The Joe Rogan Experience - #1115 - Mike Baker

Episode Date: May 9, 2018

Mike Baker is a former CIA covert operations officer. Currently he is the president of Diligence LLC, a global intelligence and security firm.

Five, four, three, two, one. Mike Baker, ladies and gentlemen. And we're live. Ladies and gentlemen. What's going on, buddy? Yeah, the usual. You're hiding from wolves over here? That's right.

That's right. I left the state of Idaho because we're overrun with wolves. Wolves and that's it. Yeah, that's all we got. I was just listening to a podcast where these guys were talking about wolves and about how they were hiking, and they found four dead, mature bull elk inside of a couple-mile stretch that had been torn apart by wolves, and they started to freak out. Well, I mean, two things we got this time of year.

We got a lot of wolves, and we got a lot of rattlesnakes. The rattlesnakes are starting to pop up and make their appearance. Getting a little warm. Yeah, exactly. And there are some seasons where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a rattlesnake. And of course, if you swing a dead cat, a wolf will show up. So that's not a good idea in case anybody's wondering. I've never been.

I'm going June 30th to Boise. I just announced the tickets today. That is fantastic. I'm excited to be there. but I keep hearing about Wolves. Is that a real issue up there, or is it people just exaggerating? Not at the CenturyLink Arena. It won't be a problem. So you should be safe from that.

But, yeah, bring your gear. And, you know, Idaho is an interesting place because, you know, it's a part-time legislature, right, which is the way I think all states should operate, which means everybody goes home to their jobs well if you just if you look at the top of the state the governor uh butch otter great guy brad little lieutenant governor terrific guy they're both ranchers right so full-time full-time well yeah basically um and uh they they look at it from a different problem you know a perspective right so in California, if you say you've got a wolf problem,

that raises one perspective and one issue. People go, no, we have a people problem. That's right, we have a people problem. The wolves are amazing. The people are assholes. Those wolves are so special. And in a place like Idaho, or you get a place like Montana or somewhere else, I suppose, they look at it differently, right?

It's a working issue that you got to sort out, particularly if you're a rancher or you're living off the land, whatever. So, but I tell you what, Boise is going to go crazy when they find out that you're coming up because you got, it's a huge fan base. They love you up there. It's all people stop me and want to talk about, right? I keep thinking, you know, some say, I'm sorry for interrupting. And I think, okay, they're going to ask maybe something about North Korea

or something about Iran or some bigot. Not that you're not a big issue, but then they'll say, what's Joe like? And, well, that's kind of what I say.

You go, what about Iran? What about North Korea? You fucking kids today, you don't even care. Damn it, did you know Joe's North Korean? You didn't know that,

did you? I'm on the seat tip. Oh, by the way, before I disappear down rabbit holes, I need to say your biggest supporter, your biggest fan probably in the entire UK is a young fellow named Jack Burton. I've known his family forever. I've known this kid since he was a baby basically and going to school with my daughter. And he is an enormous fan and highly respects what you do. He's getting his master's in physics, and I promised him I'd give him a shout-out. Oh, shout-out to Jack Burton. Jack Burton, man.

Stay out of Idaho. You'll get eaten by wolves. Yeah, they don't have that problem in London, although that would make some kind of movie. I think that's the werewolf out front. Oh, that's right. Yeah. A great space, by the way. Thank you.

Yeah. I haven't been here since you moved in. I'll give you the full tour. I didn't give you the gym side. Did you go to the other side? I have not. Not yet. No. The other side's where the gym is.

The gym and the indoor pool. Yeah. We've got a lot of stuff here. Yeah. It's a great... How big is it? It looks like about 200,000 square feet. No, it's 14.

Okay. 14,000. All right. But compared to the last studio. It's a lot bigger. I got bored with that other place. It's too little. You got to expand.

Yeah. Well, you get your rollerblades out and you can go do laps or something. I don't know. So we got a lot of shit to talk about, Mike Baker. There's a lot going on in the world. What are you scared about? What should I be scared about? Well, I mean, people are losing their minds right now over the past 24 hours because of Iran.

