitches. You know what I mean? And he's good at it. He's compartmentalized a lot of that. Very well, yeah.

So, I mean, I think that's – but to answer your question going back, that's the depth that you have to get to is figure out why people are doing what they're doing. And it could be a little self-destruction. You know, like I talked about on myself. I mean, it comes full circle. There could be a little of that or a lot of that. But there's definitely something that is deep inside them that causes them to have to do what they do. So the key to a great interrogator is to have it, is to draw it out in whatever way you can, and then to shut down and let it come to you. Was there ever someone

that you, I feel like I know the answer to to this but i want to leave it open-ended were there ever one person or multiple different people over your career who did some bad shit all right like we'll say not like criminal stuff like bad shit hurt people the whole nine that after doing the job and interrogating them, you had developed through that process such a deep connection and understood where they came from and how they got to the point where it's like hurt people hurt people and all that to where you had significant empathy for them. Significant? I would say the only time I maybe thought twice about it is if we had a time-sensitive matter that needed to go to another level. And then after the fact or during the fact, knowing that I had to meet a deadline, but after or during, I would think like, fuck, you know, I feel kind of lousy about how that went down. Oh, the actual, okay. Yeah.

Okay. down oh the actual okay yeah okay but as far as like thinking about what they were doing the really bad dudes i never i never thought about it so there was never i'm making up a scenario right now but the dude who robs every bank because i know he did plenty of cases like that, so that's an easy one. Like, because he grew up with nothing and his stepfather beat the shit out of him. And, you know, his brother was abusive to him. His teacher told him to go fuck himself and basically kicked him out of school for all intents and purposes when he was 15 he was homeless for a long time was addicted to drugs at one point in fact that's when he did the first bank robbery you see what i'm saying yeah no i understand the pattern

and i get it but there's always more to it than that i but i see what you're saying there are scenarios where that's what they're putting off to kind of throw you. And I just, I would put my bullshit meter up against anybody, you know, and it's kind of like, okay, bro, you know, what do we need to get to to kind of get past this, get this admitted and then move forward? What can you, if all that shit happened, why don't you help me out with the people that look the other way during your childhood and we can go after them. And that like a charm but where that's not applicable though

where that's not applicable i mean do you feel bad it's just this it's a situation like wow the first couple times first couple years you definitely feel like oh my god this is out there which is terrible you know um but then you kind of get to the point where you're like, it doesn't have to be this way. Or I guess that I'm not there yet. I'm not evolved enough to think this way. My wife does. But like, well, this had to happen. You had to have gone through this to get where you are today, to be able to sit and talk and tell somebody about all these things.

And maybe that's your healing. I'm not there. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm closer to it. Maybe a very small piece of me is closer to it. But that's a big thing for her. That's a tough thing, though. It's a tough thing.

That can go. Well, for me, I can't do that because then I start justifying everything. And I got a job to do. And the biggest, if there are any regrets, it's the time-sensitive ones. Because I didn't have the time to establish good or bad rapport. Rapport is rapport. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. So you didn't get anything

out of it, you're saying? Yeah. I mean, I just fucking like cranking people down to get what we need because if we don't have it by this time, we can't disprove

some type of fact, you know, or some type of chatter. So, I mean, I always got something out of it because I just improved my skills. So I improved my ability to help people. But rapport is, like I said, rapport is a word that good or bad doesn't matter.

You want the, okay, this is interesting. having played out and you having gone through the maze and gotten to the final to the middle point and figured it out correctly by using every chess move that you like to use whereas when you still would get the result in those cases you didn't like the fact that you didn't get to enjoy the process and i wasn't always as sure about the result well okay that's important it's not that it wasn't it's not that it wasn't the result but i was always like did we go too hard on this side did we do something that you know what i mean but but going through the process and arguing back and forth and just continuing to hammer one point or whatever my technique,

my particular technique would, I would figure out over the course of time, then, and that could be 15 minutes to three days, you know, eventually I would be like, okay, I got, you know, I'm not letting him waver from X, Y, or Z. He can't, I can't let him do, or, you know, okay, let's do what we got to do. We got to get there. So how do we get there quick? And then I would get it. Even if it was proven, which it always was proven correctly, I'd be like, fuck. I wonder, did I miss something?

