PBD Podcast - Former Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf | PBD Podcast | Ep. 376

Starting point is 00:00:00 Okay, episode 376 and I want to start it off by challenging you guys to kind of take inventory of your resume because let me read today's guest resume. So imagine you're, I don't know, 11 years old, right? And from that moment, you already know you want to be a Navy SEAL to the point where you enlist in the Navy while you're in junior high school. I went into the Army, but I enlisted six months after leaving high school. This guy already knew in junior high school he was going to the Navy, ends up going in, becomes a SEAL, then he goes to SEAL Team 6. He goes on a hundred plus operations, you know, combat operations that he goes on.

Starting point is 00:01:02 And here's what he ends up getting by the time he's done with his career. And by the way, if it's not correct, please get upset at the Wikipedia folks, but here's what we have. Five Bronze Star medals, four Wood Valor, Purple Heart, the Joint Service Commodation Medal,

Starting point is 00:01:16 the Navy and Marine Corps Commodation Medal, with Valor, three Navy and Marine Corps achievement medals, two combat action ribbons, the Presidential Unit Citation. I can go on and on later on when he gets out Navy and Marine Corps achievement medals, two combat action ribbons, the presidential unit citation. I can go on and on later on when he gets out in I think it's June of 2013, he gets a couple years later he decides to break the world record after jumping from 36,000 feet and flying over 18 miles in wingsuit in an effort to raise a million dollars

Starting point is 00:01:42 and for the Navy Seal Foundation, which he does. And then at the same time for some of you guys that maybe you're like, I'm a little wild. Maybe you go paintball shooting. And you got shot and you have those wounds that stay. You're like, look at me, you go to work. It hurts over here, right? Or maybe some of you were rebels, you know,

Starting point is 00:02:00 when we were kids, full and running. You got shot by BB Gunness. I just want to know, I have the pain tolerance. This guy got shot by an AK 47. Okay. And we're going to talk about what the pain, the difference between getting shot by BB gun versus a paintball versus an AK 47. And on top of that, without even knowing, he's already on Manect and a lot of people

Starting point is 00:02:19 are connecting with them. So if you'd like to ask Andy any questions that is his QR code, you can directly manek with them, send them some love. I know there's a lot of people that was doing a general mastermind earlier today. They're like, dude, I can't wait for today's podcast because I want to talk to this guy. One guy couldn't even say what his job was before because you work for the government directly working with guys like you. Secret service, you know, he said a bunch of different things, which there's a question. He asked me that I'll probably end up asking you.

Starting point is 00:02:46 But these are the types of people, if you want to ask for mental toughness, emotional toughness, and he's also consulting, working with a lot of different people, you can simply get ahold of him on my neck. That's his QR code. Ask the man any questions. And it's great to have you on the podcast. Yeah. Thanks for having me out here. Yeah. I was looking at your picture. I'm like, okay, this guy, the picture we put on the thumbnail. I'm like, this guy looks like he looks like he's a Goldman Sachs money manager. And then I go right there, that video.

Starting point is 00:03:14 I mean, I could have sent you guys a different one if you wanted something else. That's too perfect of a picture there. And then I watched your video, the one video where it's, I don't know how many, it's got 13 million views, 15 million views of you as an instructor, this is like 19 years ago. The water polo team? The water polo team, yes. And you know I was watching that, and you know what was the biggest thing for me,

Starting point is 00:03:31 and I wonder like maybe you're gonna give a different perspective. When you're in boot camp or AIT, you know the stories of drill sergeants would come and they would hit their, you know, their hat against your forehead, and it was like screaming in your face, you know, this stuff, your style was like, look, fellas,

Starting point is 00:03:48 my job is to get you to quit today. And it was very monotone as an instructor. You were not somebody that was very, it was that a big difference at the levels, the higher the levels are, the less you have to scream, the lower the levels are, the more you have to scream, or is that just purely style of leadership? That goes back to when I went through as a student.

Starting point is 00:04:10 The instructors that yelled at me were the ones I paid no attention to. So the louder that you talk at somebody, the less likely they are to receive the information. The quieter that you speak to them, the harder they have to listen. So that video comes up all the time and I gotta set the stage for how that actually happened. I got a call about two hours before that team showed up because I was the closest instructor that lived to the base. So you have no idea this is like one month in advance?

Starting point is 00:04:39 No, I get a call. And I was a bud instructor at the time. And what I will say is I actually in the 18 months that I was there as an instructor, I didn't raise my voice a single time. You don't have to raise your voice. It's actually, it terrifies people a lot more if you just clearly and concisely explain to them

Starting point is 00:04:55 how you're gonna ruin their life in a very casual lower tone of voice. And then follow up on what you just said to them. But I get this call, hey, we have this water polo team coming in. We need you to come in as an instructor. My dad was in town visiting, so he just happened to come down and watch it as well.

Starting point is 00:05:12 So I was pissed that I had to be there, and I just made it my golden life to grind those people into dust. And their coaches pulled me aside before. Sorry, coaches, if you've never told the team this. They're like, hey, we need you to, these guys, I'm trying to think of the exact words that they used. debutant came out for sure, entitled came out. Very high level team where people are getting catered to.

Starting point is 00:05:35 They're at the apex of where they were from all of the, you know, the different, there's a huge water polo league in Eastern block countries. I had no idea it was, but people making real money. So a lot of the players are over there making real money in the off season, they come back together, they're trying to make an Olympic team and the coaches were struggling.

Starting point is 00:05:52 And so as soon as they said to me, we need your help destroying them, I actually stopped listening to everything they said after that, I was like, I got you, I'm your guy. But the way you did it, bro, I'm watching you. I'm like, you know what it reminded me of? It's like you ever seen those, the scenes in Liam Neeson or even the one, is it equalizer with Denzel where, you know, where he says, you have 16 seconds to do this because I'm going to do such

Starting point is 00:06:18 and such and such to you. And they laugh at him. And it just doesn't raise his voice. And then all of a sudden, like, there's no no way this guy that one scene when he walks Into the apartment with the girl they were The prostitute date. I don't know if you've seen that's great equalized I think it's equalizer one or two where he's a cab driver He sees these guys taking advantage of a girl. Have you seen this or no? No, I try to it's a sick scene He goes into the apartment as if he's delivering something walks in sees what they're doing the room They're doing coke. They're doing all the stuff the girl

Starting point is 00:06:48 He drops off at the hospital and he sees he says you need to go Paula Do you know what the girls name is? I don't the guy starts talking shit to him then Zell very calmly goes to the door Locks the door comes back in Single-handedly Obviously, it's a movie, it destroys everybody. And you just like, dude, I frickin' love it. They didn't raise his voice, didn't do anything, and that's the feeling you gave me.

Starting point is 00:07:12 I'm like, if this is the way the sky is, you can just visualize a scene, he's out there at war. Look, if you just listen to us, nothing's gonna happen, but if you don't, we're gonna destroy you and kill you. It's that simple. Is that kind of the style when things got hot as well or? There's a variety of reactions when things are real life overseas. You see some people's best moments and then sometimes you express your own personal worst moments. So it really is a spectrum. The leaders that I had the most respect for were the ones that

Starting point is 00:07:43 regardless of what was going on in the world around them, they were cool, calm, and collected. Because what people don't realize, and this is something that movies, among almost everything that they get incorrect, in movies it's a large group of people together accomplishing a single task. Most of the time overseas, like if we were to come into a room this size, it would be two-person problem minimum. There would be no more than two people in this room unless there was a compelling reason to get more people to come into the room. Realistically, one person could handle it, but even just the size of the building that we're in, you'd have maybe eight people, and it would cover the clearance of the entire

Starting point is 00:08:15 thing. We would have more, but people are very spread out. So a lot of the time, it's the only way you're communicating with the people that you're with unless it's the person you're directly with is over radio. And people can see this in law enforcement videos even on YouTube where you can hear the tone of voice of somebody on a radio call and they are emotionally escalating everybody around them. To include the officers, they're getting ready to respond to the scene. They're not there yet, but they're arriving kind of primed and preconditioned to an emotional event. I've had leaders who, you know, there's been moments in my life where I was pretty sure

Starting point is 00:08:48 I was gonna die and somebody in that exact same type of situation comes over the radio and they sound like they have their feet in the ocean drinking a Mai Tai and it just calms everything down. And that influenced that ability to either escalate or de-escalate and I would almost always recommend deescalation Versus the escalation is one of the most powerful is most impactful and powerful tools that a leader can have you know It's crazy you say that it what is that quote? That I think Patton says where he says you know In less than 40 hours, you're about to go to war, here's what's gonna happen.

Starting point is 00:09:27 But for some of you guys that are scared, well, this is your first time, what you don't know is your spirit's gonna show up. And without even you knowing, naturally it's gonna show up and you're gonna react in a way that you never knew you could react yourself, right? I don't know the exact words, I'm just kind of like spitball on what he said.

Starting point is 00:09:45 And there we go, in 40 hours, or know you could react yourself, right? I don't know the exact words. I'm just kind of like spitball on what he said. There we go. In 40 hours, I wonder, in 40 hours, I shall be in battle with little information and on the spur of the moment, we'll have to make the most momentous decision, but I believe that one spirit enlarges with responsibility and that with God's help, I shall make them and make them right.

Starting point is 00:10:02 It seems that my whole life has been pointed to this moment. When the job is done, I presume I will be pointed to the next step in the ladder of destiny. If I do my duty, the rest will take care of itself, right? And it continues to say more things about what happens with this. First time that it happened, you don't know, right?

Starting point is 00:10:20 When you're a kid, first time you go out with a girl and you don't know what's gonna happen, right? When you're starting your business the first time, you don't know what's gonna happen. When you're a salesperson a girl and you don't know what's gonna happen, right? When you're starting your business the first time, you don't know what's gonna happen. When you're a salesperson on commission, you don't know what's gonna happen. What was the first encounter when you went to war and you're like, Andy, you got this,

Starting point is 00:10:33 Andy, you got this, Andy, you got this? Maybe you don't have this, maybe you're skinning. What was that first, first reaction with the level of anxiety? What was that like? The first time that I got shot at, I didn't realize it was happening. So, we, I started off pre-9-11,

Starting point is 00:10:50 which I actually looked back was a fantastic, fantastic place to start my career because it gave me context to the military in a pre-9-11 setting versus what the monster became in the post-9-11 world. So, I had gone from a West Coast SEAL team and I put in my paperwork to apply for development group, which is the official name of SEAL Team 6.

Starting point is 00:11:13 I got selected for their training program shortly after 9-11, started in 2002. We finished early and we surged over to finish up the end of the Hommet Karzai security detail. This was post the assassination attempt on him. We were largely there. The team that was there needed to roll back just from a manning perspective so they could, you know, rest and recover and refit. They brought some new bodies in. We were there for like a month, came back and we started training for Iraq. And the first target that we were going to go on was the number one Kembo

Starting point is 00:11:41 target that they had available in Iraq. And we had specialists, I mean, we had architectural plans. We were looking at satellite imagery. I basically, it was, I was Jason Bourne. It's not that big of a thing. It was like 60 Jason Bournes in a room, all thinking we were super badass. And we had, you know, air conditioning experts talking about like, listen, you know, look at this roof,

Starting point is 00:11:59 look at all the pieces of air conditioning on the roof. And they're definitely moving air here. And it's, you know, it's like level four and all this, or it's really hot in Iraq in the summertime, you know, no big deal. We can get back to that. So we look at all this stuff and it was a Kenbio target. So we were going to, we went on what's called MOP level four, which is mission oriented protective posture, full Kenbio suit with gas mask.

Starting point is 00:12:23 We had blowers that would blow air into the gas mask so it makes it a little bit easier to breathe. But we get on this helicopter flight. It was a four-hour flight in to the number one Kimbio target. About half an hour out, we started putting on our... It's a very choreographed, you know, get the gas mask on. There's like a drape that goes underneath your body armor. It's a nightmare.

Starting point is 00:12:43 So for people who have never looked through night vision goggles, it's not a full field of view. It's very narrow. The closer you can get it to your eye, the better. But a gas mask means you have to have more offset. So now you're looking through a soda straw that's looking through a soda straw. We get all of our stuff on and at like a minute out, I was in the third helicopter that landed. they did a pre-assault strike of the electricity producing Transformer whatever it may be and this was again the number the first mission we did in Iraq So of course in our infinite combat savvy wisdom There was the fire and we just landed the helicopters in front of that where the people were shooting at us

Starting point is 00:13:20 Which is give it some light. Yeah, it's like yeah, oh you guys can't see us Hold on. Let's swing around. Let's get some natural light. Not surprisingly, every helicopter that landed absorbed a little bit more lead, you know, thousands of feet per second. And I had absolutely no idea that we were getting shot at the next day we went back out. The number one chem biotarget ended up being an agricultural school, by the way, that had a robust air conditioning system because it's super hot in northwestern Iraq in the summertime. But we landed that night, we got back, I woke up and we actually went out and looked at

Starting point is 00:13:55 the helicopters. There was 27 holes in the helicopter. Nobody killed. The door gunner who was right next to me did take a round in the head at about one minute out, but he lived. Jesus. Not the same person obviously, but we went back and looked at where all those, and so we had probably 25 people just sitting on the floor of the CH-47, and I swear people must have like reached up to like scratch their ass and around just came through.