So what you're hearing is you're hearing a lot of the critics of the current president, and apparently there are some, that are saying, oh, he's inching us closer to a military conflict with Iran. Well, these are the same brainiacs that said he was inching us closer to war with North Korea, and everybody was completely wrong on that. It said he was inching us closer to war with North Korea, and everybody was completely wrong on that. I'm not saying that Rouhani and the others in the Iranian regime might not decide to become more bellicose, but I think they're looking at it wrong. I mean this idea that – because there's a couple of parts. Part one is that they're saying, oh, look, he doesn't have a plan B, implying that it's either this deal, which even our European allies say is inadequate, right, or it's a military conflict. And that's kind of what the previous president was all about. We either get this deal or we're having a military conflict. Well, no, there's other things in the works.

There's other options in that decision tree. And so I think that's a false premise. And the other thing, when they talk about it over the past 24 hours anyway, is that, well, look at this. This is going to make it harder to get a deal with Kim Jong-un from North Korea because he's going to think that we don't support our deals. Well, I look at it a different way. I think that Kim Jong-un is going to look at this and think, okay, they're not going to put up with an inadequate deal. So he's going to look at it and say, well, yeah, because nobody disagrees with the Iranian deal. They want to talk about how, look, the Iranians are complying with it. Well, the Iranians are complying with what they

agreed to allow in the deal, right? Which is none of their military sites. The number of times inspectors have actually gotten on and inspected a military site, including Parchin, the most important military facility in Iran, since that deal was signed in 2015, was zero. Haven't been there because the Iranians didn't agree to allow any of those sites in this deal. So that's like saying if you're a serial killer, you'll allow the police to come in and search your home, but you can't go in the basement. Not that all serial killers put their bodies in the basement, but I suspect that's the case. So anyway, it's an interesting thing, and I guess I wanted to throw that out there right off the bat because I think Iran right now is consuming so much of the oxygen for people out there. So people thinking that the reason why we're backing out of the deal is because the president's being unreasonable and we're forcing one. You're just saying it's a shit deal, period. Yeah. I mean, I think the idea that we have to stay in it because it's better

than the alternative when the alternative, you know, being war is not framing it properly. I don't think that that doesn't make any sense to me. But I think that the fact that the UK, the French, the Germans have all agreed publicly that it's an inadequate deal and needs to be fixed. That tells you something. But it also tells you that they have real strong financial incentives for continuing to do business in Iran. And as do Russia and China, frankly, the other signatories. So, you know, and also here's the other part. I mean, Trump, you know, what is it now? We're 16 or 17 months into Trump's administration.

So it's not like he got into the White House and the next day he canned the deal. He's been talking, but nobody listens to anything. I'm not a supporter of Trump necessarily. I mean, I want the government to work. So it's not that I'm supporting Trump. I support the government. I want the government to work, just like the previous administration. I wasn't a supporter of Obama, but, hey, I want it to work. I want the government to work. So it's not that I'm supporting Trump. I support the guy. I want the government to work, just like the previous administration. I wasn't a supporter of Obama, but, hey, I want it to work.

I want good things to happen. And, you know, so he, you know, he went out there and there was some talk about, look, let's see if we can't find some way to get rid of the sunset clause, some way to rein in their ballistic missile development program some way, although it's not going to happen, to rein in all the shenanigans, if you want to call it that, that they're engaged in in the Middle East. And that didn't happen. So I think he took a step that is not as god-awful as his critics would like us to believe. Well, isn't that a real problem? Your phone's going off over there, little fella. Oh.

You got to check your watch, too. What a world we're living in. I know. Look at that. This is good. Your phone, you got to check your watch. My wife got me this. This Apple.

Does it float? It does. It's waterproof, I think, to a certain period of time. But it does all sorts of things. I don't have a clue what it does. She got it for me so I could check my heart rate and just, you know, for health reasons, just, you know, if I'm out running or working out. And she said, yeah, you should have something like that because I refuse to wear a Fitbit or whatever they call it. What's the difference between a Fitbit and that?

