Julian Dorey Podcast - [VIDEO] - Secret Service Agent Remembers 9/11 from Inside Building 7 | Evy Poumpouras • 201

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Please support this podcast by checking out my friends at Magic Mind: https://magicmind.com/juliand - Use code "JulianD" for up to 50% off your subscription (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Evy Poumpouras is a former Secret Service Agent Interrogator, Journalist, Professor & Author. Her 2020 book, “Becoming Bulletproof,” is a NYT Best-Seller. As a member of the most prestigious protection force in the world for over 12 years, Evy served on the Secret Service's Presidential Protective Division for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. She has also protected presidents George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George H.W. Bush - BUY EVY’S BOOK IN MY AMAZON STORE: https://amzn.to/3RPu952  EPISODE LINKS: - Julian Dorey PODCAST MERCH: https://juliandorey.myshopify.com/  - Support our Show on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey  - Join our DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Ajqn5sN6  EVY LINKS: - INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/evypoumpouras/?hl=en  JULIAN YT CHANNELS: - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips  - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily  - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP  Brian David Mitchell Video: ​​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QybphTUd-o0  ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Evy Poumpouras & Julian talk Greece, the Greek Lifestyle & Dual Citizenship 9:10 - Evy relives the worst day in American history 20:49 - “They crashed down and the world ended”; George W. Bush shows up to the scene 33:01 - Evy describes her near-death experience & the peace it brought her; Healthy fear & bad fear 34:08 - Emotional vs logical decision making; Non-social people post-2020 53:56 - Selfish US culture vs. World Culture; Connecting w/ people 59:57 - Jiu Jitsu & Acting School 1:05:54 - Ideal conditions for interrogation; China & influence 1:13:56 - Electronic fraud at Secret Service; Secret Service History 1:22:47 - Evy fight with Chinese General; Corrupt foreign countries; Russia & Secret Service 1:33:08 - Most dangerous people; Interrogations after tragedy; How Evy Interrogates 1:38:22 - Brian David Mitchell Interrogation breakdown (Elizabeth Smart) 1:46:33 - Empathy in interrogation; How to set up an interrogation; TV Movies wrong about interrogation 1:53:58 - Jim DiOrio interrogation story; Mirroring; Finding commonality 2:06:05 - Homeland Quote about America; creating t3rr0rists problem 2:14:24 - Evy going from NYPD to Secret Service Story; Most Elite Interrogators 2:24:57 - Polygraphs 2:35:26 - How to spot a lie on a polygraph; Keeping track of polygraph records 2:43:14 - Are people inherently bad? 2:48:54 - Evy shares sinister interrogation story; Stopping tragedies 3:01:40 - Evy’s new project CREDITS: - Hosted & Produced by Julian D. Dorey - Intro & Episode Edited by Alessi Allaman ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “JULIANDOREY”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io ~ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 201 - Evy Poumpouras Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Had you ever been on any sort of details before the Obamas with the previous administration? Before you go full-time, you help with other details. Here's who gets protection. Current president, vice president, former president, all former presidents till they die, and their spouses. In addition to that, foreign heads of state. So you brought up China before. Actually, in the book, when you go in later, I got into a fight with some Chinese general.

You got into a fight fight with him? That was very common. We would get into fistfights with foreign countries. You hit him a fight fight with them? That was very common. We would get into fist fights with foreign countries. You hit him with that Queens Boulevard left hook? He, he... What's up, guys? If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show

so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you. Evie Pompouris, welcome to the show. I really appreciate you coming out here. Well, thank you for having me. How many people pronounce your name completely wrong to this day? About 90.

Evie isn't even my full name. Yeah, how do you say your full name? My full name is Eviania. Eviania. It's beautiful. It's pretty good. Thank you. Where are your people from full name? My full name is Evgenia. Evgenia. It's beautiful. It's pretty good. Thank you. Where are your people from in Greece?

My people are from in Greece. My dad's from an island called Chios, and he's from a village, legit village called Mesta. And then my mother's from the north. It's right outside of Thessaloniki, and she's from- Been there many times. Have you? Yes. Stop.

How? My best friend growing up, Nico carolitas he's greek he's a dual citizen so i have a lot of friends in the salon i've been there like three times before spent a lot of time on hockey the key on the first island there where club pearl is shout out club pearl good time how did you like it i loved it it's greece is like greece is the chillest place ever like the first time i was there was at like the height of the austerity crisis. Remember that? Yes.

Like 2011, 2012 was like right after that. So supposedly the whole country is poor. Like no one can get anything. But they're all at the cafes hanging out, smoking the cigarettes. And they're frappe. And they're just like, eh. Taking me back right now. Yeah.

It's going to be okay. I'm like, skatofatsa. I'm like, what are you guys doing around here? You're supposed to be, I know like eight words in Greek, but that's it. I'm like, you guys are supposed to be freaking out. The most important words. No, Greeks don't really get,

they're kind of like, maybe because we've been around for so long and they've been through so many things, so everything to them is just like, eh. That is exactly it. They're like, yeah, give me my is exactly it they're like yeah give me my frappe we're good give me my frappe my my cigarette it's like if they could have if if all they had was like the afternoon coffee a good dinner with like fresh ingredients fresh stuff not like the

shit we eat here and can go out to the club at like 2 a.m which is when they start around there maybe it's the bar at 2 it's the club at like 3 30 come home at 9 and be able to out to the club at like 2 a.m., which is when they start around there. Maybe it's the bar at 2. It's the club at like 3.30. Come home at 9 and be able to go to the beach in like a little trailer over the summer. They're good. I'm like, that's kind of a happy life. I mean, like it seems like they're enjoying it. So maybe they got something figured out.

It is super chill. The food is better. And that's pretty much because of the EU laws when it comes to food. So if you eat a tomato salad here, a Greek salad here, and then a Greek salad in Greece, it's going to taste completely different. The EU laws when it comes to food, GMOs and all that stuff, very strict. Really? So that's why food tastes so much better there.

I don't know anything. I know about some of the water stuff a little bit. Like they have cleaner water in a lot of the countries over there. But I didn't know it's... Wow. The laws, yes. The food too. Yeah. So I know it's... Wow. The laws, yes. With the food too. Yeah.

So I know it's a whole different topic. I only know this because I go there all the time and I know that the laws there are much stricter. There's food here that you would buy that you can't buy there. Just even the tomatoes, like here you'll get a tomato and it's like the size of, I don't know, a grapefruit in there and it's the size of a tangerine, which is the size it's supposed to be. So it's just healthier. It's a tangerine which is the size it's supposed to be um so it's just healthier it's a healthier lifestyle they live long in fact it was uh one of the islands there that they did a study that they live the longest and the healthiest

and they looked at their diet and it's mostly fish olive oil um we eat meat there um but it's just that the food you eat is better and the lifestyle. Nobody sits home and watches TV. Right. Zero. Everyone's out. They're frappe. Then they go home. Then they have a dinner maybe at 9.

Your dinner's at 9 o'clock at night. You go out at 11, 12 o'clock. You're out. Then they'll be out all night, and they will wake up the next morning and go to work. Fresh. Yes. It's unbelievable. Yes.

I mean, I kind of grew up around it because their house was like the greek consulate around here because his dad was from there his mom's whole family was from there so like all the greeks that would be coming into work in their family business they'd be like bringing them in on the plans talking the immigration lawyer and have them stay in the house right next to them but i you know i'd be like eight years old and my mom would be like damn like maybe i should take them home before dinner you think at 10 o'clock at night. But they let you go out. It's super safe. In fact, as soon as I left the U.S. Secret Service, one of the things I did is I got my my Greek passport so I can have dual citizenship. When I was an agent, I was not.

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a credit card that can get you unlimited free grocery delivery and the most PC optimum points on everyday purchases. The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Allowed to have it for the obvious reasons. Then as soon as that went away, I got my passport and I'm going

to make sure my daughter gets it too. And my husband who is not Greek, but he's going to get one too. Wait a minute. So when you were in the secret service, you weren't allowed to be a dual citizen. What if you were before you joined? You have to renounce it. Really? And so one of the things they actually made me do when I was in the hiring process, they're like, do you have dual citizenship? And I said, no, I do not. I didn't. And they said, okay, well, because you're Greek and the way the law is designed in Greece is if both your parents are Greek, you're an automatic Greek citizen.

So they're like, you're a citizen. I was like, but I don't have a passport. They're like, they made me, the recruiter said, you need to call up the Greek embassy in Washington, D.C. and tell them you renounce your greek citizenship i was like what just call them up and tell them i was like are you you really want me to call up and tell them this the guy doesn't know who i am he's like you need to do it so i call up the greek embassy in the united in washington dc hi my name is evgenia pumburas that

was my name uh i'm applying for this job for the U.S. Secret Service. And he says I can't be a Greek citizen. And he's like, congratulations, what do you want? I said he wanted me to tell you that I can't be a Greek citizen. He's like, but you are not. You don't have a passport. What's the problem? I was like, well, they told me to renounce it. He's like, okay, very nice.

Goodbye. I'm like, the guy's like, what do you want? I think I pissed him off because he's like, you don't want to be greek go to the americans what if i called up as someone else if i was just like i'm nico carolinas and i want to renounce my citizenship and he's like okay a hundred percent i did what i was asked to do um yeah i don't i didn't need to do it but i don't know why they made me do it i did it i wanted the job i was like what do you want me to do i feel like we could get a better system than just like calling the hotline the 1-800 like i renounce like there should be like my citizenship you get a picture taken like they fingerprint you okay i 100 did that but i never had dual citizenship documentation i never had any of it feels good to have it though right now yeah and then i do

kind of wonder like you know i'm not a conspiracy person or anything. I just look at the state of the world and I have a daughter and I think of my family and I think, like, I want them to have another place to go should they need anything else. I also have my whole family's in Greece. My grandparents are deceased, but my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, like, we all grew up super close. I lived in Greece in the summers as a kid growing up as soon as like school closed in the united states my put my put my brother and i in a plane in greece for three months so we have homes in the village so i will i want i want to have that like we go visit but i want that as a backup it's funny you say that because that is

a common thread with some of the agency people I've had in here. Andrew Bustamante talks about this all the time, our guy who was in this – well, I guess he never really left the CIA, but he was in the CIA. Did you ever have access to let's say government secrets that were so big that humanity could never find out about it. Humanity is too big of a word. So I would say I have absolutely had access to secrets that would impact how the American public would respond. What do you mean by that? Meaning the roles that I filled, the operations that I participated in, were operations that were relevant and impactful to Americans. They were relevant and impactful to other countries as well, but never humanity as a whole but he talks about being able to go to all different other kinds of countries like he even has like an active plan to leave here at some point just like as a as a hedge your bets type thing because his wife was also

in the cia as well so they've lived around the world but that's an interesting trend to me sean ryan talked about that a bit too like you know i have i have my plan my plans to go to greece 100 that's my backup plan i've always had it i think it's a realistic plan especially the way things look now like here in the u.s i love america i want to america because i happen to be born here and I'm fortunate, I would have never had these opportunities anywhere else, even in Greece. So that is 100%. But just there's the way things are going. America's got a big target.

The way we're so diverse. There's a lot of issues going on. And that's my backup plan. Everybody should have one. You would know more than a lot of people. You've lived a hell of a life. I had a chance to read some of Becoming Bulletproof yesterday. And it's a very good book, by the way.

Thank you. But what captivated me, I love the psychological stuff. And that's like right up my alley. But what captured me was the way you opened the book. Because it was visceral. And it was brilliantly written. But you talked about a day that even years later in America is still impossible to process. I can't imagine for you, but you talked about 9-11 and how you were working in the Secret Service office in Building 7 that day. And you described what ended up happening. You ended up helping a lot of

people on the ground and, and I believe getting a full award for that later. But can, can you just take me there that morning? Like, was it a normal day coming into work and everything kind of going exactly as planned? And then, you know, what happened when you heard the first sound and knew something was wrong? So it was a normal day. It was Tuesday. I remember the day, I believe it was a Tuesday and it was super sunny. It was nice out. I went in early because I was chasing this guy who was a Frenchman and he was committing all sorts of fraud here in the US, but he was outside of the country and he was, believe, in Canada. So I was trying to get him. So there's a way that if you're looking for someone, there's a way to peg them in the system.

That way, once they cross the U.S. border and they go through customs, whoever they're going to will call you up and say, hey, I've got, you know, Jean-Pierre here. You've got a hit on him. Not that kind of hit. Not that kind of hit, but you've got him in the system. Do you want him? I'm like, yep, hold him. I'm coming in. So that's how that would work. So I was trying to put that in place for this guy that I was chasing, um, who was hiding out in Canada, but I knew he was going to come to the U S so I was like, I'm going to get him once he crosses the border. So that morning I went in and we had liaisons. So we had this guy that we worked with in our office and the book, I gave him a pseudonym, but he worked with customs immigration. And I was sitting with

him. I was like, Hey, this is how we're going to find the guy. So we went, we went in early to put this plan together to get this guy. So it just so happened that I was in building seven, which was adjacent to the two towers. It did seven collapse at the end of the day. So it was the second highest building. But it was part, if you look at old pictures of the World Trade Center, it was the two towers. You had the smaller buildings that were connected to the towers, like World Trade Center five and four. And then seven was the next tower over. That was 48 floors.

So it was like they were all connected um so that morning i was just there and as we were talking you know we heard the explosion from the first tower that was hit and you know i honestly i i did not i there's no way i would have thought it was a planet i just thought i heard an explosion we looked out the window the top of the tower was on fire because it was right next to us. You could see all the debris and stuff falling out. I remember thinking, wow, what an electrical fire. That's where my mind went. Even with the explosion thought. I didn't hear the plane. I just knew. I'm like, that's a big fire from, that's where my mind went. Terrorism wasn't even on the

radar. Even though back in, was it 93, they had a terrorist attack. That was a car bomb. And you know, not, not your, your mind, at least our minds at that point, we weren't really thinking about terrorism. I mean, there was no terrorism task forces. There was no JTTF. NYPD didn't do terrorism. Terrorism was zero zip zilch on any criminal justice platform. So that morning, you hear that. Of course, right away, we're thinking, the few of us that were in the office, we're thinking, okay, people are hurt. So we went to get our medical kits are called fat kits, we would call them. They were kind of just like a paramedic in a bag, you know, an ambulance in a bag. So we take them, we go downstairs. And as we're going down to go exit, the second plane comes. Now I don't see the plane. My

colleague saw the plane. So my colleague, I remember, I remember somebody revving an engine and I'm like, what is that? And as the engine's revving, the plane comes in, hits it from behind, and it shoots out. I just remember my colleague grabbing me. Literally, he grabbed me by my collar and yanked me and then shoved me by the base of World Trade Center 7, literally slammed me into the back of the wall. And then there was a couple of us. We were all agents there. There was maybe six or seven of us.

And literally, we were just hunkering there, just shielding ourselves as the debris was coming down. So even just those explosions in and of themselves, like they were – like chunks of stuff is coming down. It was killing people. You said that you saw – I don't know if I misheard that, but when it went into the building as as it came out the other side, you saw like remnants of a plane coming out. I saw no plane. I didn't even see the plane. My buddy, my colleague heard and he's the one who pulled me. I heard the engine revving like you could hear somebody hitting the gas.

And I'm like, where's that coming from? So he saw the plane. But then after the plane, I got to tell you, if you pause to look up, you were dead. So I just ran. We all knew to run and but the steel was coming through so it was either steel from the plane or steel from the building and it took seconds so I didn't stop to do an assessment sure you know I just took cover and then when the rain of debris stopped which it felt like it took a while then we kind of removed ourselves from the back of the

the the building that we were shielding ourselves from and then we're like holy fuck and then you just like get the fat kits and regrouping and trying to figure out where do you go from there and then at that point actually i ended up enacting an arrest right after that happened because there was a guy as we're getting our stuff together, then we're trying to get back into the tower. We can't go in through the front because the way we were going in is now blocked because that second plane came in and all the debris is crashing into the center of the square. When you had the two towers, if you look at it in a top view, you'll see there's a square in the middle between the two towers. And that's where they had music festivals. They did events. So now but that was the way you got into the tower. So

all that now is just covered in metal and steel and just, and you can't even go through there. It's just raining debris. You'll die. And so at that point, there was some guy, I guess, NYPD suspected him of being involved in the event and they come over to me and to my partner because they i guess they saw our shields and our guns and they said hey man they're like we don't know what to do it's it's amazing because you'll watch it now and it's like a plane hits then another plane hits the building collapses another building collapses and it it's done you don't see the sheer chaos and calamity of that day. No images show that. In fact, when you watch news, and I do news now, they don't show all the people that were jumping.

They were not one or two people. I mean, you're talking about dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of people just plummeting, jumping out the towers because the towers are on fire. And, you know, you see people sitting there going, do I burn or do I jump? There's the famous picture of literally called the falling man, where and it's unfortunately, just one of many people who had to make that unconscionable decision. But you see this and even today it almost it almost looks not real because this happens like people were forced to make a decision like that in some cases within two minutes of the building being hit because it turned to up to a thousand degrees or two thousand degrees up there and you see this

almost like you can't really see their faces up close. I'm not sure how well you could see any of that being right there. I know you did describe one guy pretty detailed. So I guess you could see them. Okay, so you could see that. But like from our perspective, just watching it on TV, and I remember this as a very little kid seeing it and watching it all since then, it just looks like the calmness, the acceptance almost that so many people had fallen to the ground, it's eerie. And I can't, you can't imagine that situation and what that

choice is like, but it was that bad up there that they're like, okay. It was hot. I mean, I was on the ground and I could feel the heat from the ground. And so, you know, you choose, do I jump or do I burn? I always think about that. I would have jumped. I am not a fan of fire. I've done fire training. They had us do a lot of fire training. And fire is rough.

Like fire, I remember we'd do training, the fire wasn't even close to me. It was further back and you would feel like the fire was right on your skin. I, you know, that's bravery, man. That's something else to be able to make that choice. You could even see the people. I think this was the hardest part because before they started jumping, you could see them waving. They were, they were waving stuff from, you could see just people gathered around the edges. And I remember thinking, where the fuck's the helicopters? Get a helicopter up there.

Get a helicopter. And I think one group that tried to go to the rooftop, the roof was locked. They couldn't even get to the rooftop. That's why when people ask me about safety stuff, I always tell them, if you live in a high-rise building, do the walk all the way up to your roof and make sure that thing opens. I think I saw, I hope I'm not remembering this incorrectly, but I think I saw in a couple different documentaries some of the helicopter guys talking about how it was like they tried but it wasn't possible to get there because something that has to do with the temperature coming off the building would affect the rudders and they'd stop. Yeah, they couldn't. Like even they, I remember the story about the people who were locked from the roof.