Starting point is 00:14:17 We could not have put those people back in the helicopter, shot at that many times in my suspicion, shot at that many times and not have somebody get hurt or killed So I'm getting here number one combat aberration Absolutely, no idea was even getting shot at just standing there on a helicopter. How are you taking it? How are you handling it like yourself like are you like holy shit? It's going on or did you actually feel everything slowing down? I've only had that happen one time and that was the night that I actually got shot But after that operation that morning when we went looked at the helicopters I distinctly remember a buddy of mine who had gone through selection with me and I sat down. I said, you know if

Starting point is 00:14:54 We keep doing this. I'm not so sure we're gonna survive And Andy I just don't know how many times you can absorb that level of firepower and and just Roll the dice of champ and that and you said that for the first mission for it to be you know air conditioning And they give you the green light and you guys go come to find out you guys risk your lives It's not even what what what type of intelligence you have to get because this is just you guys are just going satellite and there's no There's no way on the ground obviously going into check So how many of those type of instances where they're like, I mean, we obviously went there because of weapons

Starting point is 00:15:28 and mass destruction. There wasn't any. For that to- Did we? What? Did we really go there for WMP? I don't, yeah. Hey, really?

Starting point is 00:15:35 Yeah. I remember the justification and the argument. Yeah, but did we? 20 years in the rearview mirror, I think an argument could be made that maybe we didn't go there. I'm with you 100%. So my question was, so those type of how many of those and you're saying that that was the first one, how many of those types of missions that happen with

Starting point is 00:15:52 like, well, not, you know, not very often. Frequently. Well, as far as things happening on the ground, not what you thought all the time. Yeah. Intelligence, whether it's signals intelligence, human intelligence, electronic things that you're looking at. We looked at that target for a couple of months before we went to Iraq Once you were there in country you were kind of processing things in real time So you would not have that much time to really analyze and scrutinize that level of structure So we did that and then the second objective that we actioned was the Jaskill interest you which was I mean that was real time and we were I Think we had some satellite imagery,

Starting point is 00:16:27 but I mean, we were taping stuff out on concrete to try to figure out which direction we were gonna get to her bedroom. So you go from three months of robust planning to you guys have 48 hours and go get some. But I would say, God, people hate to hear this. 70% of the time, the intelligence is wrong. Wow.

Starting point is 00:16:48 That's freaking correct. And you almost lose your life. Not that the information is wrong, but where you think the person is that you're going after is not correct. And does that frustrate you guys? Or is it part of the job? It's part of the job.

Starting point is 00:17:02 So is it kind of like, guys, we think they're here, we're not certain but we think they're there, let's go find that or is it guys, he's here, let's go get him. Which one of those two is it typically? It's a combination so human or human intelligence, obviously you know single source human intelligence, you have a person coming and saying this is where this person is, you need to use that with caution obviously. If you can vet it and you have multiple person human intelligence, I'm not sure the exact risk threshold that mission, the people who are approving the missions

Starting point is 00:17:35 would have let it go, but single source human is pretty dangerous. But then maybe you could combine it with some SIGINT. We have electronic data, maybe we've been tracking the person's handset. I'll talk broadly about this stuff or how we were able to do that, but we were able to geographically fix somebody's location due to an electronic device that they had. If you could link those two things up, things are starting to look a little bit better. More often than not, it was a combination of those things. Got it. So when it comes down to earlier, you're talking about WMD, did it? Did it weapons of mass destruction where we're going, you know, hey, here's what's over there and you are sitting there

Starting point is 00:18:12 sacrificing your life. You're on the front, front, front lines. So there's different kinds of lines, right? Like a, you go to a nightclub first, you're in the club, then you're in the VIP section, then you're in the upstairs section then you're in the upstairs Private room that nobody's there and you're seeing things others don't see you guys are in it Right where you're seeing all of it at what point like did you guys ever look at each other? While you're on these missions saying guys this intelligence is so wrong What the hell are we doing here taking these orders like?

Starting point is 00:18:45 is so wrong. What the hell are we doing here taking these orders? Like, and you know, the military is like chain of command, you know, coachability, hey, go, what they tell you to do, you don't question it, you just kind of go through it, you know, ranking, you don't question the ranking above you, whatever that may be. Was there a moment where for you guys are sitting there saying, there is no weapons of mass destruction, what are we doing with this thing? Was there a moment of like you're calling somebody out saying, this is bullshit. Why are we doing this? We only did that first target that was WMD based after that we were looking for individuals, you know the deck of cards So we did the I mean truly I never I never did a Targeted weapons of mass destruction mission after that and I'm thankful because the mop level stuff is horrible

Starting point is 00:19:22 weapons of mass destruction mission after that. And I'm thankful because the mop level stuff is horrible. And if you are exposed to any of the WMD, the process of actually getting out of that gear is ridiculous as well, because it's full decontainment. You gotta, you know, and we would practice that stuff as well, not only getting this stuff on, but like the structured approach to how do you decontaminate a certain amount of people so they can decontaminate everybody else.

Starting point is 00:19:43 What do you do with their gear? What's the process? It's a nightmare. And I'm glad that we didn't do any more of that, but it just, it never came up again. From that point on, right after the JSCLance rage, we raided, we surged into Baghdad. We were on the first set of airplanes that landed it by up, Baghdad International.

Starting point is 00:19:59 And from there, it was, we were going after individuals at that point, but it never came up again with the WMD. What were some of the major projects you work on that you can talk about? and from there it was, we were going after individuals at that point, but it never came up again with the WMD. What were some of the major projects you worked on that you can talk about? To be honest, I mean, I consider my career to be aggressively average. The only thing I probably ever was involved with,

Starting point is 00:20:15 and I was a super small cog in a very big wheel, was the Jessica Lynch rescue. I mean, other than that, there's, I left the command in 2006 so a lot of the things that whether it's the Captain Phillips or the rescue of the aid worker in Africa or the bin Laden raid all that happened well after my time so I think people in that era even though they would be unlikely to want to raise their hand and directly attach themselves to that a lot of that stuff happened post

Starting point is 00:20:42 my time. Crazy question for you. So announcement comes out, hey, we've killed Ben Laden, okay. And okay, sounds good. And he's dead. And you know the speech that Obama gives, which I think his speech was like nine minutes and the famous Trump speech is 48 minutes. Abu Bakar, my back daddy is dead.

Starting point is 00:21:03 He died like a dog. Shane Gillis crushed his dog. Oh my God. He is dead. And by the way, it's one of those things that my kids watch it on repeat over. I mean, you know, most of the time people, you knock on the door before you go, no, we didn't even knock.

Starting point is 00:21:15 We just came through. I mean, the way he told the story. But anyway, so Ben Laden, okay. We found him. He's dead. We dumped him in the middle of the ocean You expect me to believe that and so so then the question for you like a guy who's on the inside I don't know man. If you caught somebody again, can we see a face? Can we see a body? Can we see? Why are you so quick to drop the guy into the ocean? So is I mean listen, this is just us speaking

Starting point is 00:21:42 It's just nobody ocean. So, I mean, listen, this is just us speaking. It's just a form of destruction. I promise you, I'm not a voucher and nobody's watching. So, like, are you certain that Osama bin Laden is actually dead? Yes, because I am friends with people who were there that night, and I've had conversations with them independently. The decision to dispose of the body in the way that they did, I've heard it phrased in a couple of different ways, but one of the main ones was that they didn't want to create a place where followers would come and use it as like a place of worship or connecting and then connecting and doing something else with those ideas.

Starting point is 00:22:15 I've heard it say that they were trying to at least in some way, shape or form, respect the religious beliefs of that individual. And there's a third possibility that maybe you guys have or have not considered. Maybe there wasn't much of a face left to take a picture of. Got it, okay. And I get that.

Starting point is 00:22:33 And could we add a fourth possibility? Oh, we can go. I mean, he might be on a space shuttle right now. I don't know, like how deep do you wanna go? No, it's actually the truth is the aliens came. They took them. They went to a different planet and they're just they're hanging out over there playing backgammon.

Starting point is 00:22:50 No, but the fourth option would be, could it be a possibility that you announce you dropped them in the middle of the ocean, but you have the body and it's buried somewhere else that nobody else. Is the military and our intelligence capable of lying to the people of what and it's buried somewhere else that nobody else. Is the military and our intelligence capable of lying to the people of what they did with the body? I would say possible, but not probable,

Starting point is 00:23:13 because there'd be too many moving pieces. It's the same reason where, when I hear people talking about 9-11 being an inside job, I've worked with some of the people at the absolute highest levels of the intelligence organization and apparatus and the military and I'm sorry to break people's hearts it's not a bunch of Jason Bourne's running around. If you pull back the curtain at the agency and I don't mean this from like a case officer level or

Starting point is 00:23:38 the individual is working there if you're looking for Jason Bourne you're gonna find a donkey with the fly buzzing around its head. Right. And it's a huge bureaucratic organization. They do many, many, many things. But what's the saying? A secret is something that only two people know. As soon as you start adding layers to that, because there's the helicopter crew. Everybody who is on target, who supposedly, let's assume that the body, they have a mannequin in the body bag. If they even put them into a body bag, I'm not sure. So everybody on target would have to be a winning participant in that. And then how'd they get to target? Helicopters, right? So, okay, the helicopter crew is now exposed to this as well to include

Starting point is 00:24:17 the support personnel that's gassing up the helicopter, all the things that make those things fly. Then you go back to a forward operating base. Alright, so how many people of that base are now going to be included in this particular narrative? And then it makes its way out to a United States naval vessel. And you know what I mean? It just, to me, again, not impossible, but it becomes much more improbable as you start adding those extreme layers of exposure in individuals. That's where I'm at with you on 9-11, because for me with 9-11, the way We had rich it's a Richard gauge am I saying the lesson correct and correct gauge We had him on here. How long did his episode last on YouTube before they took it down like that day?

Starting point is 00:24:54 What did he say? They took it down like within a it may have been a day or two before they took it down and His entire story and the premise is the fact that, you know, it was an inside job, Lex Wexner was involved and, you know, how the other buildings come down, building seven and all these things. So, but for me, I asked him, I said, how many people does it take to do something like that? You mean to tell me you can get 50 people quiet? Well, how could you keep them quiet? Everybody has their individual thing. People want to brag about their legacy. You mean to tell me like, you know, guys not going to sit there and

Starting point is 00:25:24 say, well, let me tell you what I did. It's kind of like when you, you know, a guy, Gianni Rousseau, is like, well, let me tell you, I hooked up with Marilyn Monroe. People want to brag about, you know, what they've done. It's like later on, I was actually part of it and you're out of bar drinking. So those 50 people who were involved

Starting point is 00:25:39 would need to remain non-alcoholic for the rest of their lives, never get drunk, never do drugs, and either you kill all 50 of them, which 50 of their family members would come out and say, why did all these 50 people who were working on the building get killed? There is, that's the challenge that I go to, right? But with something like this, you heard about Victoria Nuland today, resigned? No, I did not hear that.

Starting point is 00:26:02 Are you familiar with her, who she is? No, I did not hear that. Are you familiar with her, who she is? No, actually. So, Victoria Nuland, Rob, if you can just maybe go to her Wikipedia, so we can just kind of read, just Google Victoria Nuland. So she just resigned, I think earlier, I don't know what time it is, she resigned either yesterday or today. She is known as Toria Nuland, an an American diplomatic currently serving as the undersecretary of state for political affairs since 2021. Remember the U.S. Foreign Service, she served

Starting point is 00:26:32 as assistant secretary for EU affairs 2013-2017, 18th U.S. Ambassador to NATO. And anyways, she is fully, fully decked out. She was ranked as the third highest ranking US diplomat. Okay. And her husband, if you can go to her husband, by the way, on what her husband's done, Douglas, I think his name is Douglas. Is it? Yeah. Robert Kagan. So Robert Kagan, he is a co-founder of Neil conservative project for New American Century senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. Anyway, so they're politically connected, both sides. She served under both sides. And a lot of people don't trust her. Rob, can you pull up one of these videos?

Starting point is 00:27:17 Pull up the one where she's being interviewed if we ever put people as presidents in or political people in. This one right here. Watch this clip here. This is her. Go ahead and play this. We of course never choose candidates in any country. But what we do do in countries that proclaim to be democracies is we offer the opportunity for candidates of all kinds to learn how to

Starting point is 00:27:46 to put themselves forward to best effect. Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries elections? Oh probably. We don't do that now. We're former director of science and sciences. What the hell is wrong with that guy? That's a very good thought. I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience.

Starting point is 00:28:08 He's the guy, you know, what he needs is Cleach and Tony Burke on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. I just think Cleach going in, he's going to be at that level working for Yats and Yook. It's just not going to work. We of course never choose candidates in any country. We offer the opportunity for candidates of all kinds to learn how to put themselves forward to best effect. And we always support the right of peaceful political protest in any country.

Starting point is 00:28:44 So, I mean, she says that, right? And then in another interview, she's being asked about, let me see what other clip you got, Rob, if you can go to it. What's her? Yeah, this one's gonna be funny, because this is her asking a question,

Starting point is 00:28:55 and look what she says all the way at the end about why we should be given this money. And this is recent, this is not a long time ago. Go ahead and play this clip. It is, and I do hear you and the others in the administration and supporters talking about the vital necessity to do this. But as people say, hope is not a strategy.