Well, this, it's like Dick Tracy. If I knew how to do it, I could talk on my phone. I could answer it. It rings. I have no clue. It can't be too hard. I don't think it's that hard. Let's try it on air.

Yeah, okay. All right. Somebody call me. Somebody give me a shout. It seems like a great thing, but honestly, God, the only thing I've used it so far is to glance at the time and then to check my heart rate. All the other crap on there, and everything happens on it. So if I'm using my phone for directions directions i get directions on my watch right i mean it's a little bit overwhelming so i'm gonna go back to a normal watch i think and and if my heart gives

out it gives out yeah i got this uh g-shock it does all kinds of shit never used it once i use the time part but all the altimeter, and it works as a compass, and all kinds of shit. Compass is good. I think a compass is good. It's good to have. We spent a long time. This is how old I'm getting, I guess. But in our early training, we spent a long time working maps and compass, right?

Shooting azimuth and figuring out where you're at. Shooting azimuth? figuring out where you're at and trying to be and shooting azimuth. Yeah, you know, I mean, well, figuring out, you're basically, I don't want to, you know, sound oversimplify this, but you're basically triangulating and figuring out where you are at any given point in time, right? Why do you call it azimuth? Yeah, it's that is a very good question. And not one that I asked when I was in the in the outfit. That was one of those people that would just accept things as they were told to me. And that's why I got along so well. I never questioned anything, which is an interesting point. I don't want to roam all over this place. But today was confirmation hearings for Gina

Haspel. And I'll caveat this by saying I'm a big supporter of hers. I think she's an outstanding choice for this. She's the new head of the CIA. Right, the new director-designate for the CIA. And so today she went up on Capitol Hill, had open and then subsequently closed-door session with the senators. And some of the senators, the reason I bring this up is because

a handful of the senators were asking her and seemed focused on saying, well, you know, how about this rendition program, the rendition and interrogation program? How did you feel about it? What, you know, morally, what, you know, did you have any quandaries? You know, we know that you, you, you, you, you know, the agency was doing what was allowed within the Department of Justice because the Office of Legal Counsel was directing that from the Department of Justice for that program all those years ago. And laws have subsequently changed. But at the time, they didn't want to necessarily talk about that, because I don't think they wanted to highlight the fact that the DOJ had said this is, you know, what is able to be done. So instead, they focused on how did you

feel? And I guess the reason I bring it up is because when I was in the outfit, I'm not a deep thinker, right? So I never stood around and thought to myself, how do I feel about this on any given moment? Right. I mean, no matter what we were doing, it never occurred to me to sit there and question it. You know, as long as we knew what we were doing was proper and legal and was pursuit of, you know, tasking from national security concerns, then, yeah. And I don't think you want your military or your intel service,

I don't think you want everybody out there at the pointy edge of the spear, you know, saying, well, I'm going to do things based on how I feel about it in the moment. And it just seemed like a strange line of questioning. That is a strange line of questioning. Who was responsible for that? Let me think. There were actually three or four. Senator Reid and all Democrats, obviously.

Trying to understand. So what they did then was different than what is legal today. Is that the case? Yes, exactly. So the DOJ in the wake of 9-11. There's so much here. In the wake of 9-11, you think about the context. Most here. I mean, in the wake of 9-11, you think about the context. Most people, you know, young people don't even know what it feels like, right?

And other people have forgotten or they're just tired of it all and they don't want to think about it. But in the wake of 9-11, there was a feeling. There was a sense, right, that it was going to happen again. And there certainly was evidence. And there was a very large effort here to try to ensure that we protected American lives. So the DOJ was issuing very clear guidance on what could and could not be done for the rendition and interrogation program. And that guidance was then provided to the general counsel of the agency that was then disseminated to personnel out in the field. And tell people, so if they're just listening to this for the

first time, what you used to do for the CIA so they understand that you're coming from a position of, you actually understand this stuff. Yeah, I was in the operations directorate. So the agency is made up of, essentially, they change the name sometimes, but four directorates. So you have operations, you have intelligence, which is all the smart people, the reports or officers, or sorry, the analysts. You have science and technology, which is where they develop all the amazing gear that comes out of the agency, a lot of which then ends up in the commercial sector. So if anybody's walking around with a defibrillator, that battery technology came out of S&T research,