They wouldn't have been able to get to them because there was so much heat rising off the building. No helicopters went. I didn't see a single helicopter try to get to the top of the towers. And then, you know, it was probably the most helpless moments, you know, in my life to watch all that, all those people die. And you're thinking, how can I not be able to do anything? And you just, we, I did in my, the people I was with, we did, I, you know, even to this day, it's like, I feel like, ah, was it enough? I don't know. And I remember at one point there were these detectives, NYPD detectives, and they were with us and they're like, all right, we're going to go in this way.

And so I looked at my colleagues, all right, let's go with them. And I remember this very vividly. And I started walking with the NYPD detectives. And then I look over to my colleagues, and none of them are going. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? Aren't we going to go with them? And one of the guys looked at me. He's like, no.

He's like, where they're going, they're going to die the way they're going in. And I was like, well well shouldn't we try and they chose not to go and i remember standing there in the middle it was a west side highway i was like do i go with these guys so i stay with my group i'm like i don't know these guys and i decided to stay with my group because i knew my group and they were like look we'll triage right here. We'll help people. Because people were starting to pour out. I always wonder whatever happened to those guys. I always look at the photos, but it's hard because they were in civilian clothing because they were dressed in civilians.

And when you look at the police officers' photos, they're in their uniform. And so I always wonder if they died. I don't know. And I had some people who met me down there who thought I died. Like there was one guy who found out I was alive maybe a year later, he's like, you lived? So it was always, you know,

I'm grateful for that day though, because it showed me to value life. And I think I learned how to live a better life because of that day though, because it showed me to value life. And I think I learned how to live a better life because of that day. Wow. You're able to talk about it too. So descriptively, which I think in a lot of ways is also a gift because there's a lot of people who were there that day that, and I fully this that you know you can't you can't go there they can't talk about it because it was just so traumatic and the things they saw they can't unsee but you know how i think there's a famous documentary called 102 minutes that that

changed america or something like that which takes you from the time that the first tower was hit and i think i want to say it was like 8 46 or something like that to when the second tower fell 102 minutes later. And I'm always captured by how much happened in 102 minutes. And then you think about it. That's like a short movie. It's not even – like runtime-wise, it's not even long. But when you're in it, did it feel like time was moving? It felt slow.

Actually, time was really super slow when the tower, the first tower was coming down. When it was coming down and I was, I don't want to say I was hiding because I was out there. I just, it was the American Express building that was right next to the highway. And I just bolted there and sat by that wall. And I was like, maybe this wall will shield me somewhat from the debris when it comes down. And I will tell you, like when you watch those movies and they show the person running in slow mo and everything in slow mo, I don't know how the body does it. It did it for me. Everything slowed down. I mean, those minutes, if it was was even minutes they became so slow to the

point where i remember thinking okay i need water in case i get buried alive and there was water piled up by the not too far from us that we were using to actually wipe people's faces because they were burning they couldn't see from the stuff and i run over i grab water then i'm like all right i'm gonna get the the steel's gonna kill But you know, but if it's glass, cause the towers were all glass and my glass can kill you. And there were these picnic tables that people would sit at. They were steel ones and they were, but those were the heavy ones that they're designed so that you can't move them. My adrenaline kicked in and I literally grabbed one of the steel tables, pull it over. And I'm like, I got water. I got a steel table. I'm tables, pull it over. And I'm like, I got water.

I got a steel table. I'm going to go under this. And I was like, you know, and I'm, I'm actually checking things off like a punch list. What do I need for what? And I was actually a plan a, I die. Okay. If plan a happens and I die, I'm done. It's so it's easy. I don't have to worry about anything, but I was more worried about, um, if But I was more worried about if I get buried alive. And then if I get buried alive, and then I'm injured. And then how are they going to find me? Like, to me, those were the, that was harder to swallow. I was like, if I go and I'm okay to go, let something big and fast hit me.

And then I wake up in Big Mac heaven or wherever I'm going to wake up, wherever my paradise is. I was okay with that. It was just more of the being buried or being, you know, injured or maimed or, you know, that was the part where I was like, man, that's going to be a hard one to swallow. I remember thinking, how are they ever going to find me? No one's going to find me. But you get through it. I guess that's the difference between endurance and resilience. I always think about it. You can go through something. I guess that's the difference between endurance and resilience. I always think about it.

You can go through something. Going through something is endurance. I went through this. But resilience is something else. I think, not I think, resilience is the ability to go back to the pre-stressor of who you were, the pre-stressor part of you. So to be able to go through an event,

it's not enough to just go through something. That doesn't mean anything. You can go through something, but it doesn't mean that you're resilient. Resilient is your ability to go through something. And then despite what has happened to you, you're able to bring your back to a pre-stressor phase. Meaning you're able to function pre that stress. It doesn't mean you forget about it. It doesn't mean you heal from it.

Like quite frankly, when I hear people say heal, how do you heal from a 9-11? There's no amount of therapy you can go to to make any of that make sense, at least for me. And I remember the Secret Service actually, I didn't write about this in my book, right after it happened, they were trying to gather up those of us

that they thought would be the most messed up and from what happened and my supervisors were like evie evie's gonna be all jacked up because they knew of where i was and they made me and maybe another 15 agents we did a a big group circle at jfk airport and one of the hangers they brought a therapist and psychologist to sit with us two days after it happened in a big dark hangar in a big dark hangar right out of a movie scene it sounds like a mom it was i will never forget i did not want to go but i was forced to go so we sit there and you know and then they go around the room and i remember it was everybody tell your story and each person was going around telling their story about where they were.

And I remember thinking, how is this helping me? At least for me. And I'm listening to everybody. And at that point, by the time they came to me, they're like, Evie, what was your story? I was like, I went to work, first plane hit, second plane hit, then the first tower collapsed. And the second, I tried to do my best.

I'm done. I did not want to talk about it. I'm like like what is there to go through and I then I went to the next then after me everybody else started doing the same thing because I think they were like all right I'll play and then after me they were kind of like I I don't want to do this either like I just want to go back and work that was my therapy so the U.S. Secret Service set up a command post we were on Greenwich uh on Greenwich over there right by the towers and we just went to work 12 hour shifts i got lucky i got day shift and we're going through all the rubble we're going through the rubble so what people don't know is uh world trade center seven had um cia was in there

fema was in their intelligence intelligence uh agencies were in there was we were secretly in there but we were in there so with that our stuff was in there. We were secretly in there, but we were in there. So with that, our stuff was in there, our weapons. Secret Service, we had vaults of weapons in there. So in addition to looking for people, it was also looking for our stuff. And so we would go through the stuff, and then when stuff would be found, we would secure it. I'd also find parts of people. I remember once I got a radio call, hey, you need to go.

And literally it was two blocks over. They, they think they found, you know, a remnant of a person and we go up into this building. It was a working building that hadn't been damaged. Uh, we go all the way up to the top and it was like a rooftop ledge. And they're like, you see that? And I was like, is that a squirrel? And I was looking, it was like something fuzzy. And then my partner, my buddy, buddy matt matt's like no man that's somebody's hair somebody's scalp so we get our stuff and we we pull it and it was it was somebody's scalp or hair i'm thinking probably from the planes because it just propelled out and you know and that's what we did we just collected stuff and we would take it over to

uh the area where they were doing dna testing people. But that, that was my therapy. How many, how many months were you doing that? Secret Service only let me do it, I think three weeks, then they pulled me out. They're like, you can't do this anymore. They thought it would make me worse. I was like, I feel, I don't want to say I feel good, but I'm like, this is my therapy. So they actually brought in Some strange therapy. There were some agents who were like, nope, I'm not going back. No way, no way. And they were like, I'm not going back. Actually, I think it was a couple days later, President Bush came and he visited the rubble,

you know, that famous photo. Yeah, when he's on there with the bullhorn. And so we had to post stand. It's called post standing to secure the area for Bush. But we had no equipment because all our stuff got destroyed because it was the New York field office. And so this is like the amazing part of the US Secret Service.

Washington field office sends up like this caravan of guns and great. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue, a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply.

Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. CEOs and all this stuff, and it's like, all right. They probably love that. Like two days later, I think it was right after our therapy session, go figure. They're like, come get your radio and guns and this this stuff. And it's like, all right. They probably love that. Like two days later, I think it was right after our therapy session, go figure. They're like, come get your radio and guns and this and that. Because they were talking about

bringing in agents from outside offices to come stand post. They're like, hey, you guys have kind of been through stuff. You don't have gear and weapons. Let the outsiders come in. And everybody in New York was like, nope, we're doing it.

We're securing our president. And so I got like a makeshift radio, makeshift wires. I had my gun. I was like, I just need a gun. You know, I just like bullets and gun and I'm all right. And we kind of like with minimum gear, we kind of all like, I remember POTUS walking by with, it was back then it was Giuliani. And, you know, he was going around saying hi to everybody

because he had known, obviously because Secret Service. And to me, everybody goes through their stuff, but I will tell you unequivocally, I'm okay because of that, because I was able to functionally do something and not sit in a hole or in my home and sit and wallow. That is not good. If you can find meaning, and I think it was Viktor Frankl who wrote about it.

If you can find meaning in your darkest moments, like that's where you will, that's resilience. I'm going back to who I was pre-stress or heavy, but I'm still taking this stuff with me, but this stuff has not, it impacts you, but it does not take you on a different trajectory in your life. Do you think there's a danger of compartmentalizing that though? It impacts you, but it does not take you on a different trajectory in your life.

Do you think there's a danger of compartmentalizing that, though? I didn't compartmentalize it. I made it part of me. And if anything, I remember when the first tower was coming down. I was young. I was like 20, 25. I remember when it was coming down. I'll tell you this. I didn't think about my brand new car that I just bought, that I was finally able to afford a brand new car. I did not think about the money I was making now as a U.S.

Secret Service agent. We don't make a lot of money, but for me, I was like, oh my God, it's a real paycheck here. The fact that I just, I was out of training, like all the things that I valued up until that moment, none of that mattered. I thought about, I remember the tower was coming down. I'm like, all right, I'm going to die. That's a for sure thing. I thought about my mother. I thought about my father. I thought about my brother. I thought about who I was as a human being.

And then I remember being sad. I'm like, man, I'm going to die alone. It's like, there's nobody here. I ended up being alone in that moment. There's nobody's hand to hold, no one to say goodbye. And I remember, you know, and I'm Greek Orthodox, but in that moment I prayed and I was like, you know what? I'm not going to die alone. I'm going to ask God to be here with me. And I, organically, authentically, I was like, you know, I prayed, I was like, God, just be here with me

when I die. So wherever I end up going, you're there or guide me. And I remember just thinking, you know, I never got to do, I was like, I. And I remember just thinking, you know, I never got to do. I was like, I never got to get married. I was like, I never got to have kids. I'm like, man, I didn't do these things. If you let me live, I will do these things. That's what I thought about. That's what it was like my.

And I've had another near-death experience. But that was like my near-death experience. And then after that, I was like, I'm going to live. Wherever I go, I'm gonna live wherever I go I'm gonna live is there like a little bit of a zen feeling after that because you went through that you had that moment where you had to like kneel before God and and think about what comes next and you did it in a way where you didn't necessarily beat yourself up too much but you thought about the things that may be okay if I were given another chance I want to make sure I do this or that. And now you

feel like you almost have a second lease on life. I do. I did. I saw life very differently. I still do. I always go back. So when things happen and I'm like, this doesn't matter. There's moments where my husband, like he'll see me get warped up in something. He's like, dude, you like had towers come down on your head. Like, how is this bothering you right now? He's like, what is wrong with you? I'm like, just let me live for a moment. Let me just be petty. And I always go back to that and I'm grounded.

I think it's how you choose. But again, I want to be fair. I was around other agents who were like, if you're around resilient, you are resilient. If I was around other people who were like, I can't, I can't handle this, then I don't want to say that it's just me as an individual. We are influenced by the people around us. I don't care how strong you think your identity is. You are impacted by everybody around you, both positively and negatively.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So because I was around beasts, and when I say beasts, I'm talking about people with valor and courage and just like good human beings. Because I do believe like the US Secret Service like plucks their people. Like they select, because it's a small agency and they can. It might be the smallest agency. You said they only take like 1% of all applicants to even like apply or something like that?

Less than 1%. They get tens of thousands of applications. I apply or something like that? Less than 1%. They get tens of thousands of applications. I think it's like 10,000 a year, you know, and they're just like, who am I going to pick? And then once they pick whoever they are, and then you have to go through the hiring process, which in and of itself, I think, I think is probably the hardest. And I say it because I was, after when I became an agent, I became part of the hiring process. I used to help with the hiring process.

I did, when I say help, I did the polygraphs for the new agents. Why does that not surprise me? He's full of shit, Jim. Get him out of here. Do you know they would come to me, and there were a lot of phases and different ways that they would try to figure out, not just if you're qualified, but a big thing that they looked at was integrity are you in person of integrity can we trust you

trust was a huge thing are you gonna lie to us because they know you're gonna make mistakes and if you lie the agency can't have that happen that was a big thing honesty integrity and but and also are you gonna fit into this culture i remember one guy came in. He's like, yeah, I'm going to need every Saturday off. And the agents were like, what? The hiring panel was like, what? He's like, I have to take Saturdays off. And they were like, you don't. We work like.

There's no such thing. Yeah, well, that's the president. I'm sure he's fine with that. Yeah, they're like, it doesn't work like that here. It's probably not for you. And I don't think that. I think that they next him. But sometimes they would come to me and say hey this guy or gal something's off take care of it

because i was the last i was the last heavy that after they did their thing it was you know it's not that they would try to disqualify people but they really put in a lot of effort to make sure like who are we bringing in and should this person here? And so I was that last line of defense myself and the other examiners, because I covered the New York region. They're like, look, man, something's off. Find it. I was like, all right, no pressure. And so my job was to find it. Well, I don't want to skip ahead, because I do want to talk all about that. But, you know, I'd be remiss if we didn't get to the core of how you introduce that day, 9-11, to open up your book, which was also,

it's pretty perfect. You were talking about the concept of fear, which guides so much of our lives. And there's different ways that fear manifests and everything. But I've had some really good conversations with people on this podcast about how fear is actually – it could be useful when harnessed correctly. I know Jim DiIorio always talks about – the guy I was telling you about who's the FBI special agent interrogator. He always talks about like the gift of fear and how it can allow you if – again, if you handle it correctly vis-a-vis fight, flight or response, that kind of thing. You can actually, you can use that to do amazing things in high pressure jobs. And what you seem to be talking about was how, you know, when time was slowing down for you, and you were able to take a bunch of these actions

you already laid out, such as, oh, my God, let me make sure I have enough water in case this happens, or in case this happens, if I get buried alive right here. Like these are things that you were also taught in some cases in your training for such a high level job like you had. But I think back to that and I'm like, you know, they're basically in the Secret Service or FBI, whatever it is, they are teaching you how to spot things that you need to fear so that you can prepare for dealing with that and then kind of getting out the other side. Is that a fair way to put it? Right.

So when you go through training, they put you in really messed up situations. The whole point is for your fear, your stress, your anxiety, all that stuff to come to the surface. And then the more you do that, the better it is for you because I become used to that feeling. I know what it is. I'm not afraid of it. And then the next part of it is to think when you're feeling these emotions, because your body is doing this because it's not trying to screw you up. Your body's trying to help

you. So what my body did for me that day, it was arming me. Evie, you need strength. For me to lift that picnic table that I'm talking about, that thing was hardcore heavy steel. That stuff is not meant to be moved. I moved it. So my body was arming me. My body's like, we're here to help you. But when you don't recognize that, that can make you more afraid. And what happens is that's what people call anxiety. That's what people say, I'm having a panic attack.

And you start to fear yourself. You start to fear what your body is doing to help you instead of embracing it, instead of saying, you know what? My body is doing this to help me. Instead, you know, today we tell people anxiety, take a pill. This, take this. This, do this. Such a problem.

No. Learn to embrace that. That's part of your – it's biology. It's part of how we're designed, and we're telling everybody, dumb it down. Our ancestors woke up and thought like oh my god let me make sure i run back to my cave so there's a lion doesn't eat me that's stress like imagine today be like oh you know take a take a perk set do something you know what i mean like there there's there's it's almost like we are flight now that like we're

we're ingrained to to respond with flight to everything in society we're doing everyone's doing a disservice to people because you're teaching people to fear themselves yes you're teaching them to feel what their body is doing that is there to help them so when that happens to you one your body's trying to help you something's going on you feel stress it's okay my body's my body is my friend but what the narrative is, you feel this way, this is bad. This is not good for you. When you go through training, and I'm sure you've heard this from all your other amazing guests here, they put you in fucked up situations. They stress you the fuck out so that you don't know what's going on around you. And then they're like, think your way

out of this. So now I'm taught to think under these high intense situations. And that's how you become like this elite performer. So when this stuff happens, you're like, all right, I've been here. But if you spend your whole life avoiding this, then when it does happen, because it will, because nobody can escape it, you're not going to be able to think through your hard times. That's the problem. So fear is good. Fear, if you learn to respect it, to love it, to honor it, it's my body. It's my body doing this for me. And it's fear. I run, fear is healthy. I run, I'm a runner. I go running at night. I don't run on a treadmill.

I run outside. It's just, I run, my husband's like, go run the snakes out of your head. I'm like, I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. So I run at night because it's the only way to keep myself like to kind of like decompress all the crazy from the day. But I go to – there's a park near me. If I go to the park and the lights in the park aren't on or things aren't right, I don't go. I listen to my – I'm a Secret Service agent. I'm like, yeah, man, I could come for anybody here. I don't go running.

I'm like, I'm going to go running at the track so i use my judgment that's healthy fear yes that's my thing going hmm not smart evie like why am i gonna sit and want to fight or put myself in a situation that's good fear because that's your intuition or your instinct saying hey no i'm not don't do this so that's kind of like how you navigate it. Fear is beautiful. Fear is your friend. Fear is a part of who you are. It is part of our genetic makeup.

And we need to embrace it and not fear it, not shut it down or suppress it. But people also will let fear guide them in life. And they won't, they'll be afraid to do anything. We all know people like this. Did you say your mom was like that a little bit? in life and they won't they'll be afraid to do anything we all know people like this i think did you say your mom was like that a little bit my mom is a is a um a flight person i use the scenario with her my mom has always avoided conflict and fighting she doesn't like it she's a very um she has it in her she's a strong woman but she just avoids, she's always avoided conflict. So I think you were saying like,

you know, your parents would make you go from the bus stop straight home. You know, they'd find every reason in some cases not to let you be outside with people because this, this or that could happen. It's almost like, like I call it like the boogeyman syndrome. There's a boogeyman everywhere that's going to get you. And even if something's one in 10 million, you'll make it feel like it's one out of two. And then that paralyzes you. And I know there's some people I've been around throughout my life who are like that. And it's sometimes so constricting because then it finds its way onto me. And then I start thinking about it too. And I don't think that's good at all.