Starting point is 00:29:13 And do you have any actual belief or reason to believe that eventually this bill will be paid? And if not, how are you going to make sure Ukraine gets vital weapons and ammunition? What she says at the end is shocking. Christiana, I have strong confidence that when the House comes back after they've been out in their districts hearing from the American people, after they have heard from Ukraine, they have heard from Europe, which by the way just passed 54 billion in additional aid

Starting point is 00:29:43 itself, that we will do what we have always done, which is defend democracy and freedom around the world, not just for victims of tyrants like Putin, but in our own interest in preserving a free and open international order. That's what we need to do. We've done it before. And by the way, we have to remember that the bulk of this money is going right back into the US economy to make those weapons, including good paying

Starting point is 00:30:12 jobs in some 40 states across the United States. Do you know what she just pretty much explained? What did she say? What money is coming back now? She's just pretty much explaining the military industrial complex. So what people are confused about the Ukraine aid is it's less money directly being sent to them, and it's largely excess or dated military equipment from the US being sent over under the guise

Starting point is 00:30:35 that it will be replaced, and technology will be advanced through money, like he just said, into the military industrial complex. So it keeps the wheels spinning. Those visuals are, I mean, they're interesting. How about, I mean, we should probably said into the military industrial complex. So it keeps the wheels spinning. Those videos are, I mean, they're interesting. How about, I mean, we should probably start with one of the great American lies

Starting point is 00:30:51 and just get the elephant out in the room. A lot of the things that we say we won't tolerate other countries doing, we are also doing exactly the same thing. It's so hypocritical to say a lot of the things that she said, oh, we don't meddle in other elections, we don't tolerate that. Yes, we do. And we're involved in that as well. And until we can start having those honest conversations, I don't know if our country is going to be headed in the right direction. And the reason why I brought this up is because

Starting point is 00:31:20 maybe for you. Okay, so let me ask the question in a different way for someone like you that served from 96 to 2013 June 17 years hundred operations, you know, you've seen a lot you've been a lot You know, you you've and you got relationships today once you're in for that long You got relationships all over the place that you communicate with and maybe you're on different signal group chats And you guys all chat with each other because I'm at I'm on that except on a much lower level military. We stay close I'll give you different Organizations and institutions and you tell me based on your experience now where your level of trust on them is sure The the FBI you want to go one through ten or eight

Starting point is 00:32:02 Zero being not a lot of faith. Zero faith, 100. I think absolutely I trust them, the FBI. Zero to 100. Man, having talked with some people who work at the Bureau, 10. Wow. Shit, okay. I'm with CIA. CIA.

Starting point is 00:32:19 So well, this is a tough one. Actually, all of these are tough because all of these organizations are populated with people and it's easy to judge the organization versus the things that we hear about certain people doing that actually makes the news. I do think that most people at the FBI are there for the right reason. Can the FBI be weaponized? Fuck yes it can. Same thing with the agency, right? So I don't want to I Guess what I'm saying is I'll look I'll answer these through the lens of the overall

Starting point is 00:32:53 Organization without making an attempt to judge the individuals that make up that organization Okay, because it's tough. I totally get it for sure like when people say, you know, China this Chinese people are very good people No one's talking about the Chinese people. It's just we don't trust the government of China. We're doing we don't give that I don't give the right reports. So, C.I., what would you say with C.I.? Ten. What do you think you were your fifth year as a SEAL? 80th to 90th. Oh, shit. Yeah. I remember arguing with my father about WMDs being present in Iraq. My dad was a Vietnam Vietnam vet, not a great experience in Vietnam. He worked peripheral to seals. He was on the first squadron of patrol boats that was working in the Mekong Delta. So he would take them in and out from time to time. That's where I first heard the

Starting point is 00:33:36 term seal. As with a lot of people in his generation, one of the things that they never want to see our country do again is commit to a war under false pretenses. We argued back and forth. I was arguing pro-invasion of Iraq, having just come back from my first tour in Afghanistan. I wish I could sit down with my younger self and change at least my optic. I was making the decisions based off of the information that was being presented to me at the time, but now I land in such a deeper place closer

Starting point is 00:34:12 to where my father is than I did when I was 20, in my early twenties, call it 23 to 25, having those arguments with my dad. Meaning at 23, 25, you're kinda like, no, America, I'm doing this. I also wanted to do my job. You know, I didn't join the SEAL community because I wanted to sit around in a team room

Starting point is 00:34:30 and talk about how awesome it would be if we did our job. I wanted to do my job. I wanted to be tested, which I think a lot of young soldiers fit into that category as well. And I made the mistake of blindly believing what the government was telling me. What percentage of the wars you think we've had the last 50 years, let's say, not even, go 30 years.

Starting point is 00:34:51 Okay, 30 years because we're the same age, so you've been following us since junior high school. Let's just say you're 15 years old till today, okay? What percentage of the wars the last 30 years were a waste of our time? What percentage of them? We did the right thing being involved in them. I think the way that we executed them, they were all a waste of our time. What percentage of them we did the right thing being being involved in them? I think the way that we executed them they were all the waste of our time. I think Afghanistan in that time period was

Starting point is 00:35:11 probably the most altruistic as far as what we were going there to try to accomplish but if you look at the raw data we accomplished what we were trying to do within about two months and then we stayed for 20 years. So the execute I mean everything that happened after that And it was wild to see from somebody who went back and forth between Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, my first time that I was in Iraq, we're in thin-skinned vehicles. Not there's no IED threat. Well, maybe there was an ID threat, but it was incredibly low. In Afghanistan, you know, there was land mines, but not the IEDs that we were seeing as well.

Starting point is 00:35:47 And you watch these two theaters of war evolve and morph over time. You know, they're only separated by one country. So of course, the flow of information is coming back and forth. And the U.S. military has proven time and time and time again in an active war zone. We're not great at occupation. It's not what we're actually designed for. And we're also really not good at nation building, which shouldn't be the role of the US military anyway.

Starting point is 00:36:10 In time I think has proven us to be unsuccessful at both of those. That's pretty wild to be thinking about. That's freaking wild. So some of them were worthy wars that we got involved in, but we could have gotten them done in two months, saved the money of the $3 trillion we spend the next two or $3 trillion we spend next 20 years and taxpayers money would have stayed here but we kept going and on the back end like Victoria said there the great news is a lot of that money comes back and it creates jobs and these incredible

Starting point is 00:36:39 companies like Boeing and General Dynamics and it's great you should support giving money to these different countries for us to go out there and do what we're doing. Well, there's another aspect to that too. I mean, I actually recently was hosting a podcast where we pulled up the list of what we are actually sending to Ukraine, which at this point in time in our history is going to be viewed as an ally. We are not giving them three and four generation behind equipment. We're talking javelin missiles, sniper rifle, body armor, night vision goggles. I mean, we are outvitting a modern military and who knows in the future whether or not that is going to be pointed directly back at us.

Starting point is 00:37:17 Well, it's like what happened with the Taliban. It's funny you're saying this, Rob. Go to the other clip. They're clipping Marco Rubio. This was one of the concerns. Why this has taken place. And Rubio asks her a was one of the concerns why this is taking place. And Rubio asks her a question, I want to say this is a year ago, no two years ago, look at that March, exactly two years ago, go ahead and play this clip.

Starting point is 00:37:34 Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons? Ukraine has biological research facilities, which in fact we are now quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces may be seeking to gain control of. So we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach? I'm sure you're aware that the Russian propaganda groups are already putting out there all kinds of information about how they've uncovered a plot by the Ukrainians to release biological weapons in the country and with NATO's coordination.

Starting point is 00:38:20 If there's a biological or chemical weapon incident or attack inside of Ukraine, is there any doubt in your mind that 100% it would be the Russians that would be behind it? There is no doubt in my mind, Senator, and it is classic Russian technique to blame on the other guy, what they're planning to do themselves. By the way, just so you give a little context, that's two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the February 24, 2022, that's two weeks later. So we're just barely trying to learn what the hell is going on.

Starting point is 00:38:53 Who's behind it? Why are we, you know, and for you at the time when you were in 2013, you're done. How much of what you guys were doing and running into behind closed doors were the concerns of who has biological Weapon who doesn't what their plans are was that one of the threats at the time that you guys were Working on or that wasn't really that much of an item back then but that time I had left development group and not that they're the only Entity that would deal with those type of things I the only entity that would deal with those type of things.

Starting point is 00:39:25 I was back at a conventional steel team, my last deployment in 2010. I don't remember WMD being mentioned really ever past mid-2003. Really? As far as impacting what we were looking for our operational role, I'm not to say that there were people

Starting point is 00:39:42 who were not tasked with that full time. It never fell back again onto my plate as an individual in that community. I never put on another piece of mop gear or a gas mask after that time. Andy, how much of what you learned and what you saw? Cause you're awake, you're not woke. You're seeing what you're seeing.

Starting point is 00:40:01 You know, you're having these conversations with your father. How much of what you were seeing and all this, you know, failure of intelligence, this, you know, you're having this conversation with your father How much of what you were seeing and all this, you know, you know failure of intelligence this, you know Stuff isn't what it seems how much of that that played for you to get out like for you to leave the military Or was it just your time was up? Zero percent of it played into I would have stayed in longer if my body would have physically allowed me to do so I got medically retired which just well you guys know what I mean for the listener or the water

Starting point is 00:40:24 You got to do 20 years and a wake up call, meaning, you know, 20 years plus a day to get out, you're going to get a retirement check, which I do believe should be reframed as the money you use to find your second job because you're not going to retire. Yeah. I don't know what they pay you in the military. Yeah. And more importantly, probably medical benefits. And I know a lot of people have harped against medical benefits or direct interaction with the VA. My experience has been fantastic. And I think, well, and it's, for most people, it's very good.

Starting point is 00:40:51 Oftentimes as with traditional media, what's going to lead the news stories is not necessarily things that are great. So I got retired essentially early due to, I'll call it the wear and tear of my career, and it allowed me to maintain my retirement and medical benefits. I would have stayed. I enjoyed the job. I thought it was an impactful job But you also have to develop a level of comfort at some point in time Where you realize that you may not agree with the leaders above you in politics and you may not agree with the policy And if you want to go fight those things you need to get a different job Yeah, you know, I could do and impact the world around me only where my feet touch the ground.

Starting point is 00:41:27 It is not my job and it would never be my job in the role that I held to actually change policy of the United States. And a lot of people, actually that's fair to say, I'm not going to say a lot of people, some people will spend more of their time, you know, focusing and arguing and worrying about the things that they can never control when they have an impactful job. And what you really need to do is just try to impact the world around you. See the differences though, like when I'm processing this, you know how they did a study where if you're killing somebody on behalf of somebody else, you have an easier time killing that person.

Starting point is 00:41:57 For example, I'm killing you for my country. Yeah, okay great. I'm killing because God he told me to kill you. So I'm not... You never have that thought though. In what way from what from what you don't have time. No, no, I get that. But what I'm saying is from from the part what I'm saying is if if you if you know like it is it is it something where I almost I almost want to disclose not disclose all the information even to my Navy SEAL guys. I don't want to give you all the intelligence because some of the intelligence if you had, you wouldn't execute it. Is it almost like, hey guys, okay, here's the next mission. This is what we're doing. We're sending the 25 of you or

Starting point is 00:42:40 whatever the number you were saying, like in a property like this, you only need two to come in, maybe eight and then 25 if it's around, you know, and maybe some people, we don't even know about that's on the outside. Okay, cool. But it's kind of like, okay, guys, here's a mission. Here's the enemy. Here's a target. Here's the equipment. Here's a date. Here's your orders. Here's how much time you got. Go tell your wife, tell your family, be ready. Five a.m. tomorrow, we're out Is it like that? And then, do you guys go, what do you know about this mission Vinny? Not a lot man, I was like, you cool with this?

Starting point is 00:43:11 I don't know if we're doing this man, I'm not freaking, if this is what I think it is, because I saw what happened in the news the other day. Guys, listen, no asking questions guys, we signed up for this. It's our job, it's our mission, this is what we raise our hand for, let's roll. Is that pretty much how it is?

Starting point is 00:43:27 Um, it's kind of the opposite of what you described. So the seal teams, the conventional side, and then, you know, so it's considered a white soft or, you know, the white side seal teams. And then there's the black side seal teams, which would be the JSOC elements. Both of those are just on a rotational or deployment cycle. So you're going to be relieving somebody when you get overseas and somebody is going to come in and relieve you, but you are going to be working for a battlespace commander. What you do in that country has to align with the overall goal of the battlespace or theater commander. We don't get to just come in and say this is how we're doing things, this is what we're taking

Starting point is 00:44:09 on our timeline. We can come in and look at working with the battle space commander that they're gonna have a deck, call it from one to ten of the people that they are looking for. Again, not us telling them who should they be looking for, we could of course they could work with the the staff and develop those type of things. But when we identify, let's say we have the number one person that you're looking for, you're going to start, you have in the joint world is J2 or the Navy world is N2, the intelligence. They're going to be working with those packages, working with specialists, bringing to the planning cell the N3 or J3 operations. They're going to start a planning cycle. There's going to be go-no-go launch criteria. You're going to have to make sure

Starting point is 00:44:47 that the weather is at the right time. So it's not going to be like on this date at this time, we are going to tell the battle space commander what we're going to be doing. You get into country and that's why it's like a left seat, right seat for about two weeks and people will stay from the element you're relieving and they'll go out with you and they get you up to speed on what's going on in the theater. And a lot of times what you end up doing is taking over targets that they were looking for that they couldn't locate, that they didn't have execute or launch criteria for. But again, it's a cog inside of a wheel.

Starting point is 00:45:17 You don't have the ability to go to a battle space commander and say, this is what we want to do and this is how we are going to do it. And they never would direct us, this is what you're gonna do. They could say, hey, we want you to go get this guy. But at that point, you leave it to us to plan how we're gonna do that and when we're going to execute. It's not, you know what I mean?

Starting point is 00:45:35 So it's a lot more collaborative than it is directive. But motive is never revealed to you because they don't even know the motive, right? Even the people above you don't know. And Afghanistan and Iraq, I mean, it's pretty clear on the motive. Because you are going to get, you're going to involve almost everybody in the planning process, not, you know, the youngest guys are maybe going to be involved in like just a packing list of things that you're going to need to have on you.