drones, satellite technology, the U-2 stealth program. U-2 plane was developed out of and run out of the agency. So incredible things had come out of there. And then admin. But I was in the operations directorate and worked on everything from counter-narcotics operations to counter-insurgency operations and then obviously counter-terrorism operations. counterinsurgency operations, and then obviously counterterrorism operations. So I guess the point is that, I mean, there's something here, I'm not quite sure how to explain it. But there's an interesting point that I think I've been pondering, which is that listening to the hearing today, and listening to the way that the senators,

the Democratic senators who were looking to kind of make this the key issue, that the senators, the Democratic senators who were looking to kind of make this the key issue, there's a sense of, we're not putting it in context of the time and the national mood. And that's a dangerous thing because the laws were different than they are now. And they were different. And what that means is that because in the wake of 9-11 – and I don't want to say that values change, but I think that they do in the sense of what people are willing to do. And whether you're talking about, okay, we're willing to have a rendition interrogation program in the wake of 9-11. Now we're not, of course. So I think it's – anyway, I think there's a danger to that line of questioning where they kept talking about how did you feel about it. It's not – they're mixing this and I'm not eloquent enough to explain it. But I found it fascinating that that was a question they wanted to focus on.

real danger to people or for people that don't have any experience in actual war or really understand combat or really understand what can happen and what can go wrong in talking about it with the same sort of language that you would use to describe office politics yes yes i think that's see that's what i it, that's what I was trying to say. You know, how do you feel? How do you feel about this? We don't want a bad

work environment. Should we torture? No, we want to save lives but we don't want this guy to feel bad. We don't want him to feel bad.

And I mean, look, there was actually this, some people were entertaining the idea that, you know,

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would come out and, you know, talk to the senators, you know, as they're going through this confirmation process about what? Explain who he is.

Well, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9-11. And he actually requested to talk about her. Right. And about his torture. I guess he just wanted to reflect on the whole, you know, from his perspective. And isn't he still locked up? Yeah. He's still in Guantanamo Bay?

Yeah. God forbid he should rot in jail. But I think that's sort of where we've come to. And I think in part, again, because there's distance, right? There's time. So anyway, she should, again, she should be confirmed. The whole rendition interrogation program was reviewed ad nauseum, thousands of pages written. And interestingly enough, a lot of the people up there on the Hill right now in this confirmation process, the senators who are saying that're, you know, or in reality, this is more about Trump than it is about her, which, you know, I don't want to be shocking

anyone by saying that perhaps there's political grandstanding going on. No way. But she is eminently qualified. That never happens. No, it wouldn't happen up there. Not in America. Maybe somewhere else. Not here.

Yeah. So anyway. So you support her. You think she's an excellent choice. Look, seven operational tours, several management positions. And I guess at the end of the day, it comes down to I would rather have somebody who's gone through that experience. She played a small role. She was not a senior person.

By the way, John Brennan was far more senior in the organization at the time of that program being run. And he was confirmed as President Obama's director. So maybe the senators have a different standard for a female candidate. I don't know. Do you think it's that or do you think it's maybe more time since 9-11? You know, obviously Obama came into office. It was not that long after 9-11. There were still, you know, seven years later, still thoughts in people's mind about it.

Well, interesting enough, I mean, that was in 2013 when he was confirmed. But in 2009, he was, they wanted to confirm, or they wanted to bring him up as the appointee for the director of the CIA. Again, it would have been President Obama's first term. But they decided not to because they, for the reason that they thought, well, maybe it's too close to after the, and they didn't want to go through the heartburn of having this process. So instead, they brought him into the White House. He became assistant to the president and deputy national security dude for counterterrorism. And then four years later, they brought him in as a, you know, and confirmed him as the director for the CIA. So I guess, and he has now come out in support of Gina Haspel, the new director designdesignate. So I think she will get there, as she should.