I've always thought that's like, you know, get that fear out. That's not healthy for you. So how do you draw that line? It seems like you're talking about things like where there's actual risk mitigation versus things where it's like, well, technically there's a risk to everything. Like let's be realistic here. Yeah. That's it. technically there's a risk to everything. Like let's, let's be realistic here. Yeah. That's it.

So there's two things. So the first part, let me start with the latter part, fear-based decision-making. The people you're talking about is they make choices because they are afraid that if they make a choice or they do something, something's going to happen. That's, that's an emotion-based decision-making. I'm going to do this because I'm afraid of this. So I'm not going to leave this relationship

because I'm afraid to leave it. That's what's guiding my choice. Yes. Instead of saying I'm going to leave because it's what's better for me. Do you see the difference in thinking process? Yes, 100%. So I'm

not going to do this or I will do this because I'm afraid of this. Whenever you introduce, I'm afraid of, or I'm doing this because I'm afraid I'm going to be alone. I'm going to afraid of this is going to happen. I'm afraid I'm not going to find another job, which is, which is a pattern I see in people. In fact, during COVID, I started doing like consultations because people started writing it after I wrote the book. And when people would come in, there was one pattern I would see across the board, fear. They were making decisions based on fear. I won't do this or I will do this because I'm afraid.

That is the wrong way to make choices. The decision-making process should be, I'm going to do this because this is what is best for me. I'm going to do this because this is what is best for me. I'm going to do this because this is not what is best for me. So people who think fear-based, they are emotional people. Just so you know, fear is emotion. So when you, they are very emotional people. They're not in the rational sense-making, decision-making process. They think they are, but they're not because they make emotion-based decisions. That's one thing. The part of the way I grew up, so I was born in Harlem. My parents were immigrants, OTBs, off the boat. I lived in, I can say it because I am that. I was that.

I can say it. Sounds like a rapper name. OTB, that's what we would say, my friends and I, about our parents. They're OTBs. They're OTBs, off the boat. That's funny. We lived in Washington Heights. My parents were very poor.

So in my younger years, we were poor and we lived in government housing, subsidized housing. So drugs, filth, roaches, rats. I mean, it was public housing. Drug dealers. I remember somebody was murdered that lived on top of us. So my parents were afraid. I understand that fear because it was rational thinking fear. The thing is, though, when you hear that all the time,

when you're a kid, you're a kid, you're a kid, I wasn't allowed to go play outside. There was nowhere to go play. Maybe sometimes once in a while, if the fire hydrant was opened by the fire department, that was a good day. We would go out, and then my grandmother would escort us out there,

and she would sit there and watch. You had the great grandma with you. I had my grandma, because my parents worked around the clock. But for them, that was rational fear. The thing was, was I at risk of growing up being afraid of everything? Sure. So I think that's where maybe my DNA or my personality came in, The thing was, was I at risk of growing up being afraid of everything?

Sure. So I think that's where maybe my DNA or my personality came in where I was just like, I'm not going to live like this. And maybe that's what led me to become, you know, New York City police officer and then an agent. But those are two different things. I think there's also an entirely new phenomenon that's been introduced during the social media era with fear. And that is, you know, you hear people talk about the ability to look at what other people are doing

at all times and compare yourself to that. It has its way, obviously, of working itself into the real world too, where people are afraid now to make mistakes or take shots on things with just basic communication with other people because they're afraid of what other people will think and the ability for those people to share those thoughts at high rates of speed with whoever the hell they want if they don't accept how you act or act towards them or make them feel or things like that. And I see this even being a phenomenon where eye contact is an issue on the street. That's something I look at all the time. I walk all the time here in Hoboken. I walk in New York and I will try to walk by people and make eye contact with them and I'll look them dead in the eyes and they will look down and look away. And I think that's, that has seeped out from internet culture and being stuck in the phone and having the fear of this thing that we're also like addicted to the, the real reverberations that could have in the real world. When in reality, like most people, it's not that important. People

don't care yet. We're letting that guide us as people out there. You know, it's interesting you say this because it affects adults and young kids. i was telling you before i have a i have a baby well she's not a baby she's a toddler now right she's like in the between i haven't put a device in front of her at any point i refuse no devices in my house there's no working tv in my house and i do tv there's no working tv uh sometimes like i'll see my mom like sneak it out like oh just to change the diaper. And I'm like, no, put that thing away. Because this little kid's going to be like, I'm going to sit still when you put the phone in front of me to change a diaper.

So she's not, I will zero expose her to that. And I'm saying this now and I'm holding myself accountable. 16 years old. The kid's not going to be on social media. No fucking way. I'm not fucking up my kid like that. And I'm not judging other parents because the thing is this stuff and the data is coming out now

that cell phones have been out for a while and that social media has been out for a while. So the parents that this has happened to, it is not your fault. You didn't know. It's coming out now. But I tell people, in fact, I did a new segment on this.

We're talking about how do you protect your kids and this and that. And I tell people, if you're not comfortable with dropping your kid in the middle of time square to talk to whoever then they shouldn't have social media because that is exactly what you've never heard that before that's a good one it is not the same thing you're talking to random strangers so drop them in the middle of time square oh you don't like that then why do they have access to all these people all over the world now i love that idea but let me push back on that in one way so like i'm a sociable guy thank god this is what i do for a living right this is very easy we are

all sociable people in here everyone walked in we're talking today it's easy a lot of people aren't like this though now and so i'm just thinking of places I go all the time where – and I won't – in case anyone is listening, I won't say where they are. But I am so struck by how much I will put effort into being social with people and receive nothing in response. So I'm doing my job, right? Like I'm going out there. I'm introducing myself. myself hey i'm julian what's your name you know and i get that and then the next day they'll act like they don't know me this is a very very common thing i'm running into and i also feel way behind here because we're talking about this before we were on camera a little bit but for three and a half years i basically lived in my parents house in a studio all day every day and so I did get social interaction by people coming in all the time. But you know, I went to the bar once every other month, that kind of thing,

which doesn't count because people are drinking, right? So my understanding of like the sober world of how people maybe were even affected by the pandemic and what that did to them is now like punching me in the face. I mean, Alessia and I were talking about this the other day, where I'm just like, oh my God, like people, you know, I'm putting myself out there to be a normal person, be the kid you can drop in the middle of Times Square and talk with people. But that also requires those people to talk back and be able to like not feel weird or whatever.

And I'm finding more and more that's not the case. You are absolutely right. In fact, I'm an adjunct professor and I teach criminal justice. And I actually brought this up to my students. I give them breaks. I give them two 10-minute breaks. I teach a three-hour criminal justice course. Of course, as interesting as a –

I was going to say, they're not entertained by you for three hours. Come on now. As interesting as I may think I am, I give them breaks because there's only so long you can listen to somebody. So I give them breaks. And during break, nobody stops and turns around and looks at the other person and say, hey, how are you? How are you doing? What's your name? None of that. I don't ever have to say, hey, guys, stop talking because they're not talking. They all go straight to their phone, all of them straight to their phone. And one day we were doing something. I don't remember what I was teaching them.

And then I played a video for something. And then I said, hey, and it was about this, social interaction. I said, you guys notice that when I give you guys breaks, nobody talks to each other? And they all looked at me. I'm like, none of you talk to each other. Do you know his name? Does he know your name? Do you talk to him?

And they acknowledged it. They acknowledged it. They're like, you're're right so people don't speak and i do think covid and social media together because you put people in their homes and why do i need to leave my home now everything is in my home i don't have to go shopping i do it online i can talk to people and this is i grew up in a time where you just called people and you're you didn't even know there wasn't even caller id you're like i wonder who's calling me and you didn't even know there wasn't even caller ID. You're like, I wonder who's calling me. God, what a horrible world. And you would answer the phone like, hello? Hello? Now you text people to see if it's okay if you can call them. And if you call somebody out of nowhere, it's kind of

like, dude, how could you not text me to let me know you were going to call me? I am with you. And I think that this is where people kind of have to do a self-assessment. And I think you're going to see a division between people of either they see this or they don't. And I think adults are going through this, not just kids. I am with you. You see the social awkwardness that people have. There's a social awkwardness, and I think it's going to get worse. The more technology that we have access to, and I think technology is great. And look, social media is great.

That's how I – you found me. Oh, there's amazing tools with it there's amazing tools but i'm not demonizing the whole thing to be clear but to sit there and use that as a barometer of how good or strong or this i am and then to make me awkward to make it where i'm comfortable texting but i can't speak to somebody and look at them in the face this is a problem yes but the concern is the world that's being designed at least here right now in the u.s isn't to facilitate this further we're not connecting with people we're not you don't nobody at least maybe in certain parts of the u.s but who knows their neighbors who talks to their neighbors we're taught to fear everybody to fear the other. And that's a problem. And that I think is also a high correlation as to why we have more crime in the US. Because yes, we have 80% of crime in the United States goes unsolved. If you look at the data, all crime overall. And one of the indicators

that we see, and I teach this, is that we see that there's a lack of community. When I know you, I'm less likely to harm you. I know you. But if you're the other and I see you as the other, I can villainize you easier. I don't feel as bad to cause you harm. And so that is why. So this breakdown in community and connection is a problem. Why we look at other countries that have lower rates of crime, one of the reasons is community. They all know each other also

they're homogeneous cultures which means everybody's i'm greek so you go to greece everybody's greek everybody has the same religion and everyone's like a cousin everyone's like yeah that's my cousin but they're less likely to cause harm they're also a um it's called an honor culture where you care what other people think i I grew up with that. My mom's like, don't do this. What are the people over there going to think of you doing these things? So you're taught to also care what other people think. Here in the US, we're very identity culture, which is fine. But the thing is, screw everybody. I'm doing what I want. Can I clarify there? And you just tell me if you agree or not. You're saying in the context of like your mom worrying about what other people think,

it's more like doing things that are socially good and not doing things that are socially bad for your community versus when we think that now it's like superficial what people are going to think of us like is my Instagram as good as that person's Instagram if I take a picture like this versus like that. So my mom would be like, hey, you know, you know, where are you going? What are you as my Instagram as good as that person's Instagram if I take a picture like this versus like that so my mom would be like hey you know you know where are you going what are you doing don't behave like that people see you you gotta like bring your best self out you're doing silly things or you're saying silly things or when I was younger I'd say oh man she's like what is this man stop saying it you sound people laughing at you when you talk like this so she cared and she taught me to care hey the people

around you your community it what they think sometimes it does matter yes but our so that's where that comes from but here right now in the u.s where we've been an identity culture which is fine but we're so extreme identity which now is i screw all my haters everyone's a hater if somebody gives you feedback or advice or tells you, doesn't agree with you or they're a narcissist, this is another thing. Very overused term now. I see this everywhere.

And it's like I have a master's in forensic psychology. So I understand when you clinically, like everybody, I don't get along with you. You're a narcissist. You don't agree with me. You're a narcissist. Everybody's not a narcissist. But this identity culture has led us into a place where we are not connected to each other so we are more likely to cause harm to each other or also the

u.s is a very heterogeneous culture our environment which means everybody's coming from different parts of the world with different backgrounds and religions and And you have to, so organically and DNA wise, when you see somebody that isn't like you, you immediately fear them or you're concerned because that's just how we were wired. If I, back in the caveman days, if I saw somebody from another tribe that didn't look like me, that was cause for me to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I might be in danger. So you have to fight that a little bit but all those things combined and given that the u.s is a very mixed place all these all these elements cause us to have high crime in the u.s that's why this is happening it is all these

things even something as simple as language language connects us so speaking uh one cohesive language is important because that's what makes you and me connected if we're from two different parts of the world. If I came from Greece and you came from, I'm just going to, Italy, just because we're neighbors, right? Greece and Italy, you're different than me. Yes. But the fact that we speak the same language, we have something in common. or if you take it more extreme I'm from Greece and you're from China we gotta find something that connects us

because that connection is what keeps us from harming one another from respecting one another and being just being good to one another that's what creates humanity and connection but it's also how we use that medium what I mean by that is

so much of our language now is like this yeah behind a keyboard right and i can say a sentence on this type it out perfectly phonetically how it might be said in person but you're losing tone and you're losing presence right you and i were talking before you're about to start your own podcast which i'm very excited about, by the way. We'll put a link to that down in the description of this episode as soon as it is live. So it'll be updated there when it's live. But like one of your rules is the same exact thing that I had a rule of from day one of doing this in my parents' house, which is I will only do it in person. It didn't surprise me to hear that from you because your expertise was literally like an interrogation and communication with people.

But even just doing Zoom is different. Now take it to someone sends out a 280-character tweet. Someone sends out – fires off a text about some important life event to someone else. There is a disconnect here that completely can reverberate in the real world in the worst ways. I mean, even growing up, like my dad, bad texter, right? Very bad texter, very bad text understander. So he would hear tones and what I would text that was not there. That's like my dad who didn't grow up with text, right? He actually knows how to talk to people. But now you fast forward to this world and everyone will, you know, you could be doing business with someone and

someone will like be breaking down your text to see like, oh, are you really about it or not? That seems like that's like, how do we stop that? Or is that just one of those things that technologies can continue to carry away? So it's interesting you say that because I do, I, I ended up becoming like a keynote speaker doing training for big companies by mistake never thought I'd be doing it but I I I help I speak at fortune 500 and now 100 companies and one of the issues they're having is communication and they will ask me how do we communicate with clients best and I I tell them you know and 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. What they're seeing too is they're trying to move away from being transactional, which is sales, sales, sales, money, and they're moving to building relationships and rapport. They're like, and their numbers are showing it. Our sales are not as good because the way we're connecting with people is we're not.

So I'll tell them. They tell me, how do we do business? I said, first, you're going to do face-to-face. If you can physically get in front of the person, do it. And I remember one client, they were saying, well, what if that person's an hour away? I was like, you're going to drive the hour. And you're going to go see them. And you know what?

They're going to remember that you drove an hour to go have a meeting with them. And that's going to speak volumes. You're going to show them how much you value them. You don't have to say, hey, I value you as a customer, or we value you as a client. No, you're going to do that, and that's going to show that you value them. That's what you're going to do. Also, on a side note, this is where my Secret Service stuff comes in, you create reciprocity because that person is going to be like, man, this person came all the way out here to talk to me to this or that.

So it's even less likely they will dismiss you and more likely they will want to give you something in return. So it does a little bit of that. So I always tell them in person, in person. And a huge factor they're having is a lot of the people they're hiring now, newer generations don't want to talk to people in person. And I said, you're going to need to help give them training to get them out of that. So in person is number one.

The next best medium is phone. Phone call, not Zoom. Phone. Sorry, Zoom. Zoom, I use you. You guys are great. But phone. The reason why phone is the best thing, you get to listen to my voice, my cadence. You can hear what I'm saying. Also, when you're on phone, you're really focused on what's going on. You can multitask maybe, but you're really just focused on one thing. The problem that we're seeing with Zoom is there's your box, there's other people's boxes. You're distracted. What's this guy doing? What's that doing? How's my hair look? Is my hair okay? Should I lean this way or should I lean that way? So the problem with Zoom is you are competing for a person's attention. So if I want a person to be focused on me solely, I'm going to use the phone over Zoom.

Because Zoom, I'm competing with other people. I'm even competing with that person because that person is less likely to look at me and more likely to be looking at themselves and thinking how bad they look, how self-conscious they are, all these other things. Plus, they're in their home. A phone's going off. This is going off. In fact, when I was an investigator, there's this myth that investigators would think, oh, if I'm going to interview a suspect, even a victim or a witness, I'm going to go to them. I would make everybody come to me. You come to me. I don't want to interview you in your home first home your king or queen right

you're in charge so the dynamics are going to be skewed off and i want to be in charge without you feeling i'm in charge second your phone's gonna ring your kid's gonna come out this person's gonna come in i want you to myself fully focused. That's the problem with Zoom. So when you brought up my daughter, my daughter's going to go to jujitsu. In fact, she just started walking and I'm like looking at my husband the other day. I'm like, you think she could do jujitsu and Muay Thai yet?

And he's looking at me. He's like, man, he's like, calm the fuck down. I was like, you know, I wanted him, you know where she's going to meet boys? At jujitsu. And she's going to man, he's like, calm the fuck down. And he's like, I was like, you know, I wanted him. You know where she's going to meet boys? At jujitsu. And she's going to meet good boys there. Who don't go around being bullies and beating other people up. I don't know if Stormy's agreeing over there, but.

They're not going to hit her back. You know what's funny? I go to, I haven't gone back. I need to go back. Hendo Gracie, you have a creed. And one of the creed in the beginning is you don't ever use violence. It's one thing to know that I can hurt you

and it's a whole other thing for me to hurt you. And usually people that know and are disciplined, they won't. So that's why I want her to meet somebody. It's having the confidence of knowing if you had to, you can. Yes, I want her to have that. But also that's where she's going to meet and interact people and be better able to

size somebody up. She's also going to go to acting school so she can learn to speak with confidence. Love that. That's where she's going to go. I went to acting school. That's where- Where'd you go? I went to William Esper Studio.

I actually graduated from their program as an agent. I had to do it quietly. A friend of mine did that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's a great- Yeah. I studied with Bill Esper himself. So, but I guess I would say that the way to meet people, when people come to me, is put yourself in environments where there are people that you can meet and interact with.

I'm not saying that an app is bad. I'm just saying the app comes with all this other stuff. Yes. Absolutely. And so you're having to weed through that. And then also you feel this rejection, like just swipe this, swipe that. You don't learn how to talk to people.

You want to find the balance in life, even with posting. I call it post and move. In training, we did shoot and move so you don't get hit. I always tell people, they're like, you know, social media. I'm like, post and move.

Don't sit and read everything. Don't sit because then you get into that yeah it's an endless cycle it's it's what's what's it called the the what's infinity scroll like how it keeps on appearing what's the term for that why am i blanking out on that yeah like we say doom scrolling but there's an actual like you know silicon valley term for that whatever it is people know what I'm talking about, how when you just keep going, your screen doesn't say, oh, you're done. It just keeps going. It keeps going.

So I think it's our responsibility to police. I don't mean to use that word, but to police ourselves. And I think that's important. If I keep looking like, why doesn't Facebook do this? Why doesn't this guy do this? It's also, well, what am I doing? Real quick, though. I have to go to the bathroom we'll be right back what was your like ideal temperature in an interrogation room and we're back on by the way right now because i just it was getting hot in here so i turned on the air while we were while we were recording while we

just went off right now because obviously it's been winter like this whole time. It's been like 30 degrees outside, so I don't have to worry about it. But it was getting up to like 70 in here, and I was starting to sweat. I like that. I'm a good, I like warm temperature. You like warm. The room was, so we didn't do anything like that. It was whatever the room was in the building.