Starting point is 00:45:57 The senior personnel are going to start looking at the individual, where they live, how are we going to get there, the assets, do we need to do an offset, what can we have overhead to tip the scales into our favor. So you're going to know about the person that you are looking for. You may not have a true understanding of where they are in the global sense, but you are going to understand where they are connected to the individuals or like a threat network in those particular countries. You will have an understanding of that for sure. Does the SEAL ever team up with CIA or are they two separate things? They team up with them all the time, but I would say it was much more from an informational

Starting point is 00:46:31 perspective. Working with them, you know, the agency is going to be, they're going to have a heavy hand in the human intelligence of those areas. Working their sources, working with the people. I mean, honestly, one of the hardest things to do is find people who don't want to be found in an electronic age. You turn off all your electronic devices, you can have all the high speed, whizbang sensors and ways that you could locate people. But if you're not using those things, you're going to have to rely

Starting point is 00:46:55 on people who are willing to talk and put their life at risk. Are there, for example, like let's just say if I have a crew going, Navy SEAL, and it's like five of you guys going, are there ever Navy SEALs who are also operatives and they're agents of the CIA or no? It would be separate in my understanding. There are plenty of guys who have gone over and they will do contracting work through the agency

Starting point is 00:47:21 or if they have a college degree and they wanna go through the case officer program, they can do So I am not aware and maybe I'm wrong, but in my understanding I am not aware of anybody who has done both simultaneously. You know what I'm asking right so kind of like a you know like let's just say There's somebody in the US government's like look I know we got these killers in Navy SEAL guys that we need them desperately But one of those guys that's on the inside we need to to have one guy give us intel to see if everybody is fully

Starting point is 00:47:48 aligned. So one of the guys is not questioning to make sure we don't send them on an X assignment that's gonna be complicated because he's gonna confuse the other, you know, the other guys. So I think I know what you're saying, but it's it's the the pushback from guys saying I don't agree with these orders, it was not directive. In the community that I was with, I mean, it takes two years to get through even just the basic selection pipeline and process

Starting point is 00:48:15 to get to an operational SEAL team. The level of buy-in on why you are there and what you are willing to sacrifice and work for is incredibly high. And it's an additional layer of training, it's an additional layer of capability, you have better equipment, you have better support. It is far less directive and I have the absolute and utmost respect for anybody who serves in the military, but it is the opposite of say somebody who's been maybe in the Marines or the Army for a year. You need somebody somebody telling you you're gonna do it like this at this

Starting point is 00:48:48 Time with this gear it is the for sure. It's the opposite of that. It's very collaborative So they're coming to you saying what should we do instead of do this? They will come to say this is who we're going after how do you guys want to do it? Yeah, how do you guys want to do it? Okay got it, but you you guys don't ask why are we going after this guy? Now it's pretty clear deep in the mountains. Okay, Afghanistan why it. Okay, got it. But you guys don't ask, why are we going after this guy? Now it's pretty clear, deep in the mountains of Afghanistan, why we're going after it. Got it. So that part of it is clear on why it's happening.

Starting point is 00:49:12 Okay, now I'm asking this question to see, so think about pride, right? The pride of soldiers in a country, okay? You know, seeing others what they're fighting for versus what we're fighting for at the lower level Why are you joining the army? I need the GI Bill. Why are you joining the army? They're helping me pay off the bills, you know, they're you know Of course in listing six years they're paying off 12,000 dollars on my debt. Why are you joining the army? Dude, I just don't like living here. I want to go and see the world. Why are you joining the army?

Starting point is 00:49:42 So I would want to know what percentage of the guys that joined the army join because the benefits that's attractive to join versus join because Like I'm from Israel. I have to go serve for my country because that's just what we all do, right? The dinner we were having a couple nights. That's one of the things that they do is mandatory mandatory You're gonna go serve or you go to jail, you know, or I would agree with that here I wouldn't say necessarily military, doctors without border, Red Cross, whatever, just serve something greater than yourself for two years and even more beneficial if it happens somewhere where you didn't live.

Starting point is 00:50:13 Okay, so, and we're on the same page fully because I think it did something to me one of the best decisions I ever made in my life is joining the army. I had a regular job. I was getting nice orders. I was about to go 18 Delta because I was at the fifth group. My guy went to Virginia, got the orders, came back, I'm going to Sears school, DLI in

Starting point is 00:50:32 Fort Orr in you know California, Northern California, Carmel because I spoke five languages. So I was gonna go that route and in the last minute I decided to get out but it was a best decision I made getting in a military hands down. I think a lot of other people would benefit from it as well. The question I'm asking is pride. The pride of, and let me qualify pride, I'm not talking about gay pride. I'm talking about pride in joining your country that you're proud of, you know, where you're representing.

Starting point is 00:51:00 Do you think, you know, the level of pride our soldiers in U.S. have and why they serve is different than other soldiers like in Russia and China and Iran or enemies? And if yes, how different is it? I would say yes, one, you know, they're not being conscripted currently, where a lot of the other countries are. Russia being a good example. You kind of voluntold right now, either you're in prison and you have the opportunity to get out or you're voluntold, you're going to the front lines.

Starting point is 00:51:28 But I would also say the answer would depend on when you ask them and even the motivation you're talking about, the socioeconomic reasons to join the military. Pre-911, like all three of us were in, how often did you hear about the GI Bill? Were people just joining because they wanted to take a rung up on that socioeconomic status and move somewhere else?

Starting point is 00:51:43 It was one of the most common narratives that I heard. I didn't hear a lot about the G.I. Bill after 9-11. The people lining up on September 12th at the recruiting stations and the videos and the pictures of those lines, yes, they were probably gonna get told about the educational benefits, they weren't there for that reason.

Starting point is 00:52:02 So I think the pride in what they probably felt their purpose was post 9-11 Might have been a little bit different and not to measure like a value. That's a very good opponent What good way of putting it? And so and and not that the people pre 9-11 had any less of a sense of pride But they probably they recognized that they were serving something greater than themselves, but it was also Maybe a 50-50 gambit like I'm gonna'm going to get my pound of flesh, just like the military is going to get their pound of flesh as well. And I would say probably the biggest thing when you're

Starting point is 00:52:31 talking about our enemies or the countries that we have squared off against, whether it's by proxy or directly, we have different values as a country and freedom. And I know that the United States is not the only country that has freedom. But our expression of it, I think think is unique in comparison to our enemies, the people who are going to wear the flag and have it issued to them on their uniform, I think it's personally very rarefied air, and I think it's a special thing and it should be protected,

Starting point is 00:52:57 and it has that sense of pride because underlying in that, you know what that flag means and what it stands for. And what what sucks for me in the modern era is that people can't even agree on what that is Yeah, and how about the enemies because if I'm going up against If I'm going up against you know The enemy who is an opponent and that guy his name is Buster Douglas And he's doing it because his mother died 30 days ago, and I'm going up against Mike Tyson.

Starting point is 00:53:26 Holy shit, this is just a bad fight to get into. I'm just fighting because I have a five fight contract for on my $100 million, whatever it is, and I gotta get it done. The other guy's fighting because his mom just died. Do I really wanna go fight this guy? He's probably emotional, psychologically a little bit off, in pain, all this stuff. It's a very enough... I've interviewed both of them, Buster Douglas,

Starting point is 00:53:48 and I interviewed Tyson multiple times. You wonder what they're coming from. What is the pride the enemy has, specifically those three countries that you face off? Russia, China, and Iran? Probably can't... I mean, I can't really describe necessarily the pride that they may have, but what I can say is their depth of belief is probably equal to our depth of belief in this room. And I actually, you know, it's something that I have disagreed with on people that I serve with. I have nothing but respect for the people who want to fight for what they believe in. I may not agree with your ideology, and I'm willing to potentially sacrifice my life for

Starting point is 00:54:20 the ideologies that I hold dear. And if you're willing to do so, well, fucking, let's meet up in the arena and see who's ready to get after it. Like I have nothing but respect for somebody who's willing to do that. Fully agree. They're level of pride. I don't understand, but I can respect their level

Starting point is 00:54:34 of conviction and their dedication to being able to tow the line. But again, I ask that because today, let's just say today, there's a eighth grader, okay, or ninth grader, whatever, junior high school, Andy Stumpf, who is fully, loves America's grandfather was a Vietnam vet. Father. But I'm saying grandfather.

Starting point is 00:55:00 Okay, gotcha. The reason why I'm saying grandfather is because I'm trying, yeah, I'm saying today, you're an eighth grade, right? I'm with you in this parallel universe We're the multi-personnel but the benefit he has is he has a case study of an Andy and Who's like shit doing this for my grandfather he fathers on and I'm gonna go represent my country and da da da da And here's what I want to do. I want to go be a Navy Seal because it's worth me fighting for him

Starting point is 00:55:23 But what would you say, go for it? Or would you say, mm, you know, after 17 years and seeing what I've seen, I don't know if the level of pride to say go for it is as high as it would have been as in 1996. What would you say to that kid? I would do my best to educate them on both sides of the equation, the pros and the cons.

Starting point is 00:55:47 And, you know, my father did not want me to join the military. My mom and dad both came from military families. My mom's, you know, my grandmother was a nurse in World War II and actually left the army due to, or I'm sorry, left the Navy due to post-traumatic stress from treating the soldiers coming back from the front lines, lied about it and got back into the army and continued, or I'm sorry, left the Navy, due to post-traumatic stress from treating the soldiers coming back from the front lines, lied about it and got back into the army

Starting point is 00:56:08 and continued on as a nurse. Ended up marrying a supply corps officer. So my mom, one of many children, as military families have, as they're traveling around, she didn't want me to join the military. My dad served in Vietnam, not a great experience. His father before him and his father's brother served in the military World War II era.

Starting point is 00:56:28 The last thing that they wanted for me to do was to come home as a junior in high school and say, I've got something in my backpack. Oh, and I brought the Navy recruiter with me too. I shock unto him. Get out of here. Oh, fuck yeah. And I said, I'm not old enough to sign this,

Starting point is 00:56:45 but I need you to sign it for me. And neither of them tried to talk me out of here. Oh, fuck yeah. And I said, I'm not old enough to sign this, but I need you to sign it for me. And neither of them tried to talk me out of it. They didn't sign it that day for clarity because we had a few conversations. They expressed to me their concerns and then they let me make the decision. And so how could I ever rob anybody else of that exact same opportunity?

Starting point is 00:57:04 If it's your kid, would you advise them? Would you support them joining? I would support them joining. I wouldn't push for it, but I wouldn't advocate against it. I think the benefit I could have to anybody is just giving them a more objective approach of what military service actually can entail. The long-term consequences, especially from a career field that has exposure to a combat environment. I mean, like when I first joined in 96, or the same as you guys, did you guys ever hear about TBI or really much talk about post-traumatic stress or CTE or, you know, I haven't ever

Starting point is 00:57:38 heard the term burn pit before? You know, and because that wasn't, you know, we had gone through a period of decades of peace. It is a disservice to the people who wanna join to not at least give them the total picture so they can make an educated. If you know what you know now, would you have joined? Yes.

Starting point is 00:57:54 You still would have joined? Yes. Great, and that's a very interesting perspective that you're given. And by the way, for some of the people that are watching, the most common question I get from parents about their kids joining the military, hey, can you talk to my son?

Starting point is 00:58:11 Should I let him go? Should I do this? Should I do that? If there's anybody to ask that question of that's gonna give you very, very good insights, probably gonna be Andy here. And if you wanna ask the question from me, you can always connect with them and see about it.

Starting point is 00:58:23 That's the decision. Well played, sir. Who make or not, Andy would be the right them and see if that's a decision. Well played sir. Who make or not. Andy would be the right guy to ask that question on the neck. But I asked the question because I wonder, like for me, it's all about pride. If you got pride and you're proud of your country and your country's representing you well

Starting point is 00:58:38 and you wanna go out there and contribute and give back, go for it. But if some of the fights we're fighting are unnecessary fights that's just taking lives and you're making bad decisions, that's also discouraging for a parent to say, go for it. When I was in, it was Bosnia, Kosovo, and what else do we have?

Starting point is 00:58:55 A flooding in Honduras that everybody went and came back married. I don't know if you remember the Honduras flooding that took place, I think in 98 or whatever that was going on. That's why it's the question from you in regards to. And so the, and you talk about the pride and then I've been wanting to ask you this too Andy. So I think our fighting force is the smallest it's been in 80 years.

Starting point is 00:59:14 The number of white recruits I think is, is at all time low. It's culture. It's this or that. We saw a video of the transgender lieutenant colonel that's up there that's basically pushing for focus and exclusivity. Me, mind you, we're in wars, bro. We are everywhere. Like, what do you think,

Starting point is 00:59:32 what do you think that shift happened? Because I was in, during 9-11, I was in, and I was, when Bush went up there and he spoke, and like, I mean, I had friends that started joining. I got a, dude, I was emotional, because he was up there. I mean, finding out later on, I was like, shit, we were duped. But why do you think, is it because we haven't had

Starting point is 00:59:48 a major incident, a major war, because the attitude of all these people, nobody's joining, people are getting out. I mean, the vaccine, everything had something to do with it. Why do you think all that pride and everything is, like it's gone, you don't see it anymore. I don't know if it's gone. I think the other side of the narrative has a more powerful voice right now.