The focus should be going forward. She's been very clear about we are not revisiting the old days of rendition interrogation. It's not going to happen. And she's been very clear about that, including today during the hearing. So hopefully it'll get done because it would be nice to think the senators would do their job and choose somebody who's appropriate for the job. Well, it's just it's strange who gets to choose and who doesn't get to choose who runs an organization like the CIA and whether or not they have an actual understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. Yeah, that's a really good point, because some of the questions today from some of the senators made you believe that perhaps they don't really.

They do. I don't want to be glib. You know, look, they all sit on the committees. They theoretically are privy to all this information. There is a very well-worn path that goes from Langley, where the agency headquarters is based, up to Capitol Hill. From briefers going back and forth and back and forth and discussing programs. They're classified material, but these people, the Gang of Eight, the people that are the minority, majority leaders, the heads of the committees, the intel committees, they're all privy to this information. And they were all privy to the information about the rendition program and

the interrogation program. And they all knew about it. There were no objections raised at that time, 2002, 2003. So these people all knew about it. So maybe those senators are asking her how she feels about it now. Maybe they should turn around and look in the mirror and ask themselves how they feel about it. But they're not going to do that. So anyway, enough said. She's eminently qualified. Should happen.

Because we've got big issues. We've got Iran. We've got North Korea. We've got the dealings with China and the South Pacific. We've got issues with Russia. We've got a lot of things going on. I know what I really wanted to ask you about, because we've been discussing this, and I don't really understand it. It was about Huawei, that Chinese company, electronics company,

they make these kick-ass phones, and the State Department has said, please do not buy them. Yes. Yeah. Along with ZTE, another corporation. Yeah. Along with ZTE, another corporation. If you start from the premise that China is the number one perpetrator of economic espionage and theft of intellectual property, and also, by the way, the number one perpetrator out there of cyber shenanigans, you know, activity in cyberspace. Because it's so bad with theft of intellectual property, they have fake Apple stores over in China with all fake Apple stuff. Yes.

Fake Apple laptops, fake Apple phones, everything fake. The labels look identical. None of it is actually Apple products. And it all works, frankly, as well. Does it? Yeah. I mean, it's all good stuff. You know, I would say, yeah, it's astounding.

And so the reason why they're raising the alarm with Huawei and ZTE is because of the voracious appetite of the Chinese government and their commercial sector for information. And it's a little bit like shutting the door after the horse is headed down the hill, because we're late to the game. They've been doing this for years and years and years. They've been, oddly enough, a lot of our military gear have parts in it manufactured in China. And so we should have been raising the concern about this and talking with China and trying to come to terms with this issue years ago. We're trying to have that conversation with them now. And up on Capitol Hill, the Congress is trying to enact legislation kind of like this Huawei thing. They're doing it in a clumsy fashion. But the overriding principle is correct in that China made some decisions years ago that they were going to become a major power in the world in a certain time frame.

And to do that, by definition, you've got to compress your research and development time, right? By definition, you've got to compress your research and development time, right? And there's one way to do that, essentially, and that's to steal information, to acquire information, if I want to be diplomatic about it. And that's what they've done. Japan came out of World War II, and their idea was we're going to become a major power through manufacturing. And so they did. They built up their manufacturing base and created this amazing result. China decided we're going to skip the R&D for the most part,

and all that entails the cost and time involved, and they're very adept at it. They throw an enormous amount of resource out there into hoovering up everything, not just from us, but from everybody, and using that to advance their goals. They have no firewall between their intel service, the PLA, military intelligence and others, and their commercial sector. So, you know, not only are they there to protect national security, they're there to promote the commercial side of China. so important. And so that's why they're talking about Huawei, because of the potential for them to use their reach to further their desire for information, whatever it may be. They'll hoover it up and then decide whether it's useful or not. But they have the resource to do that, as opposed to, you know, a smaller country that maybe doesn't have the resource and is much more

targeted and focused on their intel collection or their efforts to gather information. So that's sort of the, you know, that was a wordy explanation. No, but it makes sense. And when I read it, I read a bunch of tech articles where people were questioning whether or not it's even possible for Huawei to be using those phones to spy on people. But then there were some other articles where Huawei was being charged with, what was it again that they were using? They were selling illegal technology to Iran? There was something they were-

They were breaking the sanctions, I think. Yeah. They were- No. No, I'm saying shocked. No. That couldn't happen. Yeah.