Did I miss a step that there could have been somebody else in between or a buffer or some type of you know insulator that i missed because i just didn't have the time was the captain phillips situation one of these time crunches no no no that dude he went you know they were like two seconds from plus he saw his two buddy he saw his two buddies all over the inside of that little dinghy so that goes pretty quick what happened can you take us through the story we never talked about that one well that's a that's a tough one still that's going to be in the book but it'll be under different names captain peters no i'm only kidding major peters because it is a movie now no it's a movie but it's totally wrong so really yes 100 can you say what what's wrong because we can't but i'll tell you off the camera. Okay. What was your role there, though?

Just one of the interrogators and a witness to SEAL Team 2. So you got flown over there right away? Yeah, within 20 hours. And how long was he a hostage again? Like three days? I think it was like four and a half days, right? Yeah, at least. And how far offshore were they? They were out there.

Like 100 miles, something like that? I think the ride was pretty intense. Yeah, it was out there. It was at Rich Frankel. He was a good buddy. It was what? Rich Frankel was with me, too. He's a good dude.

Who's that guy? He's like a former SAC in New York. Okay. Good guy. good dude who's that guy he's like a former sac in new york okay good guy so this was the kind of situation where at you as one of the interrogators at the bureau specialty they call you in like jim we got a situation well we gotta figure out yeah we gotta kind of figure out um how we're gonna try to without we gotta waste some time right until we get the shots yeah what what was the situation how many guys took over that boat there were three four inside with uh with the captain and then we drew out the one dude um we we drew the one what the hell i don't even i can't remember i don't think i even had

his name but we drew the one guy out onto the ship and then what we were trying to do is time the seal team had the snipes had their and they had a time to put attach them by by lanyard by rope to the boat so that we could time the exact movement so we could control the movement because the shots were different you would have missed you couldn't miss both guys had to be on these guys. Where was the... I think it was two guys left. Where was the SEAL team? We took two guys out on our ship. And how close was your ship in proximity?

A couple hundred yards. So they could see it, obviously. They knew it was there. They could see it, but it was rocking and rolling. No, they didn't know snipers. They just figured we were tying them up so they didn't fucking float away and drown and die. Oh, but they knew the boat was there.

They didn't know snipers were on there. No, they knew the boat was there because it was the Mertz or whatever the hell. Yeah. No, I got you. It was a good time. Then what was the thing you were talking about shooting while the boat was going up and down? The actual shot? We had to have the same level we

couldn't allow them to just be floating around because we'd never get the ability to to windage the shot like windage the angles everything so once we tied them up to the ship we knew we'd be in the same and they didn't know you were tied where did you know they knew because they were scared to that was one of the parts like they you know nobody could swim or anything else like it was bad so they were nervous the weather was terrible and um we just waited till it rocked perfect and then but they knew that the boats were tied together oh yeah how did you do it like down below no we just did like a hey you know what we got to make sure i forget how like it worked but my guy convinced them hey you got to let them tie it because if you guys float away you're going to go out to sea and that boat doesn't have any food doesn't have any water and they were starting to

get physical they were starting to get really physical with him they were i mean the movie shows like i think just a couple of slaps they were they were cutting them and all kinds of so and how many crewmen did he have on there i think there was three at one point there was four in the captain and then two of them jumped off and we pulled them on and then it was two in the captain uh and they weren't gonna those guys were the worst of the worst so they were like now we're gonna kill him and we got nervous that he was gonna kill him so You know that should happen still just in general though You're were you in contact with them like was was that you're on the phone with the terrorists. I wasn't One of our military guys was so what were you doing?

Talking to the one dude So you were in contact. Well, he was on the ship, though. Not talking to the guys in the dinghy, in the lifeboat. Right, right, right. So you were talking to the dude in the cockpit with him who was doing the... Mm-hmm. So you were there for like three days then, something like that. Yeah, it was too long.

The only worst thing on a ship was uh twa 800 recovery oh that's nine i did not do good on those open navy warships because there there's no stabilizing it's just rocks right yes i'm terrible well that was that we get on cruise ships anybody wants to take me on a cruise i'm terrible well that was that we get on cruise ships anybody wants to take me on a cruise i'm really good that was another one great at karaoke because last time when we did when we did the the two-parter we were getting tuned up and everything we were hammered in that i have no idea i don't even know what happened this you were hilarious but that that one was that's a tough one so just a just to recap though, the other one that we were literally like speculating on a little bit because you were at least around it was 587, which is the one in November 2001 that crashed in New York, which was sketchy.