Starting point is 01:00:07 I think that most of the things that we see online and people talking about the country, you're hearing the vocal 10% as opposed to the silent 90%. And in values change over time. I distinctly remember Bush landing on that aircraft carrier a few months in telling us that we won. And then it's like, that's weird because I'm still deploying.

Starting point is 01:00:26 You're getting shot at. But I thought we won. You know, it's... Drop your gun, just, we're good guys. The military is, they execute the foreign policy of the United States. Foreign policy and ethics and morals are going to shift depending on who we vote into office. So as those things are, I don't know the right word to use,

Starting point is 01:00:50 I would almost say infecting our culture. If we have people in positions of power who have ideologies and beliefs that are counter to what I at least believe this country stands for, it's no surprise to me that they're going to work their way down, you know, it's a cascading effect downstream. I think it's why it's so important that people actually take the time to get involved and vote. It's gonna start at the top. It's just people.

Starting point is 01:01:17 It's people and those people might bring certain policies and those policies are gonna permeate throughout the entire organism. And by the way, while you're saying this, that's the speech right there. Oh man. I'm talking about that. Mission accomplished.

Starting point is 01:01:30 And meanwhile, Andy's in the thick of it, like wait, what? I mean, it just needs to wrap around a little bit and say sort of. Almost. Maybe it is on the other side. Maybe you can't see it. Yeah. Well, by the way, you were talking about the speech.

Starting point is 01:01:41 Can you play that speech, Rob? That Vinny was talking about with one of the greatest motivational speeches of all time. This was, I mean, like if you wanna get into a war. No, no, Rob, the one you just pulled up, you pulled up a video of the Lieutenant Colonel right here, go ahead and play this. If this doesn't make you wanna join the military,

Starting point is 01:01:54 I don't know what the, Super inspirational, go ahead. I'm about to rejoin. We must set our sights higher and focus on intentional inclusivity because there are still far too many people out there, not just LGBTQ individuals that feel marginalized, shut out, or discriminated against. So for all of you out there, I ask you to set out your symbols of pride, share your pronouns

Starting point is 01:02:18 in your email, particularly if you're a person who doesn't think they need to, initiate difficult conversations about racial and gender barriers, and share a bit of your vulnerability in a way that draws others in. Why is this necessary? And by the way, I watched this, and here's what I think about. I watched this and I say, okay, Putin sees this, what does he think? Putin sees this, what does he think? Xi watches this, what does he think? The Middle East watches that, what do they think? The enemy watches it, do they say, oh my God,

Starting point is 01:02:54 US is getting so much stronger, guys, be careful, these guys are starting to put their genders in their emails, are we gonna beat these guys? Like, we don't do he, him. There's no way we can beat these guys because that's an advantage America's having because they're being more fluid about their, you know, gender and all this stuff.

Starting point is 01:03:12 Does that inspire the next generation to say, I want my kids to go into the military? I mean, not in my opinion. And I would add if the countries that you just mentioned, if I were them viewing this from the opposing lens, I would do everything I could to support something like this. It's in the role of the military is to execute United States foreign policy. And at the end of the day, if you drill it down even further, it is to execute, conduct, and win

Starting point is 01:03:36 war. Anything that you do that is not directly associated with those things is not going to benefit the warfighter. The last, see here, the stats are the last 10 years, every branch except for the Marine Corps and recently Space Force, which I'm still trying to figure out what they do. Their uniforms are fantastic though. My sister works there, she's just retired,

Starting point is 01:03:58 so I still haven't, she still hasn't given me an answer. They've missed recruiting goals. I think this last year was 25% across the board again except for the Marine Corps there are Promoting promoting You know inclusion is actually I think it's a great thing if you look at our country We're a country of emigrants

Starting point is 01:04:19 We are certainly a melting pot and I think being able to have an ability to listen to and hear all those voices is a great thing. But diversity and inclusion just for the sake of diversity and inclusion, I'm not so sure that is the best path forward for foreign policy, especially when it comes to policy in the military. Because I can tell you in my own personal experience, the battlefield doesn't give a shit. It doesn't care what you believe. It doesn't care if you're a man or a woman or you're confused about the two. A bullet coming at you at a few thousand feet per second is not going to veer based off of what it is that you believe. So we need to prepare, train, and equip our warfighters to the best of the ability of our country. In my personal opinion, videos like

Starting point is 01:05:00 that, and though like I just said, I think that diversity, especially of thought and discussion is essential, that type of video is one of the reasons that we are having a difficult time finding people who wanna serve in the military. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Can you imagine being in war with somebody like that, and you're under attack, and like, let's go get them guys, and that person doesn't go because they're like,

Starting point is 01:05:24 you said guys I'm not fighting. It's like that you might have watched too many movies The whole let's go Seeing that only in the world, you know, I've actually thought about that the movies of trench warfare We're gonna okay, so all three of us are in a trench. Yeah, they're gonna blow a whistle Yeah, and we're gonna be charging another entrance position that has just been aiming the guns at us for months. When the whistle goes off,

Starting point is 01:05:50 you're telling me you don't have a thought in your head, we're like, oh, I pulled my hammy. Oh, I'm down on the ground. You know what's crazy? Rob, can you pull up the link I just texted you? So, by the way, I mean, obviously we're joking, but it's also partly serious. Like I also wanna, you know, today I'm talking

Starting point is 01:06:05 to a guy who's is going through a certain escapade right now and we're having a good conversation upstairs and I got off the phone and then I'm having a conversation with one of the other guys. And so what do you think is going on with them? I said, look, in life, you know, at 18 years old, nobody could tell me what to do. No one could tell me what to do. You just couldn't tell me what to do because I was a reckless, 17, 18-year-old kid, not coachable, didn't fear anybody. Mom, dad, teacher, nobody could tell me what to do until I joined the army. Then I met Drill Sergeant Green.

Starting point is 01:06:40 Then I met Drill Sergeant Pertle. Then I met Sergeant Ward. Then I met Lieutenant Colonel Peacock. And then I realized, you can't mess with these guys. They checked you and you're like, holy shit. Okay, I've met my equal, not even equal superior to me. Alpha, you got it. I'm with you.

Starting point is 01:07:00 Salute, let's roll. I'm following your lead, right? I want my military, the country that I'm going to go and see leaders like that that are putting that fear and the respect in you based on results, expectation, life, the things you've seen that I haven't seen. Where you're looking me and say, who's this kid? What do you act like? You know what I've seen? You're talking about what you're talking about here. You don't even know what I've seen in my life, but you pump the brakes drop go run 10 miles Go do this and then also you break them. They're like now you realize I'm the guy in charge

Starting point is 01:07:31 Yes, okay salute moving forward. I'm the guy that's gonna tell you what to do that's the part where if You have to now be careful on how you challenge me because God forbid you're gonna offend me or make me I Didn't like the way the drill sergeant talked to me. I kind of felt like he was, he had something against my skin color because I'm brown from Iran. I remember my drill sergeant.

Starting point is 01:07:53 First time I'm shooting a, I'm trying to get my, what do you call it, whether I'm gonna be an expert, Mark's been a worsen. Yeah, and I'm sitting in a drill sergeant comes and says, what kind of a fricking nose is that? I mean, I've never seen a nose like that in my life because you know, you're putting it here. It's like, dude, you put it wrong,

Starting point is 01:08:09 but it's gonna break your nose. So we're having this conversation. I have to tell him as I'm from the Middle East, I'm from Iran. He says, dude, I've never seen a nose like that. That Iranian nose is problematic, right? Can you imagine today you're like, it's racist. Oh yeah, we all.

Starting point is 01:08:23 Because he's like, I'm from Iran and I'm offended. So then I go and I complain and that drill sergeant's fired and now he's go to a different place. But all he was doing is he's just kind of talking to one of the soldiers and I'm okay with that. By the way, the size of the military, watch this. Rob, pull up the first one I sent you. Is this the one, go lower? Is this the one, okay, right there, check that out.

Starting point is 01:08:40 Active duty force since 1990. This is before our time, Even when it was 1996, it was around 1.5 million. Let's just say right. But look at 1990. 2,065,000 and it's gone down to where it's at right now. And then I have another report, Rob, that I sent you. I don't know if you have the second link. The second link shows that we've gone from 1.4 million to now 1.2 million, give or take in 2024. And so the 60 billion we spent to give to Russia, or this is the recent one that they want to suspend the money to, what are we doing to get kids to actually want to join

Starting point is 01:09:21 the military? Are military is getting weaker and weaker and weaker? Fewer people want to join the military, our military is getting weaker and weaker and weaker. Fewer people want to join and enlist. You were reporting the numbers earlier that everybody almost pretty much missing recruiting numbers. Yeah, for decade, last decade. Except for one which is the Marines,

Starting point is 01:09:36 the numbers came up. Which I can't blame that their uniforms are fantastic. You are so, oh god, it looks so good. Sick. Why did you join the Marines, dude? What else? The uniform. Just Google Class A Marine Corps uniform and you actually might consider joining too.

Starting point is 01:09:50 Let's see if I can kind of show you Marine uniform. I was jealous all the time, bro. So sure. Is it really though? Look at that. Look how clean that thing is, bro. Look at that. Come on, bro.

Starting point is 01:10:00 That is sick. That is sick. And it's not even capturing the pants, which I believe are blue with the red stripe. Look at that. Yeah,, yes, that's sick. See, Matt, Apollo was in the Marines. Yeah, he was shot on Matt. Yeah. Matt's follow was in the he was combat too, right?

Starting point is 01:10:12 He was. He did three tours. And so, so, you know, again, recruiting, what do you think needs to happen for recruiting in America to go up except for a massive event like another 9 11 without a 9 11 happen? And what do you think you step before recruiting become attractive again? I think as a country, we would be better served figuring out who we are and what we stand for.

Starting point is 01:10:36 Because right now, I think there's a real argument about what even the truth is, and you can pick the subject. And it's, I have heard, you know, anecdotally, and not many people would approach me directly with this, but the way that the military is being reframed as, you know, we are just imperialists. We are throughout the globe imposing our will. And I'm actually not going to sit here and say that there's an essence of that that isn't true. Like I said, the big lie, all the things that we despise and disdain other countries for while, you know, behind the curtain, we might be doing a little bit of that as well. If we

Starting point is 01:11:14 don't change the way that we talk about military service, and one of the big things that I would actually talk to the younger generation about, especially given the cost of going to college, is the amount of vocational and trade ability that you have inside of the military and what you can do with that afterwards. I mean, I have three kids on my own. I'm looking down the barrel of what it would cost to send them to college. And I just, I don't understand six-figure debt as a late teenager, somebody early in their 20s. Like, what a great way to set somebody up for struggles later in their life. You know, there are fantastic educational benefits in the military.

Starting point is 01:11:48 You're going to get the chance to serve something greater than yourself, and it's probably going to be overseas, which is a great lens to view what we have versus what other people have. So many people in the United States who never leave the U.S. and I think the stats are about only 20% of Americans actually have a passport and a small fraction of them actually use their passport. So it's super easy to sit and bitch about how shitty this country is on your $1,000 phone with your $8 latte while somebody else would literally trade everything they have and walk to the point of losing family members to try to get into our country. I think we have to do a better job of educating what the military can provide

Starting point is 01:12:26 for people, not only while they're serving, but later in life as well. It sets such a good foundation of, I mean, for myself personally, interpersonal skills, integrity, discipline, leadership. I mean, the things that not only organizations are looking for for people, hard work, work ethic, team work, camaraderie. We can go down on the list, right? You could just pull a list. Tell me that a company hiring in this country

Starting point is 01:12:50 wouldn't want every single one of those checked. Do you consult for companies? I do. You consult, is it independent yourself or are you with somebody? Myself. Okay, yourself. And how did they find you?

Starting point is 01:13:03 That's actually a good question. I mean, I have my own website, andystumpf.com. Couldn't think of anything else to call it, so I just went with something. Good website. Very, very clever to create a very clever. But most of it is from a leadership perspective. Like I'm not an expert at hiring,

Starting point is 01:13:16 I can talk to organizations about leadership, leadership in small units, decision making, all of those things. So it's an engagement at that level. I'm not the guy to talk to you like, how do you scale your business? That's an expert somewhere else. But even if you were going to go into the trades, all of the skills that we were just listening, if you're going to work for yourself, you're telling me you're not going to be head

Starting point is 01:13:34 and shoulders above almost everybody else if you embody those things. It has such immense value beyond service to your country. And then of course, there is this service to your country. And I of course there is this service to your country. And I mean it's hard for me, I don't think I have the vocabulary to describe exactly what that means or the opportunity that you know that I saw it as, especially when I was you know 11, but it it's an amazing opportunity and I hear it being described as almost anything but that in the common narrative. Yeah and I agree because I mean think about it

Starting point is 01:14:07 We you nailed it with the college with the I think a lot of the youth have literally no skin in the game They can care less they're getting brainwashed from here from tiktok from everything Why do you think all the all the all these Israeli people that we know they freaking love? Israel they stick up for the country like because they all did something for the could they all signed up They put their life in the line and if you see them like Israelis I see Israelis all the time bro there have you ever heard of one of them not Israel's not no never over here a lot of people here are talking shit about this country because like I said zero skin of the game so

Starting point is 01:14:39 like yeah whatever they don't give a shit yeah and and not only that the level of respect for somebody like you know, to look at whoever the hero is, the heroes today are not the heroes of putting their life on the line to go out there and fight for this great country. The heroes are today are the TikTokers. It's a very confusing model on what's happening as well. So it's not going to make it attractive to join the military. And not only that, if you're not edifying them from the top, if from the top, they're not being built up.