And actually, our rooms were quite cold, so I would bring a heater in to warm up the room. And everybody thought the heater was to make them sweat. And it was not. The heater was because I was freezing in that room. So I didn't do anything like that. I would never do anything. I like people in here cooler than warm because, you know, we're talking for three hours.

Sometimes people talk for like six hours in here. They'll get tired if they're warm. Yes. Right. But if they're colder, they're like more alert and then they'll forget, especially if they give them coffee or something like they'll forget they're cold after a little while. But I was sitting here for a minute. I was like, I started to feel my legs wet. I'm like, oh, I hope no one's falling asleep in here.

Might have a problem. So I don't know if you guys thought about that. They we didn't do that. I had to. I'm like, oh, I hope no one's falling asleep in here. Might have a problem. So I didn't know if you guys thought about that. We didn't do that. I had to – I couldn't use something – I don't know if I could have, but I was never trained to do anything like that to people because now you're messing with people's physical – could that be torture? I don't know. It could be.

I mean, you know, messing with temperature could be, and I could not do that. I mean, if you put it down to like 20, yeah. But I did have a heater because it was just cold in that room. And they thought you were making them sweat? People, the other agents would be like, oh, you put that in there, huh? I'm like, no. It's just cold. We have to do a future podcast with Evie and Jim like we were going to do today.

I told you off camera but jim diorio was going to be here i didn't tell you about that but he had he had a last minute thing come up but i'm close to you the two of you bring them i'm happy amazing because you're you're a lot of your thoughts on like the psychology of people based on what you did because you did very similar things you know they remind me of each other like He was reading all the types of things you do. Some of the things I was reading in your book, I felt like it was him writing it too, which was really, really cool.

Well, Julian, that's because I have the magic mind. Do you like that? I just like to bring this up. This is the magic mind. Do you want to try it? Pull it up. Do you know what it is? It's going to give me a magic mind.

This is like an energetic pick-me-up. I love with these products, sometimes I'll try my buddy Danny Jones, It's going to give me a magic mind. This is like an energetic pick-me-up. So it's got all – I love with these products. Like sometimes I'll try it. My buddy Danny Jones turned me on to this. And he's like – he'll name like all these things like nootropics, aptogens and stuff. And I'm like, is it healthy or isn't it? He's like, it's really good for you. But it actually does.

I'll take it at maybe like 3 o'clock sometime when I'm like editing, doing something that's like very still especially as like a pick-me-up. And I actually think it's like a little better than coffee, especially like later in the day because it doesn't have caffeine that sits in your system at night, right? But you kind of get like a little rush. Sometimes I'll like go for a walk right after. I feel pretty refreshed. This is good for me. I don't drink coffee. Yeah, I have had it by the way, sorry.

I see one over there. Can I give you one, Alyssa? over there i give you one it's good stuff you take a little shot oh wow it tastes healthy right it does taste healthy it tastes like you're doing something good to yourself i don't know it's good stuff good call danny jones good call thank you but now now we'll have more. It says elevate mental clarity. We'll have more mental clarity. And this one is the productivity shot. So for us to be productive. That's right.

I think we were productive before this, though. I think we were doing a good job. Amazing. Storm is over there. I feel like it. Alessandro knows. Alessandro, you're in charge here. All right.

I am, huh? But what is... I'm sorry. sorry i got a little bit off topic right there before we went off we were we were going through some of the like social fears and everything and and how that affects people long term and how technology like isn't gonna isn't gonna necessarily turn back with some things but unless they create laws so i think like some countries right now are creating laws for at at least for younger people, access to having devices and social media. So if the US starts implementing something like that, if the data comes in and they're like, you know what, we need to change something, that might help quite a bit. But everything you're saying is true and correct. And you as an adult feel it. You feel the disconnect. You feel like what's going on. And these devices do, you know, when I see it too, I actually think it helps increase crime because it's making people less and less and less connected. You're less likely to cause harm to another person that you know.

So this is an interesting topic, actually, because I go back and forth on this. So the common example people will talk about a lot is China with their kids and their equivalent of TikTok. So China, obviously not a very nice government, not very good people, not freedom like we have here. But the one thing they can do that you might actually think is a slight advantage for them is whereas we have freedom here and can't necessarily tell people how to raise their kids and stuff like that which i think has a lot of upside they can and so their kids are watching videos that stop at whatever it is what is it nine o'clock at night or something like that they can't watch after that like their tiktok will turn off and they're watching like science videos nature videos math videos our kids are on the phones at 11 30 at

night in their bed watching like titty videos right like they're watching things that are not in any way they're just ruining their minds if if you're a 10 year old or 11 year old doing that whereas over in china where it's not free they can kind of crack down on that so how do you how do you balance that if you do have like a democracy where there is supposed to be freedom and self determination for people and how to raise their families? And also, you know, at the same time, you're trying to have a productive next generation to raise like, what is the what is the balance there with the quote, unquote, government getting involved in the parenting versus not? I think you should look at it the way because of social media is addictive. Phones are addictive. We know this this dopamine hits and i think some one of the research talking about it's like doing coke

yeah so if if it's analogous to that we should look at it and treat it like drugs and like alcohol because social media and i've done a lot of research on this because i have a daughter they're even showing that the younger you are when you use it, it actually affects how much gray matter is being created in your brain, which you need, which I believe the gray matter ties into emotional regulation. So the more you use it, the less gray matter the brain develops. A brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. So that's the human brain. And that's also why we tend to see crime drop off at 25. People are less impulsive.

People are less impulsive. Their brain is fully formed. So we see less crime from people from 25 and older. Actually, the majority of crime committed is typically between the 18 to 25 to like 29 range, somewhere there. That's it. So that's where you see the most crime, but 25 up until 25 years of age. So I think you have to have regulations.

It's just because people don't know. I don't think people know yet. That's the issue. Now, China is a government. Did you see the testimony of the creator of TikTok? Oh, yes. I saw some of that. I didn't sit there and watch the whole thing.

There was an interview with him where they asked him, do your kids have TikTok? He said no, right? He said no. Yeah. And I can't remember the exact ages. I think one of his kids was 13 and he said no. That's interesting. But that should tell you something as individuals.

I think we also have to be responsible for ourselves. But a lot of times we think, oh, if this is bad for us, the government would say something, right? People would say something. And so you're expecting these heads of corporations to self-regulate. And, you know, in my previous career, we actually worked with a lot of companies. I worked with a lot of companies because we would do investigations with financial fraud, a lot of financial fraud, any type of fraud that would happen on an online platform, actually. U.S. Secret Service, our first squad, we were the first agency to have an electronic crimes

task force, which means anything that happened on that platform that was illegal or wrong, we would investigate. So from early on, we would work with big companies and corporations, even the eBay's when eBay was huge. So I guess it's, but it's a little bit of the Wild West, like what is legal, what is not legal. And I think if you're waiting, somebody told me this, one of the attorneys I worked with told me this, he's like, if you work wait, if you use the law as the barometer threshold for the moral compass of how you should live your life, you're in trouble because the law is the lowest bar, the lowest bar. So if your answer is, well, it's not illegal,

that's the lowest bar of your moral compass. Your moral compass has to be here the law is like the uh the the lowest of the low that you can go so if that's how you live your life whether it's legal or not that means like your integrity or your moral compass is is just like scraping the surface yeah yeah and people have different thresholds of that for sure that's that's another fascinating topic i don't want to get too lost in that though but you know I've kind of buried the lead with your actual career today. We haven't really gone through that a ton. We went everywhere. You brought it up right there. But I think this is really cool to go through because a common misconception that even I had until a few years ago when I started talking with people who had been around investigations is that the Secret Service is just the – protecting the president, right? Or

protecting the important people. But the agency was – you did a great job of laying out the history in your book. The agency was founded I think by Abraham Lincoln to – on the basis of protecting against counterfeit currency to be a financial. It was an arm of the Department of Treasury, I think, right? It was. So at that time, when Abraham Lincoln was president, a third of the U.S. currency was counterfeit. It was fake money. Funny money, we would call it.

Funny money. So it was fake. But it was devastating to the U.S. economy. So Abraham Lincoln stepped in. He said, we have to do something about this. So he created the U.S. Secret Service. He creates the U.S. economy. So Abraham Lincoln stepped in. He said, we have to do something about this. So he created the U.S. Secret Service. He creates the U.S. Secret Service. And actually, U.S. Secret Service is one of the oldest agencies out there. The only one older than the U.S. Secret Service were U.S. Marshals. And they were the ones who would just chase,

they would chase fugitives. So this is the first real law enforcement agency he creates, and it's for money. In fact, the day he created it, April 14th, 1865, the day he signed it, was the day he was assassinated. There's a little bit of irony. You guys made it right under the gun. Right. Well, it's ironic because at that time there was no protecting the president. That would have been nice. So I took a couple of presidents being assassinated or attempted assassinations for the U.S. government to say, we need someone to protect the president. And so because U.S. Secret Service was still, you know, I think the only agency still that said U.S. Secret Service, you're also going to protect the president.

So protection started part time. Protection was part time. It was part time. Protection was part time. It was part time. Well, actually you could, if you look at history, and I know this because I worked in the White House, you could, there was a point of time where you could actually go to the White House and have a meeting with the president. You could go and the president would sit and I think Abraham would take meetings with people. Like you could go. Like randos. Yes. You could go in. I'm like, I'd like to talk to the president because it was,

you were able to do that back then. What a time. Yes. Well, you could actually sit down and say, I have this issue. I want to talk to you about this. And that would happen. So protection comes in much later. So U.S. Secret Service is a dual mission agency.

They work investigations, which most people don't know. That's a big arm because that's why they have field offices all over the world now their protections go from electronic crimes financial institution fraud bank fraud counterfeit money counterfeit credit cards um often we'd go into the child predator space uh child porn anything with children because it's being done usually on an electronic platform. And then because criminals rarely stay in one lane, it's like, I'm going to make counterfeit money and I'm going to sell drugs. So you would investigate cases that actually had other elements to it. So that's when you'd call a DEA.

Like, hey, I'm investigating this guy for counterfeit money, but he's also moving drugs. Do you want to come in? And they would say, yeah, I'll come in. And so then we'd work together from that angle. That to you is Secret Service. That's your criminal investigative arm. Now the other arm, which is protection. Everybody thinks you protect the U.S. president

when you're an agent. You do not. There's only a small percentage of agents that actually get to protect the U.S. president. And then you have to put in for it if they select you, and then you have to go through another internal training program. And then if you pass that, then you get to go to the president, maybe. Or maybe they'll send you to the vice president.

Or like the kids of the president or something like that. PPD, if you go to PPD, that's what they call it, Presidential Protective Division. If you go to PPD, the way it starts is you elevate towards the president. So I went to PPD. My career path first was access control. So I was in charge of, I was with the unit

that was in charge of security around the White House. And it's the packages, shootings, if somebody tried to ram in, who wants to come in, background checks. I was the queen of background checks uh for everybody you want about you want to see it you know some even tours people who come in for tours they want to come to the white house and get a tour because it's there's parts of it that were open to the public you're like pointing at someone like he's got to go

well we would have people that would put in and then we'd get an active warrant on them so i'd call up you know st louis pd hey john sm'd get an active warrant on them. So I'd call up, you know, St. Louis PD. Hey, John Smith has an active warrant. He's coming for a White House tour Tuesday at 10 a.m. What do you want me to do? Can you send them to us, please? I'm like, absolutely. John Smith shows up.

Hi, John. How are you? We have a team there. Can I see your ID? We verify it's John Smith. John Smith, do you know you have an active warrant? No. Well, you do. Here you go. It's like, you know, I changed active warrant? No. Well, you do.

Here you go. It's like, no, I changed my mind. I don't need a tour. I'm like, well, you're going. So we would do that. And then sometimes we get people on the terrorist watch list put in for a tour. And then we would decide what we would do in those scenarios. So that's access control.

I did access control. From there, I went to the first lady's detail. Wait a minute. Back up for one sec. Yes. So you have a terrorist watch list person actually show up for a tour. And you just said, then we decide what to do there. Could that be something like let him do it and track him?

How do you make that decision? It's a bigger decision. I don't make it by myself. It's who is this person? Do we want to alarm them? Do we want them to know that we know who he is or she is i want to say he because it's mostly he's um do we want them to know so because the minute you say no then they're going to be like why they say no so i don't want you to know that i know and then maybe uh i let you have a tour i'm not saying we did or didn't

do this i can't either confirm or deny but maybe i want to like let you come and then i want to follow you and see where you end up going that's good intelligence gathering okay so i cut you off but you said you headed up to the first lady so then you go i my path was then i went to first lady's detail mrs obama and then with i had her but sometimes they'd ask me to help out with the kids there was also the kids detail i ended up going to the first lady actually we called it fine living they called it fld fine living and dining in fact our luggage tags had like a butler's arm with like plates and stuff because they would mock us because we were like we're the fancy luxury arm of the stuff because you know you go to not that the first lady didn't do nice things but but we went to nice events and first-class treatment.

So they're like, yeah, finally making dining. But you protected you at some point. You told the story earlier of technically protecting Bush when he came to Ground Zero. That's a part of that detail. But had you ever been on any sort of details before the Obamas with the previous administration? Before you go full-time, that was full-time you help with other details so the way you help is here's who gets protection current president vice president former presidents all former presidents till they die and their spouses okay in addition to that foreign heads of state so

when a foreign head of state comes to the u.s we protect them so you brought up china before actually in the book when you go in later i there was a story in the book where you know i got into a fight with some chinese general like a physical fight he hit me first no but he hit me first he oh you got into a fight he drew first blood not me you got into a fight fight with him that was very common we would get into fist fights with foreign uh countries because they didn't like the way we would do things and then i think a lot of a lot of countries have their their personality comes through through in their administration and their protection details so

you would have you know we knew like which country is coming in. Like, hey, just get ready. You hit him with that Queens Boulevard left hook? He was trying to get into a meeting that President Barack Obama was in at one of the summits, the G summits. And I was the agent in charge at the site. So he's trying to sneak in. It was called a bilateral meeting, which was POTUS, President of China. And each side had like five people. Our five, their five. So I'm there with the State Department.

She's got what we call Facebook. Literally, we call it Facebook. And I'm like, who goes in? I don't decide who goes in. They tell me who goes in. She's like, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy. And again, I say guys because it's guys. The ladies don't get mad at me because that's what it was.

So I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Okay. We stop. Mind you, China's got like 50 people there kind of trying to get in. So I'm like, no, nobody else can go in. Doors closed behind me. And this one guy comes, huge guy. I don't know he's a general, but he comes over and he sees me.

He's like. And I'm just like, you know, but'm i'm a liaison i'm a diplomat so you know i don't speak i don't speak i didn't speak the language he obviously didn't speak english either and he's just like and i said you know sir you know we show him the facebook you're not he's just like and the state department person happened to be a woman i don't know gender played a role role or not it may maybe it didn't so we're trying to tell him as nice as possible you you can't go in he's not hearing it he gets mad steps away then we let the press come in there's like five press that came in to do but again they're selected so we're like one two three

four then he tries to sneak in with the press i'm like dude you're like six foot five how am i not gonna see you he's coming in with the press so i'm like, dude, you're like six foot five. How am I not going to see you? He's coming in with the press. So I put my hand up and I'm telling him no. Not you, Yao Ming. No, he was pretty angry. And I think because I'm doing this in front of the whole delegation. And so he gets pissed off and he grabs me by my suit and throws me through the. Oh, he threw you.

Oh, yeah. Stuff like that was not that uncommon. So he throws me through the doors of where the president's meeting, the Duke president. So, you know, as he's doing this, I'm like, did this guy just fucking put hands on me? You expect it from a perpetrator. You expect it from somebody you're about to arrest. You don't usually expect it with other foreign delegations. Did the doors open?

They did. And my head did this. And I see the podium. And I'm like. He's like, shit, she's having a tough day. Another slow motion. So him and his team are like Marvin, who is like his head guy. Marvin's like this.

So we go back outside. And then Marvin quickly comes to the doors. And he just closes them again. And so we. Not checking on you. You're good. Oh, no, I'm fine. You'll figure it out.

So I'm the only agent there at that moment. Because the other agents were, I think were some with somebody else down the hall and um now was this guy in like fighting stance at this point like are we talking boxing karate like so he does that so i shove him back i grab him by his suit collar and i ram him back you know and apparently i shouldn't have done that because like the whole chinese delegation jumped in so i'm getting jumped by the whole Chinese delegation. Literally. One guy grabbed me, put me in a chokehold, threw me up against the wall.

The other guy was hitting me. So I'm on the radio. I'm like, I'm like, you know, I'm like somebody. I didn't even get to. I don't think I even got to. The staff member, White House staff sees this, runs, gets the other agents and says, hey, one of your people needs you. And I just see two of the other guys come in like, we're coming, Pompers!

So, because we went by last names, Pompers. And then it's just like, they're just peeling them off of me. And then we're just, we're literally in a brawl in the middle of a G summit for peaceful, you know, with the country and we're fighting. Then the Mexicans come in. The Estado Mayor comes in. And then they jump in.

I mean, thank God there was no cameras. This would have been definitely newsworthy. I can't believe this was not on the news. This is crazy. Because there's no cameras allowed. I know, but still, someone had to leak this. So it did not get leaked. It got leaked in my book, Secret Service.

Let me put it in there. Years later. But yes, we got in a huge fight sadomayor comes on but the sadomayor saw the guy hit me first and the stuff i i appreciate my mexican brothers they were like no you touch her first you did no no no no no come here come here they were like no no no they're like you okay and i'm like you know i'm pissed i'm like you know um where was the summit this one mar de no it's not mar de uh cabo san lucas am i saying it right this is bad cabo yeah yeah yeah that's right that's where i think it was so it was in cabo yeah now like is is the caboian police

like arresting this guy like how mexicans no they didn't arrest them because everyone's got diplomatic and the mexican police the federales which you don't want to mess with they're pretty serious i might be in the cartel too that's the other problem yes we would be that's another thing when you would work with foreign countries you had to be very careful because you don't know who's legit a lot of foreign countries are very corrupt. Again, no knock on Mexico, but that's a big problem down there. So we were very careful with what information we gave. But even if it was the cartels, I was like, thank you. Gracias.

But I was so pissed. I wanted to hit back. And then somebody was like, tranquilo, tranquilo. I'm like, did you just see? Did you see what he did? That's crazy. My ponytail's all out of whack. Took me.

That's crazy. But that was not uncommon. That would happen with certain countries i think it happened with turkey i wasn't in that fist fight i was almost in the fist fight with turkey but that didn't happen so that would happen with some countries yes now was that in turkey when that happened no there's a lot of testosterone when you have guns and drugs and you know excuse me guns we're talking about the cartels we call a Freudian slip. Let's back that one up. Hold on a minute.