Where the tail wing fell off or tail. And the connotation there is that the NTSB. Yeah, it fell off. Yeah, the NTSB report looked a little too clean. What happened? Fell off. But the thing is that we've talked about, and then other people have talked about it as well, I've seen in comments and stuff, is like, you were telling me this, I think, the first podcast we ever did afterwards when this came out. That's why I brought it up again.

But you're like, they literally teach this at aviation school. They teach this crash and look because this structural explanation as up is like it seems yep comes perfectly so they can be like well don't ever let this happen right so the question was just because the fbi it's a it's a crash investigation you guys leave once it's determined to be that the ntsb has to take over yep so you guys are in the dark and all of you were like something's something's off oh yeah i think it was they said jet blast from the from the um the wake yeah from the 747 that was in front of them it's too close which knocked the wing off and then but the injuries were like, you know, the injuries in that one were terrible.

Nobody died. Like, it's a broken neck thing. That's what people don't understand. Plane crashes are not burning blasts. They're broken necks. Yeah. But the other one, why would TWA 800, which we can review real quick, in 1996 1996 which you were directly on this investigation why on this one did the fbi stay on because it wasn't further out

and because they saw a mile so it's all jurisdiction so so if you if you look at if you look at both i forget the flight number on the one um we had it 587 was number five seven five eighty seven on land no fbi jurisdiction once they've determined that it's not terrorist action which i still don't believe um sully on the river right double bird blast no jurisdiction 800 i'm more than a mile out to sea it's ours god okay mile off anything a mile offshore is ours doesn't matter what it is just basic stuff i have it behind you just for people to know what we're talking about trans world airlines flight 800 was a boeing 747 that exploded and crashed in the atlantic ocean near east moore chase new york on july 17th 1996 at about 8 30 p.m 12 minutes after takeoff from john f kennedy international

airport it was scheduled to go to rome with a stopover in paris all 230 people on board died in the crash it's the third deadliest aviation accident in u.s history kids i think too right so ntsb traveled to the scene along with you guys there was speculation that a terrorist attack was the cause of the crash consequently this is where the federal bureau of investigation new york police department joined terrorism task force initiated parallel a parallel criminal investigation 16 months later the jttf announced that no evidence of a criminal act had been found and closed in active investigations now this one you were in the middle of it.

So this one you can actually really speak on. Well, evidence recovery. Didn't you tell me for this one? We interviewed every 747 certified pilot in the world. Like all the best ones. Center gas tank never blows up. To a man, they all said it. Can't happen.

So they said it had to be shot down. Who do you think shot it down? I think it must have been just a little accidental. There was a warship. There was one of our Navy warships out there. Oh, shit. I mean, if you see that, they just, you know, they've destroyed the evidence recently. They destroyed the, I think, or they're getting ready to evidence recently they destroyed the i think or they're

getting ready to or they did i think and there was like it was about as clear as just a hole so this was witnesses that saw like a flame shoot up but you know the the opposing side of that jim calstrom said no no no when when the gas tank blew up the fire the flames from the fuel flowed down into the ocean like right on an exact 45 degree angle that the get the gas was like I'd like to fall straight down in several blobs but we're gonna fall straight down in the line I didn't know Jim Kallstrom had a had a uh had a major in nuclear science yeah no yeah he's a big-time engineer wow i thought he was i thought he was working his time up engineered his own publicity

um but yeah so that was always confusing so you that seems i truly believe that was shut down i truly truly truly believe you talked to every pilot yeah we thought we interviewed every single i mean there was a lot of certified 747 guys at the time i mean a couple hundred it was an extensive investigation i mean we had hundreds of agents on it and then we did the recovery from you know for the body the body recovery and all that kind of stuff and there was this there's there's some amazing stories that come around that of you know just like with the kids and i terrible terrible weather was like i think there was like one high school of i don't know like 60 kids that were going on that that um room trip like it was i think it was a summer like a 10 day

or like a study abroad for a big-time high school in Long Island. Wiped out like an entire class of kids. Brutal. Yeah. Terrible. It's like you see things like this. It just continues to encourage people to think deep state. When they see shit like this and it doesn't make sense, doesn't up to them what are we doing why are we doing it there's so there's so much out there that's