Starting point is 01:15:08 If from the top, they're not being edified. If from the top, you're not selling America as a greatest country. From the top, you're not inspiring people to want to give back to their country or what they've been given. The mindset isn't like, Hey, what can you give me? Give me this welfare. Give me this section eight. Give me this GI bill. Give me this. Okay. But what are you, what are you giving to this? It doesn't matter what family it is whether it's Kennedy or Bush both of them had a very clear values and principles Which was make your money protect your family when you're done give back to your country through charity through church or through public service? politics figure out a way to give it back we don't have a messaging right now of figure out a way to give it back. We don't have a messaging right now of doing that

Starting point is 01:15:45 and valuing that. Military is a form of giving back to your country of what it gave you. And a part of that is like family values, rituals, you know, all that stuff. We don't have some of that stuff going on. Let's change the subject into something else, okay? So did you see what happened this week

Starting point is 01:16:01 with Instagram, with Facebook, with? It got shut down. It was a catastrophe. People were just fist at the sky crazy. I thought it was glorious You're free for like a couple hours like two hours. I didn't have to check that shit But as crazy and funny as that is of course, it's exciting to get a break from the phone Like I don't have to worry about it because nobody else is doing it anyways But there was a lot of things that who were the ones that were down that day Rob? Can you bring it up?

Starting point is 01:16:27 Was it Facebook, Instagram? There's a bunch of that, let's look at that number right there. The Big Picture self-reported outage on both platform surged, reaching more than 583,000 reports on Facebook alone. More than 92,000 outages were reported on Instagram. During the news, earlier technical issue caused people having difficulty accessing some of our services. Stone added that the issue had been resolved

Starting point is 01:16:49 as quickly as possible. Some users also reported being logged out of Facebook accounts, meta-acknowledged Facebook login status page that the platform was experiencing major disruptions. The same happened with threats and Facebook Messenger. The outage occurred on Super Tuesday when over a dozen states head to the polls for presidential primariesage occurred on Super Tuesday when over a dozen states head to the polls for presidential primaries. Now, Super Tuesday is not like Nikki Ailey won anything but Vermont. And she I think announced that she's stepping away. This morning. Yeah, she announced it this morning. Such a devastating. Do you have the clip when she announced it? Because I know there was

Starting point is 01:17:17 like a, I think there's a video of 300,000 people in front of the White House crying. I'm gonna get emotional. I'm gonna get emotional. So I'm gonna turn it over. Can you play this clip, please? In all likelihood, Donald Trump will be the Republican uh... three hundred thousand people in stint in front of what is crying on the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other one of the other Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us. I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee. But on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, quote, never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind. It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that.

Starting point is 01:18:15 You know what she really wanted to say? Guys, listen, I thought the Supreme court was going to get him out. They messed up. Now I gotta drop the hell out. That's what she was hoping for. That'd be a better speech. Wouldn't that be better? Just be honest, Andy. What if they had to write their own speeches? Oh my God.

Starting point is 01:18:32 You know what she wanted to say. She wanted to go up there and be like, thanks a lot, assholes. I thought we were in this together. What happened? Now you guys are fucked. Whatever happens is your fault. And she smashed the dish and she walks up.

Starting point is 01:18:43 Oh, 55 million views later and 600,000 new Twitter followers. Oh, I'm back in it because now people want me to keep running. Yeah, you guys told me he was gonna get disqualified. What happened? What do you think makes her an unattractive candidate? Let me, maybe you think she's super attractive, but it seems like almost majority of the people you talk to, there's something about her that they find unattractive. She's just the one that didn't quit.

Starting point is 01:19:08 I have watched very little video of her, and I honestly have. You're missing out, but a good one. Yeah, well, have you guys ever watched the movie Ready Player One? Of course. Where they shut down, what do they call it, the oasis? Yes.

Starting point is 01:19:23 Like that, I'll answer your question, but to go back to like Facebook and Instagram, one of the first things they did is limited people do they call it, the oasis? Yes. Like that, I'll answer your question, but to go back to like Facebook and Instagram, one of the first things they did is limited people's time on it and life is probably gonna get better. So I wish we would do something like that. The videos, the first thing that I caught and that is that she seemed very robotic.

Starting point is 01:19:39 And I do a good amount of public speaking, so I understand the pressure of being up in front of individuals. But I also only say things that I actually believe in things that I wrote. And so it makes it different. I know I have a natural way to deliver things. That seemed to me incredibly flat line and baseline.

Starting point is 01:19:56 And that's just not the way that people are. So I mean, that's my first assessment of just looking at that specifically. What do you think happened with the Facebook and Instagram and all this stuff happened on the same day? Day after, I mean, first of all, it happens on Super Tuesday, but it happens a day after Colorado ruling 9-0.

Starting point is 01:20:14 And you know, where you said earlier that the enemies of China, Russia, Iran probably love the fact that that transgender, Lieutenant Colonel is up their screen and they're like, we want more of this and we want more of this and we want more of this. This wasn't a small little glitch that happened with one company. A lot of companies were affected. So it can't be tied to a Facebook error or a meta error.

Starting point is 01:20:40 What do you think happened there? I would be curious to know how many people truly understand the digital infrastructure required to make all of these things run in real time. I've heard interviews of people like the founders of ChatGPT or people who are working on AI. They can't actually describe precisely what is going on and how. They have some boundaries, but I think that these, I mean, that organization, I can only imagine the server farms required to keep Facebook and Instagram open and the amount of

Starting point is 01:21:12 code and interaction between those companies and other companies. You know, non-conspiratorily, I would say, you know, there's probably trillions upon trillions of line of code. I fall short of my job standards and expectations sometimes. Maybe a coder was having a little bit of a rough day and one of those got highlighted. Conspiratorily, you could say, these entities, or enemies of our country, I mean,

Starting point is 01:21:36 before having a full-on frontal assault, maybe it's good to test the boundaries a little bit. Maybe it's good to put some, you know, and if I were them, though, what I probably wouldn't want to do is shut it all down. You would, you would want to test it in a way where it maybe would make a little bit less news because then you could keep building upon it, which is why I don't think it was necessarily conspiratorial. But yeah, if you're going to have a bigger, a larger scale attack, send in a reconnaissance element,

Starting point is 01:22:00 see how it goes. And haven't come to the border, which is completely wide open and everybody from every single It depends on how you ask sir. Yeah It's humanitarian Vinnie But if you think about because any I mean if you think about it if you're trying to bring soldiers in here The hell we're doing it covertly We're not air dropping people in and just literally walking through the board and they've told us that China has told us literally walking through the board and they've told us that China has told us this is what the CCP has been trying to do.

Starting point is 01:22:27 Meanwhile, in California, Xi Jinping is paraded around San Francisco with the red carpet, all of our flags taken down, all of their flags put in up. They just hired the girl that is in charge of their election. It's almost as if they're, we're welcoming this type of, I'm not saying it was China, but who the hell knows? From the level of how many people have been here? Let me ask a question, a different way. Do you think America knows who was behind it?

Starting point is 01:22:54 Do you think the US government knows who was behind it at this point? Maybe, I mean, one of the things that did shock me about Elon Musk buying Twitter, X, whatever it's called. It was the level of direct communication between those platforms in the government. I would have to assume that there is a similar level of connection across all of them, you know. I think it would depend on how complex it was. And again, I'm not an expert in the electronic realm by any stretch. So I don't know how complex it was. And again, I'm not an expert in the electronic realm by any stretch, so I don't know how they reverse engine.

Starting point is 01:23:27 Like when I say a line of code broke, like is there like a little flashing red? Like this one was supposed to be, I don't know how that shit works. So I think depending on the complexity, it would be hard to say. I would say, I mean, again, possible, but I don't know. It's not my expertise by any stretch.

Starting point is 01:23:44 You know what I would say, if they don again, possible, but I don't know. It's not my expertise by any stretch. You know what I would say? If they don't, I'm very concerned. Because you know what it's like when you go to the doctor? What's the worst thing a doctor can tell you? Like, I got stomach pain. You go to the doctor and the doctor says, yeah, so I need you to go see a specialist and he's waiting for you right now in an hour.

Starting point is 01:24:01 He lives 30 minutes away. You need to go there right now. Oh, I'm scared. You're like, oh, shit. Yeah, it's not good. Then you go to the specialist and the's waiting for you right now in an hour. He lives 30 minutes away. You need to go there right now. I'm scared. Like, Oh, shit. It's not good. Then you go to the specialist and the specialist is like, yes, okay. Yeah. Get him in here right now. Guys, I thought this is just gas and you're going to, um, yeah. Okay. I need you to go to the hospital in Miami and see this other specialist to see what he has to say. He's got an appointment open right now. An hour and a half, you need to go there right now.

Starting point is 01:24:26 Do you know what it is? I don't know what it is right now. We have some speculation. Then you go to the next person. By the third doctor, if none of them know what's going on with you, that is the scariest answer doctor can give you. Because you're then sitting there saying,

Starting point is 01:24:39 holy shit, how do these guys not know, right? But if you go to the doctor, the doctor says, yeah, here's what you got. Here's your options. Take this, do this, or do that. Okay, cool. Let me get a second opinion. Same thing, take this, do this, or do that.

Starting point is 01:24:53 All right, I'll do this. Cool, let's go with that, right? If America doesn't know who was behind that, I'm a little concerned. If America knows the US government, when I say America, if the US government knows Who was behind it? Whether they want to tell us or not? I can understand why they don't want to tell us But I can also understand why they would want to tell us the style of who's gonna tell who is gonna be based on the style The leader running the country at the time weird okay if you know and some people the style of some people is to do

Starting point is 01:25:22 What to just kind of go two days? And some people, the style of some people is to do what? To just kind of go two days, new cycle is so fast, people will get over it, trust me, within three days they'll forget about it, people are looking at the next thing that's going on, right? I'm just hoping they know what it is, because they say, hey, president, we're getting a report on what happened with Meta

Starting point is 01:25:39 and all these other companies, this is all it was. It was this, this, that, some hackers from India, we're working on this and da da da da da. Okay, cool. What are we doing with these hackers? They're from India. We can't do anything. Okay, sounds good. All right, next. Well, we found out what it was. We got some of our contacts that's coming from Iran. We're trying to find that if it was a regular citizens doing this as hackers or if the government was behind it. At this point point we are 50-50, but we'll have better intel for you in the afternoon today.

Starting point is 01:26:07 Okay, great. Now that's stuff I wanna know about, right? Because if it is one of those three countries that's doing this, that are capable of doing this, and they do it on the day that they do it, a day after Colorado, they do it on Super Tuesday, I kinda wanna make sure they don't mess with this when it comes on to November 5th,

Starting point is 01:26:24 because if they do something like that on November 5th, it's a different story. Did you watch the movie Leave the World Behind or something like that, the Obama movie? I think I did. If I'm being honest, I consume a fair amount of movies, so sometimes they blend over. I'm talking about the ship that's coming in. The kid is like, the ship is coming to the beach. Oh, I got, damn it. Yeah, I was watching that and then one of my children decided to do something idiotic, ship is coming to the base. Oh, I got, damn it, yeah, I was watching that

Starting point is 01:26:45 and then one of my children decided to do something idiotic, which is sometimes what they do, so I had to go deal with that instead. Oh, you didn't finish it. Oh, bro, you gotta finish it. You gotta finish it. But you know what movie's coming out next month? Civil War.

Starting point is 01:26:57 Yes! Civil War, movie's coming out next month. It's like a playbook. Basically letting you know the playbook, isn't it? Zoom in a little bit, little bit. It's a dystopian action film written director Alex Garland, the film stars Kristen Dunst and bunches of other guys. That are the journalists who travels us during the rapidly escalating second

Starting point is 01:27:15 American civil war, which has engulfed the entire nation and civil war will have its premiere at South by Southwest March 14, which is next week, and it's scheduled to be released April 12th in the UK, I'm just wondering. Hey, all I'm gonna say is that image there of the... Turn right on top of the bunker on the... So it looks like it's a sniper hide, and it just shows you how little these people know about war,

Starting point is 01:27:40 because that would be a terrible position. 100%. I'm like, yeah, how are you getting... Why is that? Well, first off, there's not a whole lot that's shooting distance from the statue. Yeah, we should water! And if you do start taking potshots out of that, everybody's going to know where you are and they're going to launch something in there. You're so freaking fun.

Starting point is 01:28:00 Well yeah, those sandbags aren't going to stop anything. I mean it's in the middle of the water. Andy, when's your birthday? So I don't know where your birthday is here. October 10th, eight days before yours. No shit. Oh, wow. Eight days before, literally eight days older than me.

Starting point is 01:28:15 Yeah, 77, 10, 10, 77. Respect your seniors. Listen, sir, I respect you. Respect your elders. I want to make sure I do that. So are you a pretty Optimistic guy is there an element of yours where you kind of a little bit paranoid and if yes What what are you most concerned about as somebody that served at the highest level for 17 years?

Starting point is 01:28:37 Man, I would actually almost have to point you towards other people to give you a good assessment of who I am I would say that I'm a realist. I think some people would say I'm a pessimist. I just try to look at things as the way they are, not necessarily what I want them to be, which is not always easy. I think the thing that worries me the most, and this is a common narrative, but I think there's an aspect of it being true because I'm seeing it bleed over from social platforms into personal interactions. That is the divisiveness in the country. And if we would need smarter people than myself to see exactly where it's coming from, I think it's solvable.