Guns. Well, we're talking about Mexico and the cartels. But anytime you have guns and badges and high testosterone, that does happen. And I think in the U.S., I want to say that we did a very good job in trying to mitigate this stuff. Not everybody's going to.

I think that's what the public doesn't realize. Everyone's quick to bash the U.s like you have no clue no clue as to what other countries are like and like the way they carry themselves the way they conduct themselves you know the fact that if you even pause and think like this general thought after after this guy hit me and we had this massive fight they brought an interpreter over the guy had the nerve to bring an interpreter over to me and start yelling at me. How dare you? How dare you hit him? Do you know who you put hands on?

And I'm like, I'm like, are you serious? He's like, this is general so and so. And the dude's standing there like this. The Mexicans are coming in. They're like, oh, boy, it's going to be another fight. And I'm like, you know, I'm looking at this guy. I'm like, he's like, how dare you put'm like you know i'm looking at this guy i'm like he's like how dare you put hands on you our general how dare you this and i'm like you tell your general i'm

like how dare he touch a woman yeah even though it shouldn't matter in that context but i was just so pissed and then and he just sat there quietly i'm like tell him tell him i don't you know i'm like translate and he wouldn't translate i'm like don't he't, he hit me first. I'm going to hit back. Tell him to behave himself. Wow. That's surreal. That's a crazy scene. It's not uncommon. So I think when people are like,

we're very courteous. We're very courteous. Even Russia, I know I didn't get in a fist fight with Russians and I like Russia, but they would mess with us. They would mess up with my Mordecai. They would go into my hotel room,

move shit around. They'd follow us. They would go into my hotel room, move shit around. They'd follow us. They'd go into your hotel room and move shit around. Yeah, it's Russia. What do you think they're doing? I'm there representing the United States of America. You think they're not going to go through my room? Now, I fully understand the context of what you're saying,

but I would not think that if there's an entire contingent of, say, Secret Service people who have maybe a bunch of rooms around each other and there's constantly people there because your literal job is to look for things that are amiss, I would not think that they're brazen to do that. They were very brazen to do that. And they would do it on purpose. And sometimes we couldn't, like, because of the diplomatic relations,

they'd be like, leave it alone. I remember once they closed the gates. I'm going, I'm taking Secretary of Treasury Paulson to the Kremlin to meet with putin i do the whole advance i'm there with the russians i'm thinking we're all good and we're rolling in and literally the russian uh the russians shut the gates right in front of my my vehicle and i'm behind putin putin's in the not excuse me my protectee paulson and they cut our motorcade in half. They closed the gates. I jump out and I'm like, open up the gates. They're like, no, no, no, no. And I'm like, what do

you mean no, no, no? No, we're closing the gates. We're closing the gates. And I'm like, no. And so I'm sitting there and like now I'm brawling outside the Kremlin with the Russians because Putin or whoever thought it would be funny shut the gates on us. This is like the stuff.

It was like they probably could do a comedy reality show on the stuff we deal with. I believe it. And you want to throw down in that moment, and you can't because what you're going to do is going to affect the policy they're engaging in in that moment. And so I'm fighting with the State Department. I'm like, how could you guys let this happen? State Department doesn't want to get in a fight with them because that's going to impact. So I will say as the U.S., at least when it came to stuff like that, sometimes I wished we were more aggressive because we would let these countries get away with a lot of stuff with no repercussions. And the majority of time, if not all the time, we were extremely professionals, extremely professional.

Yeah. The thing that makes me think about, though, is the age-old question of good versus evil. Like you brought up the Bin Laden letter a few minutes ago and you saw my reaction because some bastardized version of what you call religion. Like there's something inherently evil. I think those are. And other places could deem a place like here evil for different reasons. Did you, did your opinion on where the, where the gray area ends maybe of good and evil changed throughout your career upon seeing all these different cultures and governments that you encountered? Yes. I actually, the more I did my job, this actually happened to me when I was a polygraph examiner. So as an agent, we would call people good guys, bad guys. That's how we would differentiate. So we would, or good or evil. And the more I did interviews, the more I sat in a room with a criminal suspect or a criminal

offenders, the less I started to use good, evil. And the more I started to see the gray of people. There are situations I think that people do evil acts. And I think when people think evil, they think somebody really menacing a real big predator. And I've talked to some predators. People who do the most harm in the world are people who are actually really lost. Those are the most dangerous people. The people that are super, they're lost. They're dangerous because they don't know where they are, what they're doing. There's this void.

I always tell people, be afraid of those people who are lost, not in control. And I think for me, so terrorism, right? You brought up terrorism. So I lived through, right, September 11th, right? Let me just fix this for a sec. So I lived through 9-11. But part of what I had to do after 9-11 is when I became a polygraph examiner interrogator, I began interviewing terrorists and then terrorist sympathizers. So I would do it here.

And some of them were in prison systems here. We had custody of them. Or I would go overseas. And when we would step in, it would be, if it was, I want to blow up New York City, not my thing. But if it was, I want to blow up New York City and I want to kill the president, then we would take jurisdiction over. Oh, wow. Which the CIA did not like. It's almost like a buzzword. Yeah. Yes. city and i want to kill the president then we would take jurisdiction over oh yes wow which the cia did not like it's almost like a buzzword yeah yes anytime it was like i'm gonna hurt a protectee then we stepped in and that would happen either with informants or terrorists or terrorist

sympathizers and i had to do those interviews and i would sit across from them and I would listen to why they would tell me you know I assassinated this person I was part of I helped put this IED in place I killed these military people I would sit and I would listen through it the person I interviewed never knew who I was it's not like now where I'm in the media people know my story they didn't know they didn't know I survived through 9-11 i said nothing zero i sat and i listened to their story now i could accept what they were telling me it didn't mean i agreed with it but they would have their version they'd be like you know what you did you know you dropped the bomb here and it killed this person and you did this and you did this and you did this so you're dealing with a massive ideology especially now with what's

happening with the middle east you've got hezbollah you you've got Al-Qaeda, you've got the Taliban. Think about all these terrorist organizations. So the question is, are they all evil? Are all these millions of people evil? Or is there a problem? I was interviewing John Franchi, who's former CIA, who I had on my podcast. And he said something, and I agree with him. He said, these are people who have no hope they have no hope they're grasping at straws and it's no business it's no different than when people join gangs here yep i want an identity i want to have hope um i want to have food to put on the table i need a salary that's what they do and then they then he was also saying he's like they teach them islam and they even teach, he's like, they teach them Islam and they even teach it wrong. Oh yeah. Yeah. They teach it completely wrong. They create their

version. So you have to battle. So I think with, with certain things I have to pause and say, there's a big ideology here. And how do you, can you destroy this ideology can you shift it when i think of evil i think of maybe a hitler but i will assure you if you could interview hitler he'd be like no what did i do i was trying to protect my people right all the bad guys think they're a good guy i've seen yes bad guys don't know that's right what they're doing in fact you can i've heard people do really messed up things and they would tell me and they can justify the worst thing they've ever done. Even child, people who would abuse children or sexually abused children, you know, they can justify it.

But that, when you're in there, you have a job to do when, when you're in there, obviously, but like you're still a human being. But Evie doesn't come in. I have no business in that room. Me personally, my opinions, my thoughts, my belief systems. My goal is I'm able to check that out the door, even with like a child molester. Yes. And if not, I, they're going to fire me from, they're going to keep me from doing polygraphs. Cause there were agents that'd be like, dude, I don't know how you sit

in there. And I was like, I, you turn it off because my focus is the greater goal. My greater goal is what if this guy sexually abused this little girl and she's four, how many other little girls are out there? But if I come in there and there's this great interview, man, I wish you could pull it up. We could dissect this thing. It's the Brian David Mitchell interview. And these guys, Brian David Mitchell,

he kidnaps Elizabeth Smarth, a little girl. Oh, yes, the bearded guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bearded guy kidnaps her they got him they found him with her and two there's two interrogators i believe the one guy was um fbi and then the other person is um is a senior detective i was a really little kid but i remember this i was afraid he was gonna come get me okay. Okay, if you start it, Alessi, if you start it. Do you want me to do this or no?

Yes, please. Start it, Alessi. Let it play, and I'll tell you where to take it. We're just going to do the intro. Hey, guys. You're going to see that we played this video a few different times as we broke it down over the next 10, 15 minutes of the podcast. But the first part we played right here, there was really an audio problem, and the quality was really, really low. So I cut this.

If you guys would like to see the intro when they first walk in the room on the video we're watching, the full video link is in the description below. So they seem calm. So when they come in, and I don't know if you guys caught it initially because we were sort of talking. When they come in, the one guy comes in and he throws his stuff on the table. You can hear it. See it. You can hear how he throws his book on the table. You can hear it. See it. You can hear how he throws his book on the table. Then they sit down.

First of all, when you see that, as soon as I see a table, I know there's a problem. We don't have tables because the table breaks the connection between them and him. So what they've done and created is there's you, Brian David Mitchell, and then there's us. And so what you want to do is you want to try to get people to talk and create a relationship with them so they can tell you you want information from him and what they've done is they created a barrier you also see a couple of points when he starts they come and they ask him his name they know his name they already know his name you don't need to fill in this paperwork and they're also coming off kind of very blasé, like, what's your name?

What's your this? And at one point, you even see the detective put his hands on his face. Okay, this and that. You see the other agent sitting in the back in the corner taking notes, leaning back, moving forward. They're creating no rapport, zero, with this guy. Also, what does this guy want to talk about? What does he want to talk about when they're talking to him? They keep dismissing him.

What does he want to talk about? Himself and his beliefs. His beliefs and himself. And he also said there's a book, right? He keeps bringing up the book. And what do they do? They keep dismissing it. We don't have the book.

We don't have this. We don't have that. We'll read it later. So they're not listening to him. Sometimes you have to have the conversation they want so you can have the conversation you want. So what they do is they keep shutting this guy down. So this interview, you can tell off the bat,

it's not going to go well. You can also hear everybody chuckling outside. Like, shut up. Shut up. This is a really important interview. The problem is they went in and they're like, we got our guy. But the mistake here is how many other victims, how many other Elizabeth smarts are there?

And usually with folks like this, there's more than one victim. Now, Alessandra, do me a favor. I want you to scroll it. I want you to find there's a part we're going to do. We're going to skip through all this. And it's going to be a part where you see the FBI guy on the other side yelling in his face. And then the other guy is leaning over the table. Let's see if we can fast forward. So you can see. Good cop, bad cop. No, but they're both bad.

Yeah. Okay. Right here. Right there. Go across there. Let's see. Let's see. Your accusations are false.

Then you did not. And you are denying. In the teachings of Union Lee, who is a great scholar in the church, he says that Satan will always be the truth. Is he not ready to lunge at this guy? Because you keep talking over the top of this. This is getting a little too intense for you, isn't it, Emmanuel? We're getting to the real hard questions,

and you keep retreating into your spiel and your diatribe. Alessandro, move it to the part where the detective looks like he's going to lunge him. The guy in the white shirt. There's a part where he stands up. There you go. Right there. Pause. How good is this going? her do it. What's your choosing? I'm accusing you. Look at me. Look at me in the eye.

How good is this going? Now it's not good. Yes. But you can see from the way they key it up and the way it moves, they don't care about that. You have to get in this guy's head. It is not about you. All right, let's keep it going.

Let's see. It isn't. You want to. It's a rape. A child molester. Rapist. And your accusation is false. Bullshit.

Bullshit. Truth. Say bullshit all you want. We are. Accusation is false. And guess what? I can say that, and I'm not going to feel any shame over it, like you said. I'm going to feel shame.

You're lifted up in the pride of your heart. You know what? I'm not going to feel any shame at all. But you're going to feel great shame and great sorrow. No, I don't think so. You know the sorrow I feel? The sorrow I feel is for the smart family. Great destruction.

The sorrow I feel is for the smart family and a 14-year-old girl who was taken out of bed. I have more compassion. Bullshit. I have more compassion for that family. Then prove it and tell us the truth. Don't give me this God bullshit. I have more compassion for that family. Bullshit.

Then prove it. Tell us the truth. He's going to give you nothing. Tell us the truth. He's going to give you nothing. Tell us the truth. And in the end, he gives them nothing. He gives them nothing. They get no new information. So all you're doing is going in there and you're badgering this guy.

You don't have to like what he did. I don't like it. Nobody likes it. But you're going in, I need information. And they spend this whole interview just setting it up like you're a piece of garbage, you're a piece of garbage, you're a piece of garbage. When you talk to the people like garbage, you get garbage. The problem here is, you could have found out if there were other victims. And we will never know. Because this guy just completely shut down on you. Here's what I want to understand a little

better. Like right at the beginning, when we were turning this on and getting the volume figured out, all that stuff that you noticed because this is your career, I didn't even see any of that. And also they do have their heads back to me, so maybe I'm missing some things. No, they have a table, which they shouldn't have because it's creating a me versus you thing. Unless you get this table out of here. Do you know I actually had this conversation with Stormy when we were setting up our podcast studio.

I'm like, you know, I teach no table. I don't think I should have a table because the table creates a barrier. But the difference is here, you really want to work for it because these people don't want to speak to you. So they come in. The one guy throws his stuff on the table and you actually hear him go. It's like you just sent the message to this guy. You don't want to be here right you want to set the tone like this interview matters you matter i want to hear what you have to say and

then they're going in what's your name what's your this what's your that they know all this stuff you go in there and you build rapport how are you doing how are you feeling they let him they take the cuffs off let him use the bathroom that part's. But the follow-up should be, okay, that's not your name. Tell us about that. Oh, you have a book? Tell us about the book. So what I want to know is, let's say you go in there with this guy. Who is both someone who is, I can't remember if he also murdered people.

He might have. But was someone who's capable of that. He was a child abductor, a child molester, a crazy person. crazy person all this different stuff these horrible some of the worst things you could possibly be when you go in there and do this are you genuinely i want to be careful i said is feeling empathy for the fact that this person is so lost that they could be capable of these terrible things? Or are you using your Bill Esper skills and acting to make them think that you are so that you can get somewhere where they feel like they have rapport and you can get a result from it? You can find something good in everybody, even this dude. It's called, I had a term for it,

chasing the good. If I just pull out the bad in you and I point out the bad things you're doing, then I'm going to pull out the bad part of Julian. The defensive part, the angry part, because that's all I'm highlighting. That's my highlight reel, how fucked up you are. But if I can pull out the good in you and be like, you're a man of faith, I hear you. Wow, you really put a lot of energy and time. And maybe this interview needs to be two days or three days or multiple hours. But you have to invest the time, but they come in with an agenda. Tell us you did it. Tell us you did it. What for? You caught him with it. What you really want is who else do you not know about? What I think doesn't matter, but you can find a good thing in every, anybody. You can pull

on that thread and come in and you can have empathy for like you can sit across from someone i would have those moments i'm like how did you end up sitting across from you what happened in your life because this was somebody's son somebody's kid yes what happened in your life that you ended up here and sometimes i would say that to people what happened in your life that brought you to sit across from me that's right between the eyeballs that's a great question and people sit there and they'll cry and they'll talk and they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, they start to reveal themselves. And then eventually I can get to, hey, how did Elizabeth Smart end up with you? What happened there?

Do you walk away with any empathy for them after you're done your job? Sometimes. I mean, I mean, I would empathize with terrorists. I would empathize with folks. There was one guy. That's unreal. Wow. Because I'm not not people aren't black and white I think the more you

because it's when you sit you ever like villainize somebody in your head she said this or he said that and then you see him you're like oh man maybe I was a little too hard it's hard to hate somebody when you see them face to face and if you bring that in there then you're bringing the it's's hard to hate somebody when you see them face to face and if you bring that in there

then you're bringing the it's not going to help my mission is i need to get information and answers so with this guy my mission would be like who else in fact i had heard and i never met elizabeth smart but i had heard and this is rumor i don't even know if it's true but that one of she had brought up to one of the producers i was working with on another project that she had concerns about this interview because she felt that there were other girls that he had taken and maybe even killed and that nobody knows anything because of the way this was handled. Wow. So, you know, look, my first indicator when something's not good is when I see the room. First of all, they've got the table in there, which is a big no-no. Then they've got these two side chairs thrown in there. Like,

that's your home. How would you set up your room? Well, clean that space up, first of all. Make it look nice and clean. You would move the desk to the side. I would move the table to the side and then flip it horizontal along the wall. And then it would be me and my partner on one side. You could have him there. In fact, the door's almost to the detective's right right the door's right there i don't want my person to see the door now you can't block the door you don't block the door because you want people unless somebody's arrested but whenever i would i would it was you always had to be very careful because people had to feel that they could leave or they could argue and say she was blocking the door i was afraid that's why I gave a confession. So I would always have their back to the door. And I might even set the room up where his back,

David Mitchell's back is to the door. So I wouldn't forget there's a door there. So you'd have that table horizontal, like against the wall? Yeah, the table would be to the left, probably all the way to the left, or maybe to the right. And where would his feet be? You'd be able to see his feet and you'd be able to see yours? How can I read his body language? How can i read his foot shaking or anything going on beneath the other thing is they're all in wheelie chairs uh i'm gonna have a wheelie chair my partner's gonna have a wheelie chair brian david mitchell is gonna sit in a chair with no wheels on it the way i'm gonna show brian david mitchell that's my room is i'm gonna put him in a chair where he can't roll around or move do you you see him? He's swaying around like he's hanging out. I want you to feel a little bit

of stress, but without me actively putting the stress on you. That's your chair. You're going to sit in it. I can move around the room, but you can't. You're in that chair. These are little things you can do. Raj Rajaratnam, I'm sorry to cut you off, but it's just right on cue right here. Raj Rajaratnam, when I had him in here for a podcast, he was the hedge fund billionaire who was accused of insider trading back in like 2009. It was a huge, huge case. learned ironically the day before in his office when he paid an FBI guy to come in and talk about like negotiation tactics to his company was that they made their seat higher than his. Some people do that. You can do that. I might do it just because I was petite. And so I was dealing with usually men again, no offense guys, men just, if you look at the data, men commit

more violent crime than women. Women commit more's very true. Women commit more fraud. Women are okay with taking your money or taking your property. Matt Cox is very feminine. That makes sense. He's going to kill me for saying that. But more violent crime typically is men. Now, that's a whole other podcast and discussion as to why. So table to the side.

Nothing's blocking you. You don't need to take notes. They don't need to take notes. What they need to focus on is I need to build rapport and Nothing's blocking you. You don't need to take notes. They don't need to take notes. What they need to focus on is I need to build rapport and connection with this guy. I need to get this guy talking. I don't care what he talks about so long as he is talking. That's what I want. You're on the side with your partner.