just unexplained and stays you know below the radar long enough where people just kind of forget it and let it go you know and um i mean look we can go if we wanted to go all the way back to the jfk thing right i mean well yeah that one's kind of that's just shut down completely and i i would not say this about this about that one but on things like this where it's an isolated incident where tragically 230 people die where there was no intent and it was your navy warship and you guys fucked up this is a slippery slope man it's a slippery slope but this is one where if i were being totally unbiased as a judge in the afterlife of what are the pros and cons here? The cons of the American people in the wake of a tragedy, saying that the Navy should no longer be allowed to operate anywhere

because a couple dudes fucked up late at night, as tragic as it is. I don't ever want to use the words like, I understand the cover up here. This one, it's like, i can see where they're coming from now jfk fuck that however way after the fact let's be honest if they if if the cia came out and admitted that people at their organization were involved in that the cia ceases to exist the next day doesn't matter if it was 60 years ago it doesn't matter they're done it's it's that secret is too big to put out but I don't accept the cover

up that's oh the cover-up's terrible it's involves all kinds of military officers and doctors and everything else everything man the um the the TWA800 is not unprecedented because there was that iranian airliner was shot down by a u.s ship admittedly so remember that no yeah well i can't think of the iranian yeah remember that thing it was like killed like a couple hundred people but again that's like a that's on a foreign agent or a foreign nation or something 1988 are you talking about yes so again like a lot of implications here but that's not like some dude accidentally on a ship shot down his own country's civilian aircraft this could have been a mistake where it's like oh we thought that was in there i friend or foe man yeah friend or foe you got to figure that out

yeah it's tough we were the best at friend or fro at west point what do you mean identifying tanks friend or foe that's a whole nother thing too i saw like some of the west point guys trying to teach people like urban warfare when the ukraine thing yeah when the ukraine thing broke out and i was reading him like there's no way the average person like me understands any of this but thank you for trying yeah urban where oh yeah urban warfare nuts but jim this was number 100 man i can't believe it that's 100 you're killing it this is great we're getting there so much good that you've done so many people that you've uh exposed to good to good information but same time continue to just be heroic in doing this and it's appreciated and it's i can't tell you how many people come up and talk to me about it and are happy about it and you should be proud of what you're doing and

i thank you you know i thank you man it's great and i'm i'm honored to be number 100. geez it was a no-brainer you you have a big fan club around this show who discovered this show through you you've been on here three times now the second time we did a two-part episode but in a lot of ways you know i live so day-to-day with this i don't i i really there's not like some grand plan. Like I don't have time or capacity for that. So I take things as they go, but I love being able to look back

and see how the pieces kind of fall into place. And in a lot of ways, you are the guy who really legitimized this thing because you weren't someone who had done, put yourself out there publicly yet, but your resume is absurd and so that's that's all people got to read and then they're like oh my god how did you get this guy well it's my honor to do it with you so well great you you've crushed it every time even when i drank

you under the table last time sorry pal but i'm not good with the scotch dude people like that second episode a lot and i'm like great i was horrified oh my god i don't even remember what i said i don't remember any of it but no i i really i appreciate you coming on this so much anytime i'd love coming on and uh i'll be back i'm sure so you will we'll we'll keep you i mean some people want you like every five episodes yeah i can't do that i gotta keep them wanting more yeah i gotta i gotta babysit sal so yeah yeah but you sharing everything you have on this show and always having a new perspective new things to bring to the table from your career and what's going on it's like the greatest thing and i'm honored by it and and i

know everyone out there thank you really really appreciate it it is my honor and it's therapeutic for me and it's helped me more than it's helped anybody else so well you're helping me man i'm trying to help my dream come true here i'm trying so it's coming you're there we'll get it we're not there yet but i um i have definitely never ever wanted something so fucking bad in my life. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot on me, obviously, day to day. Like, I do all this shit myself, but the one thing I do have is I have been very blessed to have some incredible people come in here and do their thing for give them give me three hours of their time and i i you know the appreciation for that is insane so the guys especially someone like you

has been in here a few times and has done it i i couldn't do it without you and you know i don't i don't know what what the future holds here i'm trying um but i'm gonna keep rolling like you know you're gonna make it you've made it we're there we're working on it absolutely but thank you sir my pleasure all right we'll do it again soon sounds like a plan everybody else you know what it is give it a thought get back to me peace Thank you.