Starting point is 01:29:16 You know, you hear, you know, the poster for Civil War. I don't remember younger in my life, people legitimately talking about it as not only something they were concerned about, but others talking about it as something that they were looking forward to or something that they wanted to have happen, which first off, for people who are calling for that, you don't know what you're asking for and you 100% don't want that. I'm slugging it out in the streets of America against other Americans like you have no idea what you're talking about. The divisiveness, the divisiveness worries me

Starting point is 01:29:47 because I don't believe it's accidental. I think that it, and again, if I look at it from the lens of our enemy, it doesn't even need to be our own government doing a job of trying to divide us. I would try to divide a populace that I was going to either fight directly or in cyberspace or on proxy or all of those things. It's concerning to me, I would try to divide a populace that I was going to either fight directly or in cyberspace or on proxy or all of those things It's concerning to me. I would say it's probably the top issue And and is that one of the reasons why you live where you live?

Starting point is 01:30:15 No, I live where I live because my ex-wife was born and raised in Montana and people from Montana seem to have this Gravitational pull back at some point in their life. So we kept visiting We ended up buying an investment property and I just saw the impact that it had or we saw the impact that it had on our kids and spent a good amount of time there and just it was a better, it was more in line with the life that I wanted to live.

Starting point is 01:30:38 And then we got divorced shortly after, so. But still you stayed there because of three kids? Yes, as did she, Yep, the whole family. She did as well. All three kids are there. You're the third person in the last week. You, Gina Carano and Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley left and went to Arizona

Starting point is 01:30:55 because of fighting different reasons. But he's also from Montana. Are you prepper? Are you somebody that would you consider yourself one or not really? Depends on what you mean by that term, because there is of course a negative connotation associated with the term prepper. It's the guy who has a school bus buried in his backyard and fixed machine gun positions.

Starting point is 01:31:15 I am not that. But again, I do my best to try to take the world as it is presented to me and not the world that I want it to be. From a statistical perspective, we're living in the safest time for human beings ever. But that doesn't mean that wild shit doesn't happen. And so where I live, you know, response time on a 911 call could be up to 30 to 45 minutes. Holy shit.

Starting point is 01:31:34 Well, you know, we're talking, so I live up in Calispell, which I still can't get somebody to give me an exact number of people that live there. But let's say Calispell specifically like 35,000. Whitefish, I think, has like 20. The whole valley,, you know the Flathead Lake is in the south portion of it Maybe a hundred thousand people in that entire valley beautiful place by the way It's amazing and I'm friends with a lot of law enforcement and one of the questions that I hate asking them is hey How many guys do you have on shift today? Oh six like what?

Starting point is 01:32:02 Not worried at all. I mean there's so there's sheriff's department and police departments and whitefish has their own and Calispell does but the veneer is thin so I Am prepared To take care of situations that present themselves to me to a certain threshold like I have The ability to you know treat minor medical issues with me in my car. I've been the first person to pull up on an accident a few times in my life. And it's, you know, so many people want to focus on being able to put holes into people as opposed to being able to treat them medically. The likelihood you're ever going to poke a hole in somebody is super low.

Starting point is 01:32:40 The likelihood you might pull up to an accident where somebody needs a tourniquet or a bandage or whatever it may be is high. So I have a medical kit in my car. You know, but I'm not, I don't have 300 days worth of food in the basement. I don't have a crazy water filtration system and water storage system. I'm prepared to be my own first responder to a degree. I am of course gonna have to leverage or levy other government entities to a certain point and people are like, oh, what if Civil War breaks out? And I'm like, well, then I have a lot of guns and bullets

Starting point is 01:33:14 because your supplies will become mine. Yeah, so. Yeah. Why don't you stockpile water? Because I know other people that are and they don't have any guns. So they can work for their water rash. Wow, what a way of thinking about it, right? It's right like I'm gonna get my hands on it no matter what yeah

Starting point is 01:33:28 I'm getting it but uh because we and my Jew to leave the world behind at the end of the movie I kind of led towards the Civil War was coming so this is it's all it's all in step is like project what is it Robbie? projective or Programming where they like predict the programing. Thank you you for clarifying it and you talked about Andy this divisiveness It's the powers that be that thrive on it divide and conquer we've heard that a million times in our in our In our lives they want us to be like this. They want us to hate each other We're trying to all get along we're trying to but they keep putting the race they keep doing this

Starting point is 01:34:01 They keep trying to divide us we see what they're doing what they you know, they keep trying to divide us. We see what they're doing, what they've, you know, they're trying to do with Trump. They're threatening all the people that are pro-Trump. They were the threat to democracy, were the deplorables, were the problem. I think if they see at some point that they can't keep this power and I do look, look at how many times they're trying to keep this guy out. Do you feel though, if it gets to a point where they're like, oh, shit, this guy's gonna win, they're not gonna drive and push the American people to get to that point. If something like that, if it gets to a point where they're like, oh, shit, this guy's going to win. They're not going to drive and push the American people to get to that point. If something like that, if a power outage goes out

Starting point is 01:34:29 on November 5th, I'm not necessarily saying people are going to want it, but it's going to be pandemonium. Don't you think? I don't know where the quote comes from, but it's nine meals from chaos. And that's basically where most first world countries are, if something were to happen.

Starting point is 01:34:43 We're about nine meals away, meeting three days from people starting to go at each other's throats. What I would remind you when it comes to the divisiveness, and this is something I have to remind myself, is that our participation in that system is optional. You know, the turning social media off for a little bit. There are other ways out there to communicate and connect with people

Starting point is 01:35:02 other than these main social media platforms. Podcasting is a great example of this. You think traditional news outlets love the fact that we're sitting here having a conversation outside of their purview, but more importantly, ad revenue? They're not having that shit. So you don't have to be on these systems. The reason I worry about divisiveness is that I have seen it, there's a lot of things I see online that do not bleed into my everyday life. These issues that people are screaming at the rooftops and it seems like everybody is talking about it and I've never had a single conversation with anybody in real life about it.

Starting point is 01:35:39 I have started to see some people like arguing face to face. And it breaks my heart because at the end of the day, your neighbor shouldn't be your enemy. You know, like I said, I've been a first responder to a few accidents before, and I've never pulled up to the vehicle and walked around to the back to see what their bumper sticker was.

Starting point is 01:35:57 Like, oh, you're on that side of the aisle, I'm not gonna provide help. Now, the only thing you care about is helping somebody who is in need. Why? Because they're a fellow American. Or maybe they're not American, right? Because obviously that would be an assumption.

Starting point is 01:36:09 You're a humanity. Just as a human being. Yeah. I don't give a shit about their political ideologies when they're leaking hydraulic fluid. I want to make that stop so they can continue on to live whatever type of life that they want to. I don't think it's accidental that we are being nudged towards that level of divisiveness,

Starting point is 01:36:27 but we are in absolute and total control over the amount of volume that we consume when it comes to that. And, you know, these anxiety rectangles that are in all of our pockets that we're on all day long, they're not helping the issue. It's a part of who we are in the life that we live, but people forget that it's optional. But I do think it is dangerous. Yeah, and it looks like it's getting, it's... I don't know if we're ever gonna get to Civil War. I hope not. I mean, the idea of people slug,

Starting point is 01:36:55 I mean, I just don't think people understand how grotesque and horrendous that actually is in real life. It's not a move. What does that look like? What does that look like? It depends on who you listen to. If you want to talk to some, you know, out in space dudes, they're going to make their, you know,

Starting point is 01:37:10 they're going to go get some like armored vehicle and just be driving into neighborhoods that they don't align with and mowing people down with a 50 cal. Like first off, you may have never left your mom's basement. You don't have the physical ability to climb into the back of that vehicle and probably not the mental capacity to actually end another human being's life, but sitting

Starting point is 01:37:28 there on your anxiety rectangle with your thumbs, it's really easy to talk about those things. I don't think we are as close as people say that we are, but I am worried that we are closer than we should be. So let's say November 5th, they do this power outage, everything goes down from voting centers to all the social, nobody could contact with each other. And we know the writings on the wall that they're cheating. I don't care who it is, could be the us, you know, the deep state working with China, what happens? What happens to the United States? I don't know, but I think we'd figured out. You really think? Yeah, you don't think people go nuts in the streets? Of course they would. But then they get hungry and tired.

Starting point is 01:38:05 They'll go home. Nine meals. Nine meals. Alfred Henry Lewis. Nine meals between mankind and anarchy. And I hope to God that people go, hey guys, this is what they're doing. Let's not let it ruin us. But that's easier said than done.

Starting point is 01:38:21 Because at the end of the day, we're human beings. We're going to go on instinct and lose lose our minds look what happened during COVID we're like a global pandemic that's gonna probably kill millions of us you know what people did they went to samson cosco and beat the shit out of each other for toilet paper that was the number one thing we're kind of support that actually it was super entertaining to watch some guy was selling it in the parking lot to me and i was like, dude, I'm good. Whoa, are you anti-capitalism? No, no, I know how it was.

Starting point is 01:38:48 Who are you to judge his business model? There is the guy. Very inappropriate. But the week before, I already bought a bunch of them the week before, but it's like, think about it, some little thing happens. I'm not saying it was little, but look at how we responded for COVID.

Starting point is 01:39:01 And the reality was there actually was enough for everybody. It was the instantaneous stress on the system by the few that put the majority at jeopardy. Exactly. And by the way, I think if it does, November 5th is going to be very different than what happened 2020. I think it's going to be very, very different. I don't think people are going to be okay with it. I think the reaction is going to be very interesting. And we'll see what happens next few months, by the way.

Starting point is 01:39:32 That's going to tell how ugly it's going to be. Because again, when you're playing against an opponent that if he and I fight, and you have the reputation of, let's just say fighting fair Okay, meaning you'll your weapons that you use I know those weapons But I have the weapons that I use that you know I have a bad reputation that I'll go use those weapons if We're willing to go to a certain level that you're not It's just a matter of time before you lose. So it's going to be very interesting what other weapons the establishment is going to use

Starting point is 01:40:10 the next eight months to see how they're going to, you know, divide America and prevent things from happening. If they do, I think it'll be very nasty. That's all I'm saying. If they do. Do you think our current political system is still viable? I think they're selling it constantly as a democracy and people are no longer calling it a Republic and in a republic you and I are protected in a democracy. We're not necessarily protected from the majority in a republic We are as individuals they prefer democracy democracy is never last republics do and More and more we Republicans are starting to say we're democracy heck What did Nancy go to Nikki Haley's Twitter account if you can go to Nikki Haley's Twitter account?

Starting point is 01:40:56 Just go to Nikki Haley's Twitter account. Let's see if she took off the video that she had pinned all the way to the top Oh, she removed it. Okay her video all the way way at the top. Matter of fact, is that pinned? That is pinned. Okay. So she hasn't removed the fantastic. Click on that tweet. Click on that tweet and go lower on response. Go lower, lower, lower, lower, lower. Not this one. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. She's talking to a guy. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. That's the one right there. Click on that one right there. Watch this. Keep going, keep going. That's the one right there. Click on that one right there.

Starting point is 01:41:24 Watch this. A tiny question? Yeah. Do you think it's responsible for the politicians spending like $100 million in Iowa on TV ads, which go to mainly news stations that have lied to us for years when there's homeless veterans out there that could use that money when you didn't even come close

Starting point is 01:41:49 to beating Trump you spent like a hundred million in TV ad money. Do you know my husband did that? That's fine, I'm just saying. I'm asking you. Do you know that when the media doesn't tell the truth the whole reason you put commercials on is to tell the truth because the media doesn't? My point is you're not gonna be trunked and all the money you're wasting could go to better causes. I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

Starting point is 01:42:10 That would make the Republican Party actually more... You know what, last time I saw a democracy. So we're gonna be forward for a good democracy. Thank you for your sorry. But even she, even Republicans are convinced America's a democracy. Yeah. So who gives a shit if her husband is a combatant? Like what is that? Even she, even Republicans are convinced America's a democracy. Yeah. So who gives a shit if her husband is a combat veteran? Like what is that? That is irrelevant.

Starting point is 01:42:29 That is completely non sequitur to the question that's being asked. Yeah. He asked a very good question. A hundred million dollars being wasted in Iowa. He asked a fantastic question and she's trying to say, I am a supporter of veterans and you know, my husband is a veteran and he's like,

Starting point is 01:42:41 that's not what I'm asking. That's not, it's the money that you're wasting when you know the race is lost. You started knowing you were going to lose. What a great question to ask though. I love it. You can tell she really enjoyed it. Yeah, very obvious.

Starting point is 01:42:54 When she said thank you for your service. By the way, even after making the announcement, even after making an announcement, she still has that tweet at the top. And you know what the tweet is by the way? You know what the tweet is the her tweet pinned all the way to the top What's it's all about making fun of Trump and go to play a thing He just can't help himself. I love that voice the ranting and raving Chaos follows him and he's getting older. We will reach so are we all

Starting point is 01:43:23 Peace through Earth. Running to settle old scores. It's about him, not you. Nikki Haley took on the establishment in Columbia. Then took on the world's dictators. A conservative, a patriot, who knows we're blessed to live in America. I'm Nikki Haley and I approve this message.

Starting point is 01:43:43 She left us at the time. She's dude. I love the music at the beginning. This dumb like it's all God catastrophic campaign, by the way, to stay this long. And what the next move for her is I'm telling you, by the way, did you hear what David Axelrod said about her today? Did you hear David Axelrod's tweet this morning, 7 30 in the morning, by the way, what he said, if you've just gone to it on top and David Axelrod's tweet this morning, 7.30 in the morning, by the way, what he said. Just go on Twitter and tap in David Axelrod, zoom in. And where he's specifically talking about her, is that the one?