And then there's a primary secondary. So whoever is speaking, primary goes first. Primary leans in a little bit. The secondary is more towards the back. And the secondary is watching and listening and seeing what the primary may not be catching on. Because when you're doing an interview, you're doing a shit ton of work. I'm watching. I'm reading him.

I'm trying to think about what I'm going to say. What did he just say here? I need to follow back up with this. So the beginning is all storytelling. Just tell me your story, Brian David Mitchell. I'm going to sit back. I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to this. I'm just going to build a true and genuine relationship with you. Maybe come in and be like, can I get you any coffee? Do you need anything? How are you doing today? How are you feeling? This must be difficult for you. That's it. Boom. And you're starting, you're building a connection because I want Brian David Mitchell

in the end to start singing like a canary, not doing what they're doing at this point, telling him what a piece of shit he is, because that is not your job, by the way. The court's job is to adjudicate. The court's job is to find guilt or innocence, then sentence somebody. Not your job. So this whole police, good cop, bad cop, none of it works. I'm fortunate because I got to go to some really specialized interrogation training. In fact, whenever the guys will let me, the agencies will let me in, I go. I'm like, what's going on? I'm like, I'm coming.

Because it helps you in your relations with people. Clean up your room. You got four chairs in there, but there's only three people. That's your home. You set it up so it's super nice and polished. And they use the bathroom first. You get the guy something to drink. That's how home. You set it up so it's super nice and polished. And they use the bathroom first. You get the guy something to drink. That's how you start.

And this guy's got his hands on him. He's touching him. Like, dude, he's not your friend. Those are the basics. Honestly, 101. But the minute I see an interrogation video and I see a table, I'm like, done. Just from the table. No.

I mean, that's every movie scene ever, too. Like, people think about that. They're always sitting at a table. Because do you know what's sad? Some of the, and I say this for my law enforcement brothers and sisters, they don't give them true and interviewing training. And they don't give them really good stuff. I didn't get good stuff until I became a polygraph examiner is when I got really trained properly.

And what they do is they watch Law & Order. They watch these police videos. And they think that if I intimidate this guy and tell him he's going to go to prison or jail, he's going to talk. And it doesn't. It shuts him down and it alienates him. One of the other tactics that I know Jim's talked about a bunch. He tells this amazing story. Maybe we can actually, I'll tell it right now, but maybe we can cut it in on the podcast so people can see him tell it just

for the post edit. So let me just go and sit. So we go in and sit. First, he only asked me one question. You a lawyer? I said, no. Does it? Didn't offer anything more.

So he sits back like you are. I just, you go, start doing that. And so you do that. Yeah. So then he goes, I start doing that. And so you do that. Yeah. So then he goes, I go. 15 minutes. Silence. Silence.

Finally, he goes, what do you want? What do you want? So he came. So I go, nothing. Yeah, pull that mic in a little bit. Yeah, nothing. Just sitting with you. I'm just here to sit with you.

I didn't really look at him. This is a fully dark room. Well, it's like this. I mean, it's a little light. It's got the handcuffed bar, so he's cuffed to the bar over here, the side. 15 more minutes. Everything he does. Just about the bank robberies.

I'm just sitting here, bro. This is the shit duty I get for fucking being here. Can I help you out? What? No, I don't want any help. Okay. 15 more minutes.

Going through the same thing. Finally, he goes, what the fuck do you want? I say, I want you to fucking write down the bank robberies because I want to go home. I'll give you three. But tells a story about this guy who they had in the holding room that they were certain had committed a million bank robberies. But they technically only had slight evidence for one, and it was like very focata, and they weren't sure. And so the guy was playing the game perfectly, like, nope, not going to say anything. You don't have anything on me. Like stonewalling all the agents.

And so they bring in Jim. And Jim just comes in there. And all he did was sit down, you know, like kind of funny, bald Italian guy, FBI agent, like, hey, how you doing? And he would just sit in silence with this guy and everything the guy would do, he would mirror. So the guy would go like this and Jim would lean back and go like this. Like the guy would start to move like this and Jim would be like – and it just went on for hours and hours and hours. And then eventually the guy was literally like, all right, which one do you have, bro?

He's like, dude, I'm just trying to get out of here. I think we have one, but that's all he did, right did right no there were three and the guy literally gave it to him because this is like i forget how long it was but hours and hours and hours later because he was like i psychologically was able to get in his head strictly through body language to make him feel like for some reason i was already in his head and knew the truth. Did you ever employ tactics like that? Or were you much more just focused on kind of the, let's get them talking and keep them talking? So Jim is using mirroring. Yes. So you can do that. One of the things, no knock on Jim, Jim, I'm sure you're great. The problem with mirroring, if you do this, if somebody sees you doing it and they recognize it, they know it's a tactic and it's just going to break rapport

that's that's the issue you can do this stuff the thing is with this stuff it'll work one in 10 times but the other nine times is the problem so i i wouldn't i would have to see the whole thing you know because obviously it worked for j. But sometimes we do these outlier interviews, we do these things, and we think that they work. And in the end, I will tell you, like, the crux of it is it's warmth and competence. Coming in there, being competent, and being warm, and letting that person feel like, I'm going to listen to you. But you're also frank and forthright. They call it Dr. Emily and Lawrence Allison. They have four animal archetypes. And one of the things they taught me was good T-Rex. You can be warm, but be good T-Rex, which is frank and forthright. I hear what you're saying, actually. But when we look at the evidence

here, this actually shows me something different. So that's being frank and forthright with someone. So I don't know about that. I would just the only thing is with people, you have to caution it because the moment somebody feels you're using a trick or technique on them, you look disingenuous. And then that means they can't trust you. And if they don't trust you, they're gonna shut the fuck up. Do you think it could be viewed though, as and I don't disagree with you on on how you to shut the fuck up. Do you think it could be viewed, though, as, and I don't disagree with you on how you go about doing this, but do you think it could also be viewed as a potential trick or tactic if you're walking in there with someone who's obviously done some bad things, they've known that they've at least done things that are against the law, even if they don't think it's bad, and you start acting like you want to know their story and all about them, and they're sitting somewhere where they're not allowed to leave? But I do. I do want to know their story and all about them and they're sitting somewhere where they're not allowed to leave. But I do.

I do want to know their story. There's nothing disingenuous. I want to know how did you end up here? But do you think they could try to read it as disingenuous? Like what was, you know, she's just here to interrogate me. But they would be. They would be. I remember I did this one interview and this was as a journalist and I was deputized.

There was a tv show we were doing and they wanted me to go in with the cops to do the interview room and the cops were like yeah come on in there you're gonna get nothing because it was with gangs and drugs they're like you're gonna get nothing so they didn't know who i was they just knew the the producer was like can we throw her in there in there and they're like yeah sure she wants to come play and um before we get set up to go in they've got the the same setup, tables like that, chairs. So I go in there and I'm like, can I move some stuff around? And they're watching me like I'm nuts.

So they're like, sure. So I start moving tables and chairs and shit. And they had all wheelie chairs. I'm like, do you have a chair with no wheels on it? I look nuts to these guys, but I was like, they brought me a chair with no wheels on it. So I tell the detective, all right, we're going to sit in these wheelie chairs. And I'm like, you can go first. You be primary and I'll be secondary and I'll kind of, we'll wheel in.

So when you want to speak, you wheel forward. When I want to speak, you'll see me wheel forward a little bit so you know to wheel back. It's kind of a silent way to kind of orchestrate the room. Then he shows up, the detective, in a three-piece suit. Because we're doing this TV project and he comes in a three-piece suit because we're doing this tv project and he comes in three three-piece suit so i pull him over the guy we're interviewing was a young man um in a sweatsuit who's 17 years old and he's been sleeping in that sweatsuit like a day and a half because he's been sitting in a jail cell and probably starving so i grabbed the guy

i'm like can i ask you for a favor you? And I'm trying to be- Delicate. Very delicate, very soft about it. Do you want to take the blazer off? And he had a badge, his badge on, and another badge on his vest. And I'm like, take the badge off, take the tie off, take your other badge off. Dude, the guy knows he's sitting in jail.

We need to try to make this guy forget that he's talking to the police and he needs to see us as human beings. So thankfully, my guy listened to me and we go in there, same thing. He's talking to him. Nope, no nothing. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

Then I finally, I lean over. I'm like, you thirsty? He's like, yeah, I'm thirsty. He's like, what can I get you? He's like, Pepsi. I was like, let me go get some Pepsis. I step out, you thirsty? He's like, yeah, I'm thirsty. He's like, what can I get you? He's like, Pepsi. I was like, let me go get some Pepsis. I step out, find some other detectives. I'm like, I need three fucking Pepsis.

And he's like, so they give me three Pepsis. I walk in. I'm handing Pepsis out. The detective looks at me. He's like, why are you giving me a Pepsi? He's like, I don't drink Pepsi. I'm like, you're drinking Pepsi now. Take your Pepsi.

Because we had nothing in common with this young man. We're drinking Pepsii and this guy for i don't know how long no no no so i roll in you know and the texas detective's looking at me like you see i roll and i'm like you doing okay he gets quiet i'm like how are you because nobody's asked him how he is up until that point and the kid starts crying he starts. And he himself had been shot in the past. He's been through all this stuff. He's crying, this and that. I'm like, it's going to be okay. I was like, but we can't figure this out, you know, until you kind of, I guess, you know, you don't know how it's going to turn out unless you talk about it. And I could see it's weighing

on you. And I don't know what kind of life you've had or what it's been like and i'm sorry i was like but we're just trying to get to the truth whatever that truth is it is and we'll guide you the best way we can um and the kid just starts crying and we just i just leave him i just leave him alone and then eventually you know at one point he's like it wasn't me boom boom no you know you're gonna get who it was boom yeah but i just got an admission that's called an admission instead of like did you do it did you do it did you do it and now he just opened the door all right it wasn't you something happened though no tell me about that no no i'm not saying you would say that i'm saying you know the door's open to well we got it on the record that something

happens let's figure out so he's saying something right and so he's opening up and so we just started letting him talk and then in the end he's like i'm not the one who did it we were gonna go we did a home invasion we were just gonna steal. We were just going to steal the guy's drugs, always drugs, steal the guy's drugs and take his money. He fought back. The guy I was doing the home invasion with shot him multiple times. The guy happened to live that they shot, shot him multiple times. I didn't know he was going to do that. I didn't know he was going to shoot him like that. Right? He's like, we left. I've just been afraid. He's like, I, that's what we were going to do. That was the story in the end. So I got the guy food.

I fed him like you can do these things. He now shot another human being. So could I sit there and be the morality police of how messed up everybody is in their lives? That's not my place in the world. And like, it's not your place here. So that's the goal. Like you can find something. Otherwise it can go in and be like, look at this punk. Look at this thug

He just shot this guy in cold blood. Look what he did His girlfriend was screaming pregnant pregnant girlfriend screaming on the floor and these guys didn't care. I can do that I can take that picture you can You can pass judgment. You can be judgmental. It gets you nowhere The minute people feel that from you, and you think about every time someone, you've talked to someone, the moment you feel they're passing judgment,

the moment you feel that they're telling, making you feel bad for whatever you did, you do what? I'm not gonna talk. You shut down, you get defensive, you fight. So, you know, that's the nuances of really talking to people. There's like, yeah, you can connect.

I'm not your friend, but I don't come in pretending to be your friend. I come in being curious and that's genuine. And I genuinely want to know what happened. But when I come in pretending to be your friend, that is fake. That's called being monkey, by the way, bad monkey. I mean, that, that, once you explain that, that makes more sense to me i think i'm just like thinking of it from the perspective of not having sat in a room for a while and not being in the middle of the most stressful moment of my life where this could go one way or the other and you might be more less aware of certain things and more in a in a heightened i guess like hormonal reaction type situation where there's so many things firing

through you that the interviewer or the the suspect the suspect okay yeah all those things are happening yes but it's amazing to me that someone like you and i think this is a testament to how great you are at your job could walk into room. It sounds you made it sound like it was not too long after September 11th with, you know, guys who are at least suspected terrorists. And you were there that day. You saw this and you know what that is. But you could find a way to perhaps suspend a hatred of that ideology, if you will, for at least a moment in there to do your job and understand why this person got that way and i i actually i've i've quoted this before but i do think about this a lot you know there's there was a show called homeland you ever see that yes when they

made the lead woman not they made her seem crazy i was just like talented but crazy yes but there's i think it was in season four they had this guy hakani played by newman akar who was like the terrorist in afghanistan and i think he might have that dude might have played the best terrorist i've ever seen i mean like i believed it and he has a line in there where he's talking with saul berenson who i think was like the acting head of CIA in the show at the time, and he had kidnapped Saul. And he's got him back at his family compound, and he's like cuffed up, but they're eating dinner together. And I think it was when he was eating dinner with him. He says – Saul is like trying to talk sense into him, if you will.

And the terrorist says to him,ica hates what it can't understand and this is not me siding with a terrorist of like oh we can't understand that so i get what you're doing but that line always hit me hard because i feel like we do you know maybe from our perch here we judge so many other people just on the surface of what the end result may be without considering some of the root causes and how we may be able to help prevent that in the future. And I think it's even more on steroids in what you do because you're in the middle of it, and you actually have to be like, yo, I can't be that person that doesn't understand what they're about. In fact, I need to understand everything that they're about so that maybe I can help their next generation, if not them. There's something that's also – that could be really good in that beyond just solving

a case or just preventing another attack, which is a great thing too. But you know what I mean? It's almost like you may actually have an effect on some people in there. There's some people we've seen who have been in those situations and sat in those seats across from someone like you who later becomes like a converted former terrorist and talks about it and realizes that there's plenty of examples of this. And they talk in the media and they write books about it and they're like, oh my god. I never understood what I was being sucked into at a young age, just by the environment I was born into. And it probably takes someone empathetic, like you sitting there, instead of someone screaming and being in that moment, everything that they've been taught to demonize. So I love that you just said that,

because there is no way and I don't know of any case where I've turned anybody ever to feel a certain way about, to change the way they see the world, because they have been groomed. If you just take a terrorism, right, even if you look at Hamas, like everything that's happening in the Middle East, they have been groomed from children to feel a certain way. And it's your upbringing, where you're brought up, your family, the ideologies you're taught. Um, it's being reinforced, forced around you in so many, in your education and all this stuff. So if you're raised your whole life to believe this, now, every is going to walk in and within five hours, I'm going to what change your long-term belief system because who you are and what you believe in that's taken your entire life to come into it it's going to take a lot of time for me to change that so i knew i didn't never walked into that room saying hey i'm i'm here to i'm the good guy never because i wasn't the good guy in

their eyes in their eyes i was the bad guy in their eyes i was american their eyes i represented something bad because of the way U.S. handles politics or interferes in other countries, interferes, whatever the case may be. But I had a short-term goal. And my short-term goal, and the same would be with this guy, is are there other girls? Are there other kids? My short-term goal with the terrorists or empathizers or whoever I was interviewing, are there other bombs? Is there a bomb? I'm not here to convert you. I don't mean to be mean. I don't care what you believe in. But I need to know if there's something else. But to get that, I have to allow you to talk. So if I come in with my agenda, I want this and this and this,

I'm not letting you speak. So if you feel the need, you need to school me on how much America sucks for 40 minutes. I have enough self-confidence to be able to sit there and listen to it and be like, okay. And sometimes there are some things they throw off and I'd be like, that's a valid point. Your family is dead or they did drop a bomb or they did kill this or they did intervene or I'm sorry to hear that. I see why you feel this way. Not I understand. I see why. That must be very difficult for you. Yeah, because then I'm agreeing and that's a lie. So that's the goal. I'm not coming in to change you long term. That's why people who get into relationships with folks, they think, oh, I'm going to come in and I'm going to change this person. You're not. And then that's why people end up banging their head against the wall. Because you think, and that, how narcissistic too is that

of me to think I'm going to come in, every coming in guy, I'm going to fix you in five hours. I'm going to turn your whole worldview inside out. That's narcissistic of me. Yes. I will use that word in this scenario. That's arrogant of me. It's arrogant of these guys that they think they're going to come in and school this guy. And the whole interview, nope, heaven. Nope, God. That's the story he stuck to. And that's the story he stayed at. And they got no new information. This is why, and again, their heart's in the right place, but this is why this is a fail.

They're letting their emotion guide them. They're just there to tell the guy what a piece of garbage he is. When the thing is, build rapport, talk to him, understand what's going on in his head. Stop calling him a child molester because nobody wants to be called that. Even people, when I would interview people, I would never say to somebody, did you steal that money? Did you take that money? Oh, if they would lie to me and everybody lied to me, everybody, even though you're not.

Title 18, 1001, you can't lie to a federal agent. People do it anyway. They would lie to me and I wouldn't say, you know what, Julian, you're a liar. Because Julian's going to be like, fuck you.

Don't call me that. Nobody likes to be called that. So it would be, you know what, Julian? I don't think you're telling me everything. There's something missing from this story, and I really want to understand it, and I'm going to need your help. That feels different, doesn't it?

It feels totally. You used the words. You almost like obfuscated the truth of what you know to make them feel like you didn't. But I'm still saying you're lying to i'm calling you're i'm still saying you're not you're lying to me without calling you names right you're making it sound like you're making it not to no pun intended with what you said a few minutes ago but like you're making it sound like i understand why why you're doing this so that's okay but my emotions aren't caught

in the middle when you become emotional it's like and, and this is where you be, how dare you? How dare you lie to me? And I would see, you know, other investigators. How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you this? How dare you that? It's like, nobody fucking, it's not about you. So that's why when you asked before, how did you check yourself?

Because it was not about me. I wasn't there to be the heavy. I'm not the judge. I'm there to get as much information as I can to give it to the prosecutor and say here. And then when they would work with me and there were times where they would really work with me, I would tell them, look, I can't make promises about anything. Cause always, they would always ask, can you do this? And that I'm like, I'm not allowed to make promises. What I can do though, is go out there and tell them that you were truthful, that you did your best, that you told me the truth, you shared everything.

And there was something you could do, I forgot what we called it, where the prosecutor would take that into consideration when it came to their punishment. You know, I can tell them that. I will tell them that. That I can do. You know, and there's so many nuances, but that's kind of like the schema. When you look at all the top interrogation training, but that's kind of like the the schema and when you look at all the top interrogation training like that's how it was done but not everybody gets this training even me i thought i knew how to do interviews before i went to the the naka national uh

credibility school it was called dot pi when i went to department of defense polygraph institute where i sought to polygraph polygraph and interview people what year was that oh this is bad i don't remember because you i want to say 2005 you were being you were trying you were training to get in the nypd in what 99 is that right nypd i went in 99 to 2000 and then i went 2000 into the u.s secret service and then you were in it, obviously, ahead of 9-11. You were already in it. I was in it. And then later on, they made me, they asked me. I was told by one of the senior examiners, hey, I'm leaving. You should take my spot.

And I was like, nope. I don't want it. I don't want to be in an interview. So you hadn't really done any of that before? I had done interviews as a regular. Okay. As an agent, you do interviews. All agents do interviews because you have cases.

I had many caseloads. But I had the training that I got from just regular training, which isn't bad. It's good. But then when you get training from – but then when I became a polygraph examiner, there was only 30 of us. They're like, hey, do you want to be a polygraph examiner?

And that team of people, they did the hard interviews. They had really elite training. And then that not, so basically the training I have, the majority of us secret service don't have it. It's like thousands of us. I'm not allowed to give you how many there are, maybe 30 of us at it. So I was one of 30. And so at that point, they send you to like a three month training school just on this. And what context would you use a polygraph in? Because like we think about it with like CIA, they polygraph all their own agents to make sure people aren't. We did the same.

Okay. But were there other things you used it for? I could use it on this guy, Brian David Mitchell. Nope, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Brian, were you willing to take a polygraph? Sure.

Okay. Oh, they have to agree to it though. Everybody has to. You can't willing to take a polygraph sure okay let's oh they have to agree to it though everybody has you can't make somebody take a polygraph you could give polygraphs to people who would be silent so if it was they used it where let's say you had a missing person like a body you're looking for the body you know the person killed the person someone and you're like look we just want to find the body to give the family peace there was like polygraphs where you could draw a map and put into quadrants like quadrant one two three like a map and say okay is she in quadrant one is her body in quadrant one is her body in quadrant two and then you would look at the polygraph and wherever the polygraph

peaked whatever quadrant so if their polygraph peaked that quadrant three all right guys body's in quadrant three go look whoa you could do do that because the response is not the verbal. The response is the body. So if you're neutral in quadrant one, quadrant two, quadrant four, quadrant five, quadrant six, but quadrant three, you spike. Well, that's a quadrant. So that would guide you to at least put your manpower to look for the body of whoever you're looking for in quadrant three. And I'm saying when I say that is like you would have a big map yeah zone it out and you'd show the person so there's ways to do that but the polygraph itself like i was the polygraph the

person doing it was a polygraph because sometimes if you built a really good connection with people you wouldn't even have to polygraph them i I could just get such good rapport that you give me, it's called a pre-test confession. You tell me you did it without me even giving you the test. But that's them teaching you how to read people, how to build rapport, not to do this, move the table out of the way. They're the ones who taught me to move the table. They're like, nope, no tables. First of all, the thinking is how are you going to read their body language? We teach you all this body language stuff. And from here down, you can't see what they're doing with their feet.

Are they tapping? Are they shaking? Are they fidgeting? Are they grooming? Are they picking lint off their pants? You're going to miss all that stuff, number one. Number two, it breaks the energy. If I'm sitting there building, building, building, be open, be open, be open.

But I've got my folder in front of me with paperwork and i'm taking notes that was another thing we didn't take notes i didn't take notes now are you are you filming it though you know when i did my when i first started doing them we did not have to film but then they started filming them but even when they did not film i did not take notes you had said a little earlier that that you did whatever training became available to you including with with other places i don't know if that meant you did all the actual like official training that they get put through in their initial schools when they're training their agents but in your experience from what you know at least, how similar was the training on, say,

interrogations and polygraphs in the Secret Service to CIA or FBI, or did they kind of have their own takes on certain things? So when you go to DODPI, which is NACA now, actually everybody, every agency goes there first. So CIA sends their people there. So I was there with CIA. I was there with FBI. I was there with everybody. We're all there together. So our agencies send their wannabe, their would-be interrogators to training to DADPAI. It was Fort Jackson. And you spend three months there going through polygraph interview training, psychology classes. Um, even we had pharmacists come in to talk to us because sometimes you're dealing with people on substances. Oh, whoa. Right. So if somebody's, uh, on addicted to a

drug or taking substances or doing stuff, you need to know that. So it was a biology. We had a massive biology class. It was like a semester of biology and a week and a half, and then you had to take a midterm and final on it. So you're there with them. Then when you leave, after you graduate that training, then you go back to your agency, which my agency was Secret Service. Then you go through a mentor program, sort of. And that means I'm not allowed to do any interrogations on my own, any polygraph interrogations. Before, as an agent, I could do whatever. But if I'm doing these, you have to think of it this way.

When you're a polygraph examiner, they're calling you in for the hardest cases and the most important cases. Not that your cases are important, but you're like the last line of defense. So because of the severity of the cases that you're doing, you had to be mentored by somebody. So I was only allowed to do interviews with other senior examiners, and then they would have to do a write-up on me. She's good. She's this.

She sucked. She needs to work on that. Whatever it was. Then it would be sent to quality control, which is Washington, D.C., and I had to report to D.C. to the top, top echelon of the interrogation unit, the polygraph unit, and they would track me. And if I did well, then they would let me do interviews on my own. And if not, you get yanked. So some people would get yanked from the program. It was a very stressful job because so much rode on you. They're looking at you like, hey, we interviewed this person four times. We believe that they're the one who broke the three month old baby's arm, get a confession. So I would also get temped out to police departments in the United States to help

them. So I didn't just do US Secret Service cases. I did local police departments in the United States to help them. So I didn't just do U.S. Secret Service cases. I did local police departments. In the U.S., we have about 17,000 law enforcement entities. When I say that, it's like NYPD, LAPD, Chicago PD, and then FBI, ATF. Those are all law enforcement entities. There's about 17,000 in the U.S. Sounds like enough. Well, it's designed like that by our forefathers because they didn't want to have one national police force. If you go to the U.K., there's one. There's one police commissioner in the U.K. There's one national police force. That doesn't exist here.

We don't have a national police force. So they have MI5 and MI6. That's intelligence. Right. But MI5 and MI6. That's intelligence. Right. But MI5 I always thought was like their FBI equivalent. There's agencies that have federal jurisdiction. But when you look at police departments, it's one. Here you have NYPD.

It's got its own police commissioner. And they do their own thing. You have Chicago PD, its own police commissioner. They do its own thing. We're fragmented here so that there's no one powerful entity. There, there's one when you look at law enforcement and policing. So in the United States, the police departments, they don't have all the resources they need.

In fact, I think it's half the police departments have 10 officers or less. So how much can they, what can they do? You know, they're limited to what they can do and their training and all that. So they would reach out to an agency like the U.S. Secret Service. And most people don't know this, but in the back, behind closed doors, it's known. And they say, look, I have this case. Can you help? Send me one of your people here.

We believe this guy did this crime. We have no evidence. He's going to walk. Would you guys take a crack at it? And so they would loan us out to police departments. We would get the case file, and they'd say, go see if you can help solve this case. Help get them either new leads, new information. Or sometimes I'd go in, and I'd say, this is not your person.

How often did that kind of thing happen? It would happen. it would happen it would happen i can't give it a number because it's just like a random thing it would happen but that's why it was very important when you went in there that you checked your ego at the door and you come in neutral because you don't know if you have bad information if people are biased if it looks like he did it looking like you're guilty and being guilty are two very different things. And so if I come in and I have this confirmation bias, you're my guy, you're my guy, you're my guy, then everything you say is going to lead me to the

conclusion. I'm going to make it fit to make you my guy, to make you the suspect. And the things you tell me that negate that you did it, I'm going to dismiss those. I'm not going to pay attention to those because I'm only listening to the stuff that's leading me to the conclusion that you did it. So you really have to come in neutral, unbiased, and then get information. So just because the police department would say, we believe he did it, it didn't mean that the person actually did it. It seems like from the outside, that sort of attitude happens all the time. You know, guys are trying to close a file, right? They're trying to make sure the case gets solved so that someone on a Tuesday in November can say, we closed 89%

of cases. You know what I mean? So I always worry about that. And we've heard the stories before, you know, where, where people – and you even say it. Like sometimes where someone literally looks guilty. Like it wasn't here but like Amanda Knox was a prime example of that, right? She just kind of looked guilty to them. So they're like, you must have done it, right? And I want to think that like all detectives are great or whatever but people are also trying to do their job. And if their job is not to be like, well, let's see if we can figure out if this guy didn't do it. It's more like you talk about the power of thinking going into it.

It's more like how do we determine if this guy did it or we think this guy did it. So let's get a confession. That's a phrase that's been said today a couple of times in different contexts. Like how do you, in your experience, did it seem like that confirmation bias was far more prevalent than it wasn't? So, you know, the mindset was, and I use confession a lot, but when they told me, when I went through training and they said, this is who you are, they said, you are an objective seeker of the truth. That's what you are. And every time I would walk into a, an interview, I would say, I'm an objective seeker of the truth.

I'm not on the detective side. I'm not on this side. I'm on the side of truth. And whatever the truth is, I would, I would tell them like, if you had nothing to do with this, then we're going to, we're going to resolve that today. If you did have something to do with this, that's okay too. We're going to resolve that as well. We'll figure out where to go and how to get you there. And so it allowed people the ability to be like, all right, maybe I can talk. That was the goal. But I think why, so why do you have people found, you know, there's a couple of reasons. I think most investigators just want to solve the case and they want to do right. And so something sometimes in that, that pursuit of, I just want, I want to close this, not because I want to close it, but because,

because I want to get somebody justice that happens, um, because the person appears guilty to me. And I have this confirmation bias that based on this, this, and this, they did it. And so that I don't have the ability, once I've made up my mind, somebody did something, that's a problem. And so what the great thing was when we would come in, we would come in neutral. I would do this on cases that were not my cases. So I would come in like Switzerland. I was like, I have no, I don't want to say I have no dog in the fight. I'm like, I just want the truth. And most investigators were like, yes, please come help us.

Like we can't figure it out. So that's how you were coming in. So and sometimes if I interviewed someone, we would do this with the hiring process. Let's say with the hiring process, we would polygraph people. So let's say I would polygraph someone and they needed an additional test, or I didn't get enough information from them, or I think they need a follow-up one, then I would pass it to another polygraph examiner and I'd say, you do this one. They need a fresh face, fresh person, because now you're coming in completely neutral. And also they're not biased to you. So now they know me, they spent hours with me,

they have a sense of who I am. So they've built this image in their head of who they think I am. And that's not good. We want to come in very neutral and objective. So whenever somebody needed a second interview, usually we'd say, you come and do the second. And that kept it, I will give the US Secret Service credit. They worked really, really, really hard. I don't know if there's a – the other agencies are going to hate me for saying this. I don't think if there's a better polygraph program out there than ours. And I worked with other examiners from other agencies. Great, but, I mean, we were – Better than the CIA. I'm not saying anything. That was a hard yes right there. Shots fired.

Let's go. Well, the difference with CIA is they're not agents. The folks that do interviews, excuse me, the folks that do polygraphs are not special agents. They're just individuals that just do polys. And so the caliber is different of them. They're not us. What makes it with a polygraph? What makes that so different? In the U.S. Secret Service, a special agent does the polygraph. So you're getting

my training, my experience. I've worked cases. I've worked interviews. I've been around the president. You're getting all that experience. And then on top of that, you're making me an interrogator and examiner. Whereas I can't, I don't, I gotta be careful. I don't want to like say something I'm not supposed to say. I will just say that not all the other, the other, the other agencies had that. They would just hire people like, okay, you're going to be doing polygraphs on people and that's all you do.

And just clear this person so that they can work on this building. They're a contractor. Clear this person for this. So the caliber was different, right? It's like it was just the caliber. I understand what you're saying. I'm just – and this is – It's how they chose or who they chose to make their interrogators versus who the U.S. Secret Service chose to make their interrogators internally.

Okay, but thinking about it just from a polygraph perspective for a second, this is a little bit my own naivete because I know I've been a part of that. But to me, the way I've always thought of a polygraph is there's a system of detection and reading that system itself, like the wires that are hooked up to detect discrepancies in someone is the job of the polygraph person to determine whether or not there is a lack of truth or definitively something that deviates from what people previously said or something like that. How does being a, like I understand the interrogation part very much. I agree with what you're saying there. But if I'm just a polygrapher who happens to work at CIA as the polygraph – that's what they call them, right? Polygrapher.

Polygrapher. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm working as that person, am I not able to read my system as well? Getting your kids to school safely is important to you. It's important to us too. Toyota, for what matters most. Because I'm not a trained Secret Service agent, is that what you're saying?

Or am I missing that a little bit? Yeah, so what they're doing is they're just typically administering the test. And it kind of pauses there. Maybe they do some questioning. With us, it's like, yeah, you're an interrogator and a polygraph examiner. And I can't really speak to the intricacies of how they do it internally, but their agents or their officers are typically not, they're a different caliber of people that are selected. Okay. Okay. But look at it this way. You have your podcast set up here. You have great equipment. You can have the best set up there, right? And that lets you know the audio and everything, how it's going.

But the reason why it's run really well is because Alessandro is running it and Alessandro is good. If you've got a shit person behind there, I don't care how nice your equipment is, it's not going to function right. But because he knows what he's doing, that's why this functions well, despite the equipment being top of the line. So polygraph is the same thing. I was the polygraph. The computer would just tell me the system, and it was a software system. It would just tell me you asked julian this question and when you asked him this one question he responded to it why so if i said to you julian let me like think of something julian did you ever share national security or classified information with anybody and you peaked that's all i got i don't know who you shared it with

i don't know what happened, blah, blah, blah. I know nothing. Oh, I understand. So now I have to sit with Julian and say, Julian, you know, when I ask you this question, something happened. What are you thinking? What's going on? And it can vary. Sometimes people would hit that question because they cheated on their spouses. Sometimes that would be, sometimes people would hit certain questions because they would interpret it as like a betrayal of something they did to somebody. So you had to sit there and figure out what's going on in that person's head. So a question like that often, and I'm phrasing it a certain way because I don't want to give

stuff out. You know, I'd have people be like, look, I cheated on my spouse. And for them, they felt there was such a betrayal that they would peak. You know, if it was like, did you ever betray the United States of America? They may not have betrayed the United States of America, but they betrayed somebody they cared about. And now they're peaking. So that, wow, I never thought of that. They can respond strictly to like what a word makes them feel versus the context of what the word's used in.

In the polygraph, especially the hiring ones, you go through somebody's life and you bring to surface. It's like, I always tell them, I'm like, today I'm going to find out the worst part about you. It's a real reassuring question to walk in there. I want to know who you are when nobody's watching you. And so everybody's demons come up to surface and it's very hard for folks but the design is i want to know the worst about you so that i know who's coming in or at least not me but the agency knows

who they're getting everyone's got something everybody's got something everybody's got something but it's two things one are you willing to tell the truth and if if you are, then that's good because then we can trust you. Because if you're not willing to tell the truth here, what are you going to do later on when you get this job? And you're going to be in a lot of complicated situations. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to mess up. And how can I trust you're going to tell me the truth? And then two, if you have done stuff, we need to know about it because you're about to get a badge in again. Top secret clearance, access to the White House, access to all this stuff. Who are you?

I remember once, I think I could share this. It was a hiring polygraph I did. One guy, he spent his adolescent setting cats on fire. And we sat there in the polygraph. This guy wanted a job counting how many cats he set on fire growing up. That's a red flag. You don't say. It's a red flag, right? Because it's like, how did it start? And did it end with cats? Where are we escalating to? How did you get there? How did you get to I set cats on fire? That's very specific. I would imagine you didn't have a question.

You're good, but I would imagine you didn't have a question prepared. So did you set cats on fire growing up? Harm to animals. Oh. Bestiality or inappropriate relationship with animals. That would come up. Not mostly in the East Coast. It was a Midwest thing.

Sorry, Midwesterners. I didn't get that a lot, but my Midwestern polygraph examiners were telling me a lot of, there were a lot of inappropriate relationships with applicants and animals. And I was like, we don't get that a lot on the East Coast. Drugs, drugs was a big issue for East Coast. That's what I would get most people, most people would get disqualified on was drugs. But to people also, because like part of the way it's been explained to me in the past is that part of determining a discrepancy, i.e. what could be a lie or whatever, would be, what was the term you used earlier? A bump or?

Peak or spike. Right, which I've understood to mean like nervousness or anxiety. So here's the thing. If you have anxiety during my polygraph, you're going to have anxiety on every question I ask you. That's what I've always wondered. Because I know if I walked into a polygraph, I'd be like, what did I do?

Everybody's like that. So you calibrate the system. The way you calibrate this thing from my voice, the polygraph is calibrated for your biology, where your breathing is, where your EDA is, that's your electrodermal activity, how much you sweat, your breathing pattern, your blood pressure. So it's set to a point to where you are today in this moment. So in this moment, you're stressed out, you're in an interview room, even if it's for a job, you're stressed out, you're in a, you know, and you're in an interview room, even if it's for a job, you're stressed out, you really want this job. So it's calibrated for who you are in that moment. So we spend time calibrating following you, where you are,

and you ask a whole, I can't give too much away, but you ask a whole bunch of questions. Each question is designed to provoke something different. So then across the board, you look for that you set this up in such a way. I will tell you, it is, at least for the hiring process, I know in private sector, they can't use it. But man, it is such an important tool in weeding out people that should not be in these types of jobs. You're looking at immense power, immense privilege.

You have the power to not just take somebody's freedom away, but you have the power to kill another human being. You're in the White House. You're around. You're in rooms where classified discussions are happening. Like, you need to know who you're bringing in. I mean, things come out. I had one applicant.

He had child porn on his computer. He had child porn. He admitted to having porn videos. And then eventually I'm like, all right, tell me about them. And then it was child pornography. So my interview went from being a new hire interview to being, you're about to be arrested. You need your device. So that would happen.

Sometimes he'd start off with a job and now we're arresting someone. Oh, my God. Do you have a ballpark? How many of these did you do in your career? A lot. I don't know. The Secret Service actually kept count. They kept stats on us.

And we would have an annual polygraph conference where it was just the interrogators, the polygraph examiners. And I remember they'd give us a binder and the cover of the binder inside, excuse me, the first page inside, it was how many polygraphs you did, how many confessions you got, how many you got nothing, how many admissions you got, how many people failed.

They kept stats on us. And you would see, it was almost like the NFL draft or something where you would see everybody score. And it was a way to keep you accountable something, where you would see everybody score. And it was a way to keep you accountable. Like, look at how your peer's performing. You need to perform or you're out.

So it was a very stressful. How do they define performing, though? Like, what if. They would see, I polygraphed someone, he failed. Here's an example. Did Evie get a confession or not? Did Evie get an admission or not? But what if there's nothing to admit or confess? He failed.