Starting point is 01:44:12 No, zoom in a little bit and go higher. It's past seven hours. Nikhil, right there. Zoom in a little bit and show more. She showed skilled, strength, grit, determination to outlast a large field of challenges. She stood up to the principles more associated with the era of Reagan than the era of Trump. As the race narrowed, Haley steadily torqued up her criticism of Trump, but ambitious for a future in the GOP. Haley carefully, sometimes torturably navigated around the third rail,

Starting point is 01:44:39 refusing to hold Trump accountable to a principle of the government and fair election, provoking violence, or action that much courage was adjusted to cost by an ambitious politician who currently wants to reserve the option to fight another day. So when you get a compliment from David Axelrod, that is an invitation to say, if you were part of the Democratic Party,

Starting point is 01:44:58 we can actually do some great things with you and give you a great future. Maybe she'll consider that, I don't know. Maybe she'll consider, and you don't know. Maybe she'll consider You know what David Axelrod is. He's not a heavy metal guy He does that in a band? No, no, I thought you're talking about Axel. No, no, this is David Axelrod Oh, he's a consultant analyst for Barack Obama. Oh, he was a senior advisor to Barack Obama This is not a there's not a lot of positions like that. So she is now

Starting point is 01:45:28 praising Haley tells you where she's at. But yeah, going back to the Civil War stuff. I don't know. I think if we Go back in sell America for what it was founded on it's gonna be okay But if we're allowing them to do what they're doing and they're able to get away with it And we don't hold them accountable Then I think a shit shows around the corner. And who knows how big it's gonna be. But last but not least, I wanna keep the most important topic for the last one.

Starting point is 01:45:53 This one's an emotional one. And I'm wondering if you're gonna, you know, get emotional about this or not. Break down. I'll try to hold it together for you. Do your best to do that. And I wanna prep you, Rob. If you can pull up the Sean Strickland clip. Have you seen this or no? Yeah. Okay so Sean

Starting point is 01:46:08 Strickland says this and this one has a follow-up with a Navy SEAL guy in the back of it but he didn't you know he said something well I'll just let him tell you what he said about Navy SEAL go for it Rob. One fucking Navy SEAL who could survive a week training with me. I'm kind of sick of seeing it. Cause like you guys think you're badass. Don't train with me for a week. I'll show you what's up. I'll fucking break you. Sean, we get it.

Starting point is 01:46:32 You're a badass bro, but check it out. Your training partners give millions of dollars and they actually live. My swim buddies, they die every single year. Do you have any idea what that means? We've already proven that any kind of beat down will not break us, but our training will simply just end your career, Sean.

Starting point is 01:46:51 I'm talking about skin grafts on the thighs. Sean, you talk about taking people's souls from their body. Well, me and my boys, we've actually taken a lot of real souls from people. You know what I'm saying, bro? Your training is absolutely brutal, man. We get it, I understand. But your training doesn't kill dudes every single year.

Starting point is 01:47:13 And that's the world that we live in, brother. My best advice for you, Sean, is to stay in the Octagon, keep fighting for that next purse. In us seals, we'll keep fighting for your freedom, brother. So, is that guy active? No. seals, we'll keep fighting for your freedom brother. Is that guy active? No. Oh, he's not active. No. What do you think about what Sean said?

Starting point is 01:47:30 Because apparently- I replied to Sean on that video. Okay. Did you really? And he replied to me. Did he really? We had a completely professional conversation. Very cool. On Instagram. Okay. What he's talking about, I mean, like,

Starting point is 01:47:43 there is an essence, I understand what he is saying. He is talking about physically fighting in a ring. Comparison is the thief of joy. We can all agree upon this. He, you can't compare training to be a UFC fighter with the training of SEAL training or anything that the occupation comes from after that. It's not a fair comparison. I understand exactly what he was saying.

Starting point is 01:48:06 And he basically, at the end of it, he was like, dude, come out and watch a fight week. Because I'm like, hey, I have enough TBI and concussion. I don't need you punching me in the head. And he was totally professional, totally kind about it. He's playing a character. It's part of who he is and what he does inside of the UFC. If you

Starting point is 01:48:25 think that the seal or the guy who was a seal that responded him is also not playing a character, then I don't know what to tell you because that is one of the worst representations of the seal community possible. That guy? Yeah, he needs to shut the fuck up. Who is, who is a Navy seal? He was, who gives a shit what the job title used to be. Maybe Google, if the guy spent time in prison for fraud,

Starting point is 01:48:49 that'd be a good start for people when they want to listen to what he has to say about the SEAL community and taking souls and all these things. It's like, dude, you're a professional soldier. Stop being a clown on Instagram. And the only reason that he is responding in the manner that he is is to try to draw more attention from the video that Sean created That's a guy actually did a platoon with he defrauded many seals on the west coast

Starting point is 01:49:16 Was he a seal? Yes. Oh, what the hell was he doing? That's a different guy mortgage. Yeah, that's a different guy I'll leave his name out of it. Wow. Yeah, it's the guy who responded on that video. You know, it's again, it's not the same thing. Sean was talking about physically fighting in the cage for a short period of time. That guy was talking about the pipeline that, yes, people occasionally die in the pipeline. The skin grafts on your legs, that's from, he's probably talking about as the abrasion from sand during Hell Week because you're having so much. I know of zero people ever who have gotten a skin graft, and I can't speak for the community, I'm just saying in

Starting point is 01:49:52 my time, zero people ever who had gotten a skin graft on their legs because of that. Yeah, it's just, you know, do some research as to whether the guy worked with, I think his name was as to whether the guy worked with, I think his name was, was it McAfee? He, I'm pretty sure I'm not over my skis on this, but pretty sure he went to prison for fraud. And he's also, you know, he's trying to gain awareness for what it is that he is also selling. And people need to take both of those things

Starting point is 01:50:20 into context when you're thinking about it. Are you, is that Jimmy Watson, his name? Okay, got it, Rob. So it's Jimmy Watson. If you type in Jimmy Watson, you're gonna get... Yeah, it was a pump and dump scheme, essentially, for, I believe, a digital asset. Oh, really?

Starting point is 01:50:39 Yeah. So there was a lot of that going on a couple of years ago. This has to be recently. What year was it? It was 2022. Yeah, that was recently. There was a lot of that going on a couple years ago if this has to be recently that this would you realize this 2020 that was recently there was a lot of that going on a lot of guys did that this whole like we we've taken souls Shut the fuck up Shut up like dude it's Go right a Hollywood movie if you want to talk about it like that. Yeah, you know

Starting point is 01:51:04 It does that stuff absolutely. Why does that upset you? What part of it nauseates me? I was a professional soldier not a psychopath I am not out there trying to delicately navigate my way through the spiritual universe and take this soul and that soul and then It's like dude most of the time I maybe if I had a half a second to make a decision and a life and death matter I was happy, you know, sometimes you come had a half a second to make a decision in a life and death matter, I was happy. You know, sometimes you come, like, ah, the guy surprises you with a gun. It's not about, it's about doing your job in support of the overall mission,

Starting point is 01:51:35 which is in support of the overall theater guidance, which is in support of the overall policy of the United States of America. It's just this stuff gets romanticized, it gets portrayed poorly in Hollywood movies, and It's just this stuff gets romanticized, it gets portrayed poorly in Hollywood movies, and it's just like just take the drama down. I mean you're at a 10 sir, I need you at a 2. Exactly. You know. So I mean are you gonna be announcing today about the new podcast you and Jimmy Watson are doing this upwards. Yeah. I mean, is it called tendon to? No, you should see your face. God. But here's the thing, like there's so many people who would do that

Starting point is 01:52:13 just for the the short term return. And I want no part of any of that. By the way, you know, it's crazy when you're doing this. How to friend of mine, Jeff, I don't think you ever met him. You'll meet him dude So he gets out and he He reaches the seal team six level But on the army side and you know what that you know special opps is it's not you know special forces It's so anyways, he reaches that level my orders led to him being that okay, and for ten years I can't get a hold of this guy. So, assume I get out 99, 2000, I can't get a hold of him from 2000 to 2010, can't get a hold of him at all. And whatever the timeline is. And then eventually one day, I contact the Army to see if the guy's alive or not. I'm Googling all these

Starting point is 01:53:04 names, can't get a hold. Eventually I get an email. Hey, what's up B? Hey, we get together, we sit down. And he's about to ETS, he's doing his 20, and we have a serious conversation and he's emotional going through it. And I'm like, what's up?

Starting point is 01:53:20 I'm really going through a lot of things right now. Things on his third marriage, they don't work out. And you know how it is, when you're choosing that life, it's just divorce rate is high for cops. It's like this when you're choosing special ops. I remember going and getting interviewed for a fifth group and they said, before you choose to take this job, go sit down with these three guys that have been there

Starting point is 01:53:35 and they did 20 years. I go, so what do you think? What's more important to you? Serving your country or maintaining a marriage with your kids? So I don't want to have family and kids. It's probably not for you. What are you talking about? Cool. What's the next guy? I don't know. So I want to have family and kids. Just probably not for you. What are you talking about?

Starting point is 01:53:46 Cool. What's the next guy? I don't know. Yeah, I'm on my third marriage. Next guy. I'm on my fourth marriage. Really? Why?

Starting point is 01:53:53 What do you mean why? Do you know what you, and they're breaking it down for you? Do you, you sure? It's like almost they're pushing you away from the job, right? And I'm like, you know what? You guys did a great job selling me. I'm not choosing this life. I'm out.

Starting point is 01:54:06 I want to go, I want to go into business. I want to do bodybuilding. I want to do other things. At that time, I wanted to be the next Mr. Olympia. Anyways, it didn't happen, but I wanted to get out, get into Hollywood and bodybuilding. I talked to my friend who gets out and I'm seeing him on the camera.

Starting point is 01:54:20 And he's like, dude, I actually don't know what I'm going to be doing. And I'm having very weird thoughts. Okay. So I'm like, dude, I actually don't know what I'm gonna be doing. And I'm having very weird thoughts. Okay? So I'm like, dude, this is not good. I get on a plane and I go visit him in Madrid. And I haven't seen him for, since 1999, so 2000. I haven't seen him for, when did I go to Madrid?

Starting point is 01:54:38 2018, 2019. So 19 years I haven't seen him, we go to Madrid. He sees me, we hug, you know what kind of a hug it is? Like, dude, it's like the fricking kind of hug that you feel like a brother, right? And we're both emotional. Cause I love this guy. He loves me, he's my brother, right?

Starting point is 01:54:52 It's a very unique moment we're having. And it's recorded, our first hug, because I was with Steve and my guys. And then once everybody's away, we sit down and we start talking, I said, what did you see? He's like, let me tell you, I was at T-Crit, I was at this, I was at that, he was at that. He was at this. Okay, got it. I said, so

Starting point is 01:55:08 what do you think I should be doing when I get out? I said, do you want to start a podcast and talk about this and talk about that and talk about this? And he's like, no, I didn't do it. I can't do that. And his level of pride, there was a guy who was from his background, which I had in Frisco, Texas, who was the founder of this program that wrote a book about it. And he himself was so disappointed that the guy that was the founder of this program that they came up with for special ops on the Army side that was publicly talking about what that training was all about. Why would you do such a thing like that? That's his level of pride. So when you're talking like that and somebody does that, he's like, dude, I didn't do this for because I want the, you know, brag about who

Starting point is 01:55:44 I killed and who I did this and who I did that. So today, what does he do? Nothing related to this. He completely took a different route. And no matter how much I talk to him to say, hey, he said, I can't do that. I can't do that.

Starting point is 01:55:57 So that level of pride for men who see it from that perspective, you got to salute and give props to them. And for someone like you, brother, that you're sitting here, we are able to do what we do because brave men like you are willing to put your life on the line and I respect you for it. I thank you for your service. I've been looking forward to us speaking as well and my feeling of who you were when I'm watching, I'm like, and now you're exactly who I thought you were. I don't know if that's good or bad. You're a guy who was a proud man who served the country for the right reasons from the beginning,

Starting point is 01:56:32 why you joined, you still defend the decision that it's still honorable to go and get into that job. It's very obvious you love America and you love your father. All of that stuff is all characters of a great man, great human being. And I applaud you and I appreciate you for coming out. Really enjoy talking to you on today's podcast. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. This has been a blast. Okay, gang, Rob, are we doing, what do we,

Starting point is 01:56:54 do we have anything tomorrow or no? Yes, 9 a.m. tomorrow we'll be live with Shale Sonnen. Shale Sonnen tomorrow morning. Yes sir. Holy moly, that's gonna be entertaining. And then Friday, 9 a.m., we have Candace Owens and Chris Coma at the Comedy Club together to go live for three hours.

Starting point is 01:57:10 They've never sat face to face. I find 5990 live. 5990 Comedy Club, Cigar Lounge will be there together. Oh, it's gonna be wild. And then Saturday, for those of you guys that are going to the UFC, we can't wait to see you at UFC 299 card, which I believe is gonna be, they're saying it's a better card than 300.

Starting point is 01:57:29 It's a stacked card. If you're going to the UFC, wear some of the VT gear, PBD podcast, we'll spot you guys. Yes. We'll be going there deep with a big group. And oh yeah, that's right. Last but not least.

Starting point is 01:57:39 Yes. If you enjoyed Andy today, send them a minute, give them a shout out, follow his content, and he's got a podcast as well. Rob, let's put the link below in the description on the chat. Go follow his podcast as well, subscribe to it. Take care of what you ask me on these platforms. Yeah, let me answer some questions.

Starting point is 01:57:55 We're going to give you straight up answers. That's the issue. People don't always like the answers. Take care, everybody. Bye-bye-bye.

PBD Podcast - Former Navy SEAL Andy Stumpf | PBD Podcast | Ep. 376

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