Oh, wow. Let's say he failed. So then it not? But what if there's nothing to admit or confess? He failed. Oh, wow. Let's say he failed. So then it's like, what did you get? So if I have people who fail and I keep getting nothing, it's a problem. Because the polygraph itself, just because I'm able to, you know. And then also, if you have nobody who's passing, that's a problem. Because people need to pass too you. They're going to, so they kept those stats and that's how you knew who's good, who's not, who needs to go. It was very, very stressful because you're also dealing with

high stakes. You want to do a good job. You want to get a confession. You don't want the wrong person to go to jail. Like all these things matter. Did you, in the course of while during the part of your career where you're doing polygraphs did you ever have a colleague subject you to one just for shits and gigs we took it we give them to each other in training um i but i had to take multiple ones i had to take one to become an agent and then i had to take uh multiple ones to become a polygraph examiner i had to take multiple ones. I had to take one to become an agent, and then I had to take multiple ones to become a polygraph examiner. I had to take more because my clearance went up. Okay. But then after I was asked.

Just for fun? Yeah. No. Yeah, that's the wrong way to put it. But like you never. No, because what are you asking me? You have to be looking for something. The reason the polygraph works is there's something at stake.

So if you're coming in for a job, you really want this job. So there's something at stake. If you killed somebody and I need to know if you did it, there's something at stake. If there's nothing at stake, then the body's not going to respond to anything. What am I testing you on? People hit me up all the time. I need to know if my husband cheated on me or my wife. Usually it's my husband. Hook them up. Hook me. I swear. They're like, do you know, can you polygraph or do you know a polygrapher? I'm like, I'm not. I'm sure there's people out there who do it. But in a scenario like that, let's say you polygraph somebody to see if he cheated or not. You would design a polygraph there's something at stake his marriage or relationship's gonna be ruined after you give them this test but anybody that would hit me up i i would tell them i'm like if you have to ask me to give them a polygraph or you want someone

to give your spouse a polygraph you have your answer you don't need to test them you already know like if you're at a point where you're like, I need to polygraph my significant other. But what if they're just really paranoid? I do see that all the time. Like where you'll see that where one of the couple will just be someone who's paranoid. That's the difference. They can be paranoid. But asking to polygraph your partner.

I've heard of that. I've heard it maybe not like that specific example maybe but you know like people go into insane lanes hiring a private investigator or something i've heard of shit like that all the time and then nothing's there sometimes there is something there but either so you're either looking at one or two things either there is something there or the partner who's wanting the stuff is maybe mentally unstable themselves i'm not i'm being transparent yeah some people have really high paranoia yes um and there's actual you know disorders with that so but there's if but here's the thing if you're asking if your partner wants you to take a polygraph there's something

fundamentally not right with that relationship to begin with agreed so i never i was like i was like if you need to poly your partner you need to find a new partner that's not healthy but in doing this and doing however many you did over these years you see people in their most vulnerable possible position you inevitably learn things that you should as you've already laid out some examples that you're not even looking for and they have nothing to do with what you're looking for and you end up hearing some of the deepest darkest secrets people have whether it be they tried to not say it and you pick that up or and then have to get there or they admit it because they're like well i'm strapped up and i gotta tell the truth does this make you

i'm trying to think i want to ask this with the right words but do you have a very high threshold tolerance of the fact that people are just inherently fucked up? I don't know if people are. I think some more than others. I will say this. I feel like people are both good and bad. We've got both and we spend our lives, most of us, not all, we spend our lives trying to make the good outweigh the bad. We all do mess up things, right? We all make mistakes. We regret, myself included. But you spend your life most of the time, most, not all, trying to do the good and not the bad.

The problem is sometimes when you're in pursuit of your own self-interests, you can justify doing bad things to people because you think, well, this is good for me or this is good. So I think most people do this. We're like this. Now, I do think some people, the bad goes up. And I think people who are very self-righteous have more bad because they're condemning everybody for doing things. People who are self-righteous, people who are very judgmental, I think those behaviors are problematic. I think where we see issues are people who lack empathy. You brought up empathy earlier. So empathy is my ability to feel bad about somebody else's, my ability to feel what somebody else is going through. So when we look at crime, if we're looking at people that I would interview, people who lacked empathy, if we look

at it from the DSM-5, which is the manual for psychological disorders, you would see people who lack empathy would fall either be narcissistic personality disorder. And I say that like with a caveat because everybody again calls everybody a narcissist. We're talking true personality disorder. They lack empathy or antisocial personality disorder. They lack empathy. And when I say antisocial, it's not the guy or gal who go to the party who are quiet. Antisocial personality disorder is what you would term in common language as psychopaths or sociopaths. That falls under that. Then the other disorder you would look at or more mental health would be autism. And depending where you are in that spectrum,

certain autism individuals with autism, again, there's so many different varieties. But if you're on that severe part of the spectrum or that other side, it's your inability to feel. And so those are the three conditions where we see a lack of empathy. So push autism out because that really doesn't have to do with crime. So the only two where we see a lack of empathy play a role in crime or with people who maybe you want to say are as close to evil as possible or bad as possible are these two, either NPD or antisocial because they don't feel bad. That means they can throw you down, beat you with a bat, Julian, take your money and not care.

That's a red flag. That's an issue. That's where you see extreme cases. I don't feel bad. That's where you see serial killers. I don't feel bad. I'm able to do this and I don't feel bad. Also, I'm able to exude power. When you look at serial cases or these really kind of outliers, that's a person who's looking to fill a void. It's power. It's a rush. It's a thing.

So that's when you get into the minutia of stuff. I don't even know how we went down this rabbit hole. That was good. What did you ask me was asking you about i was asking you about your threshold for understanding like how fucked up oh yes yes yes i think but you have to look at what kind of fucked upness am i looking at right that's the lane am i looking at a mental health disorder am i looking at somebody who lacks empathy and that's why they, I had a, actually the U.S. Secret Service, again, to their credit, they sent me to get my master's in forensic

psychology. So after I became an interrogator, I went to the Department of Defense. They said, all right, now we want you to understand people from a clinical perspective. Would you like, we'll pay for you to go get your master's. So while I'm a full-time special agent and I'm doing interrogations and I was shifting into protection, they sent me to go get my master's. So I was doing both. And that's how I learned about true narcissistic personality disorder, real antisocial disorder. Who do I have across from me? Are they on any types of drugs? did this polygraph on a guy he was all hyped up on heroin but it was a criminal interview he had information i needed to interview him so i needed to know where was he is he okay what did he just take did you just take your stuff because i need him i need him on his stuff because that's his he's a baseline i need him i need him how he normally is and i'm not trying to get him clean that wasn't my job um so you had to learn how to maneuver.

So that's, I guess what I'm saying is, you don't come in with judgment. You come in as a blank slate. I have a human being across from me. I don't know this person's story. What am I looking to get? How do I get that? And also, I'm not looking to cause harm to people.

I don't need to become this. I don't need to be telling everybody what a piece of shit they are. First of of all who the fuck am i to do that it's not your job it's not my place in the world because i do my best to be a certain way i'm sure there's plenty of people you meet be like ah she's this she's that we we try i try to do the right thing in life but it's not my place to sit and point fingers and pass judgment oh look how messed up this person is or that person is. And especially with crime or, I mean, we just got a story. It's very few times where I sat across from someone.

I'm like, man, you're evil. It's rare. It's very rare. Very rare. Do you have to displace that, though, when you think that? Like we were talking about earlier? I could still find something. Like even with this guy where you're like, how you you know i had one case this guy full sexual relationship with a four-year-old little girl actually she was three she was three

and then by the time i got him she had turned four so but then you sit down with him, this young man, and he was sexually abused and he was this and he was that. He had a story. So if I come in with those, if I come in with that, like, what if he, what if he didn't do it? You know, he just, maybe everybody needs to take a dose of like, stop judging everybody else and listen to people's stories. And then if we, you know, even when you look at mass shootings in the U.S. Secret Service, they did, they actually did this whole psychological assessment on what makes somebody a mass shooter. In fact, the Department of Education came to the agency and said, we need you to help us figure out who's going to be a shooter. This happened after Columbine. And the reason they went to the, this agency and not to any other agency was because it turns out we're very good at assessing threats. We're very good at looking at people and figuring out who's a threat and who's not, just because of the protection part of it. Because we're always looking for the threat in the crowd who's going to assassinate the president. And just intuitively, whatever it is, the agency has designed us to be very good at seeking out threats. And so because we were very good at that, they came in, Department of Education said,

help us find the threats in schools. And so they were able to do research and look at what's most likely going to make somebody a shooter or a problem in a school. And what did? There were a lot of different factors. One, the majority are male. I know that's come up before.

It's just the data the status and there's other theories as to why that is a more impulsivity higher testosterone um you're groomed when you're brought up as a boy you're more groomed to like go fight they'll put you in a jujitsu in a certain class like that like they're not you know girls are like be nice be good boys are like hey be tough go this not your girl you're putting my girl you're putting in a tough i'm setting up a mass shooter oh my god um so there's there's there's that angle access to a weapon and then there's always stressors in that life life stressors you look for life stressors um being bullied uh problems at home so you'll see all these things and sometimes media plays a role so video games exposure to media stuff like that

like when i was a kid i played pac-man i had atari yeah i had atari it was pac-man and like i don't know like tetris or some these games there was no um they weren't rated like they were all appropriate for ages not today everything's rated I mean, I've seen video games where I saw this one video game, where there was a shooter, and I was watching the kid play. And the shooter was shooting the way I was trained to shoot. I was amazed by it. They had a long weapon. They're going in clearing. And then the kid knew when his long weapon goes out, he transitions to side weapon. And then when that weapon goes out, he transitions to his other side weapon. And I was watching this and I was like, this is how I was trained to shoot.

And I'm like, why does this kid know this? Like, who thought that this is a good way to put this in a video game? Then when you see shooters going to school, what do they do? They've got their long weapons. When they empty out, they go to their side weapons. So those are like the things you look for with, you know, and then that's mass shooting, right? When you look at the psyche of people. So I think like one of the frustrating things is when I do the news, I always hear the anchors or other people they bring on. Oh, they're crazy.

The guy was crazy or she was crazy. Stop calling people crazy because you're not fixing the problem. If everybody's crazy, then there's no solution. And people don't walk around with a crazy imprinted on their forehead. It's figuring out who is this person? What stressors happened in their life? How did they get to this point? Did they have access to weapons? How did they get the weapon? All these indicators, and then you can figure out how do you minimize this? How do you minimize a mass shooter from happening? And even as a teacher, I always look at my students. And I think in all the years I've

been teaching college, there's one time in my class where I'm like, there he is. And I actually had to deal with a scenario in school with a student where I'm like, this kid would be six o'clock news 100%. So I had to figure- How scenario in school with a student where I'm like, this kid would be 6 o'clock news 100%. How did you pick that out? He had mental health issues. He was very aggressive in class. I couldn't teach. He kept disrupting the class.

And he would also, like he'd turn around, and if another student was talking, he would stare at them very intently. And he was very aggressive. And then finally I said, you know, I couldn't teach. I said, the Dean would like to speak to you. And I reached out to the Dean. I said, this, this kid has to go from my class. He can't stay. I've tried to talk to him. He just is too aggressive. He's too abrasive. He's too disruptive. Um, so I remember when I told the kid, I'm like, Dean would like to speak to you. And he's like, I'm not going anywhere. I was like, well, you can't come into class. He'd like to see you before you come to class. He's like, I'm going to go to class.

I'm going to sit in class. So he goes in and he sits down and I'm thinking, this is a problem. So I call public safety and I'm like, I need you to get this kid and remove him from my class. They're like, yep, we're coming up. So they come up. And as they come up, they're like, all right, we're going to go in. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. My students are in there. They're like, yeah, we're going to go pull him out. I'm like, you're not going to go pull him out because this is how you're gonna have a mass shooter because you're gonna embarrass him in front of everybody and this is gonna go south he's got issues so i remember i ended class early that day i said guys we're gonna end class

early today everybody go home here's your assignment class ends early because when i asked him to leave it was during break um so he starts to pick up his stuff and I'm like, now you go in and you get him. And I'm like, you don't do this in front of other people because this is how we're going to have, you have to preserve people's dignity because you're going to shame him and he's going to need to retaliate.

Pull him aside and talk to him. But having public safety, grab him, pull him out, dragging his feet the way you see these videos, that's not the way you do it. Yeah, that's an interesting, I mean, we could go down a whole rabbit hole on that yeah in class early i see this all the time on these videos and class early take all the students out class is done early then bring people in have them de-escalate talk to this kid because he's going to go home and if he has access to a weapon he's going to get it and he's going to go to work or to school whatever these scenarios are because people don't have the right coping skills at this point. And that's why you're

seeing an escalation in this stuff, massive escalation in shootings. That's a whole other thing. One of the things that's been in my head all day with you talking about different, especially like some of the criminal scenarios, is, you know, when you're talking about the profiles of things that have gone wrong in their life or how their environment may have led them to make decisions that got them to the point where they're sitting in front of you, you know, do you think that there's a common thread there that there was a lack of love in their lives? I don't know. I don't know. I do think the way some people have been raised maybe, but I don't know because I'm hesitant to say yes because that still does not,

and it depends what love is. Everybody's idea of like, you know, I don't think I've ever met somebody who's been like, man, my parents were perfect. I've not met a person who's done that. Never. And so, and I know people who have had really abhorrent upbringings and turned out, had one agent I worked with, he was massively abused by his father. His father was a massive alcoholic, then ended up leaving him and his family. And this kid grew up in one of the worst conditions he decides to be a secret service agent so i feel like it kind of like we deflect responsibility for the mess up things we do in life because my parents did this to me therefore i am this i'm not saying that those things don't play a role. I don't know. I can't answer

that because sometimes I didn't know everybody's scenario. Sometimes I wouldn't get into the weeds with their parents, I guess. So I can't answer that because I wouldn't be fair because it's not every polygraph or interview I did that I get to discuss somebody's parents. So I couldn't say for sure. The one case that I brought up before with a young man who had full-on sex with a three-year-old, he had a really bad upbringing with no parents. In fact, he was living with his mom's ex-boyfriend. Go figure.

That's who was raising him. And that's who gave me permission to give him a polygraph because I had to get permission because he was like 17. He was like underage. He was right there. But he was a full-grown guy. Oh, yeah. With a three-year-old. So I don't know if it's a lack of love.

I don't know. I can't say. I don't know. That's a tough question. I don't know. I can't say. I don't know. shoplifting attempt or something they're talking about a local beat cop or whatever you know and you think how many things had to happen before they got there it's not one or two things no that i agree with you know like there's shows like snapped or this person just snapped that that's not true people they graduate to the things they do and then the one thing we do know is that the younger somebody is when they commit a crime,

the younger someone is when they start committing crime, the more likely they're going to have problems and the more, the more, the less likely it's going to be that where you can rehab them or help them. When we see mental, even mental health issues or disorders, when you see them manifesting, they usually happen. Most of them, even the severe ones, happen in early adolescence. And it's important for parents to know and to see that, to intervene as soon as they can. Because the longer somebody goes, the harder it is to change that. The more somebody is, you know, so if you see like a 13-year-old who has legitimate

narcissistic personality disorder, not just a kid that's selfish, but there's a lack of empathy, there's a problem, you want to intervene as quickly as you can so that you can offset it. Because the longer somebody stays, the harder it is. Or if they have behavioral issues, you'll see that if this starts young. And usually that person, it's a chronic problem. It's an issue. I'm not talking about somebody doing bad something once in a while. It's hard to say, you know, everybody's... I remember once, there's so many stories. It was a young man, he was making counterfeit money. Kid was making counterfeit

money in his basement. He was doing it on his computer he had really good printing devices he was just passing counterfeit money in new york i can't remember how old he was 18 something we arrest him because he's passing bills and uh he makes his phone call his dad comes i think he's that they were russian dad comes and i tell the dad and the dad's like i devastated and he's like he goes in And he's like, he goes in and he's like, can I speak to my son? And I was like, sure. I let him, I remember his son's, I remember if we had a son in cuffs or not yet, but his son's I think was in cuffs. He's sitting there, dad's talking to him. He's like, how could you do this? And the kid's laughing at his father. And I will never forget him making, just mocking his dad and this man's crying

Mm-hmm. So that's why I'm just thinking when you say no love and I'm like and The dad just walked out like broken and like we're consoling the father. Yeah, and I walk and I look at this kid I'm like what is wrong with you? Look what you just did to your dad and a dad came to this country that could try to give you a better life like He's in that room crying because of you. So who's not giving who love? I will say this, and you can look this up, Uniform Crime Report. When you look at crime, violent crime,

there are stats on the relationships between people. And most people think the parent does something to the child. The parent abuses a child. Actually, and I want to say that the most recent numbers, we see that there's more violent crime from child to parent, relationship-wise. I wouldn't have guessed that. Nobody talks about that. It's always like the parent's doing something cruel to the child when actually the number is more prominent right now. And I don't know if this is something that recently changed how long it's been, but we see now it's more

crime from child to parent. Most of the things that are done to us are done to us by someone we know have a relationship with, a relative, a family. 56% of violent crime, we know the offender. Evie, thank you so much for coming in. We are going to put your book link in the description, so everyone go get it in the Amazon store. It'll be right there. And do you have anything coming up besides the podcast, which again, when that goes live,

we'll put the link in this description, so that'll be down there too. The book's coming out again, actually. It's coming out in paperback. It came out in hardcover, and I just, to all the people that, book's coming out again actually it's coming out in paperback it came out in hardcover and i just i took all the people that it's coming out again we it's being re-released again with a new afterward because people wrote in love that and like it simon and schuster called me and they said this thing keeps going and like we should do it in a paperback and this is years after it initially released and i rewrote uh we wrote a new afterward i just i think when people write in and it changes people's lives like you're

that's pretty cool yes did you did you ever like what made you write in the first place well initially i had been approached to write many books but they're all like they wanted gossip and tell all stuff and i would you know there's a were all like, they wanted gossip and tell all stuff. And I would, you know, there's a Greek, you know, they wanted like the stuff. And there's a saying in Greek, which means everybody loves the treason, nobody loves the traitor. And so I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. And I found a really good literary agent who was like, we wanted to

write books that help make the world a better, wiser, just place. Love that. And so that was the whole idea with becoming Bulletproof. I was just like, what did I learn? What helped me navigate this world that sometimes is fucked up and great. And a lot of it was my training, the people I was around. And not everybody has the privilege of going through such elite training and being around elite performers and thinkers. So I was like, I'm going to take that, put it in the book. And thank goodness the Secret Service gave me the blessing because they proofread that whole thing from cover to cover. Oh, I'll bet. Yeah.

And that's how it came out. Evie, thank you so much. Can't wait to do it again. Thank you. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Evie, thank you so much. Can't wait to do it again. Thank you. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me.

Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. Before you leave, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. It's a huge help. And also, if you're over on Instagram, be sure to follow the show at Julian Dory Podcast or also on my personal page at Julian D. Dory. Both links are in the description below. Finally, if you'd like to catch up on our latest episodes, use the Julian Dory podcast playlist link

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