But is- Wow. So they were selling things to Iran, and this was a big part of it. What the tech people were saying, they were incredulous. Here, Huawei under... Is that you again, you son of a bitch? Jesus Christ. I've turned this thing off, too.

I don't understand why it keeps going. It's your watch. You know what I would do? I would put it on airplane mode, but I don't have a clue how to put it on airplane mode. I'm going to swipe up from the bottom. Jamie, can you swipe up from the bottom? Okay, everybody get your phones out. Your fucking watch is ringing.

Get your watch out. I feel like Dick Tracy. It really does feel like Dick Tracy. When we were kids, the idea of talking on your phone would be so ridiculous. That's never going to happen. Can you do that for me? You got your password on. Oh, Christ. When you never going to happen. Can you do that for me? You got your password on. Oh, Christ.

When you take it off, the password comes on immediately. Oh, really? No, no, that's a dial tone. That's a keyboard for... Oh, that's the keyboard. Yeah, yeah. I don't even know... Right now, people are thinking, really? That guy worked at the CIA? Yeah. Let's listen to him. It's perfect when you're...

It's hilarious because you're talking about technology, and then this happens. So we're talking about whether or not we should be worried about Huawei, and you can't even figure out how to use your fucking watch. Yeah, well, I'll tell you what. That's perfectly understandable. Anybody that knows me knows that that's the case

because, I mean... And to be fair, back in the old days, again, we had compasses and maps. Yeah. But even when we started developing new technology and gear, quite um if you got to go out and do anything the first thing you do is throw everything away that's got a battery in it right yeah and so we weren't necessarily you get you dumb it down because you assume something's going to go wrong right and usually it does um and usually it's based on on kit on gear and yeah, I never really became very adept at it.

We've got a – I've got three little boys, Scooter, Sluggo, and Muggsy. And I got them. Those are hilarious names. And they're hilarious. They're great kids. But we've got a gaming system. I'm trying to remember what the hell. Xbox or PlayStation?

Xbox. It's Xbox. And because my youngest, Muggsy, he's six. And so he still says, he still pronounces words, right? So it's Xbox. And it's very cute. I can't do it. It sounds stupid when I do it.

But when he does it, it's enormously cute. So we got this thing and I'll sit there with him and try to play like NBA 2K or something. And it just doesn't work. It's not intuitive to me. There's nothing that's intuitive about it. Kids know how to finagle shit and press the right buttons. They're not scared of it. They just assume they're going to get it.

They can unlock hidden characters by moving the joystick a funny way. Yeah, Muggsy talks to LeBron James directly. Apparently they communicate through Xbox now. Interesting. Yeah, I know. There you go. So the tech people that are skeptical, directly apparently they communicate through xbox now so yeah i know interesting there you go so the the tech people that are uh skeptical what they're saying is that if huawei really did have something

in their phones that allowed them to spy on people you'd be able to find it and the tech guys would find it do you buy that um here here's what i would say about that is that I'm sure there's obviously a lot of very smart tech guys and within diligence for all your information and security needs. We have some very smart tech people. But when you're talking about the Chinese state and the resources and capabilities that that entails. Yes, if you're if you're saying that NSA could possibly detect this, but if you're talking about just dispersing kid out into the marketplace and the way that that thing gets spread and disseminated and inserted into companies and then potentially allows points of access into these businesses.

And again, it doesn't matter. It's not like they just have to go after IBM or Raytheon or something. They're going after everything because it potentially is all of interest to them. So their idea is to just steal as much technology and as much intellectual property as they can and recreate it over in China. That has been the plan. I don't want to keep, you know, I don't want to, you know, demonize an entire nation. Right, exactly. But they have proven themselves enormously adept at doing this. And not that others don't, right?

Russia does the same thing, a variety of others, even a lot of our allies. Everybody, to the degree that they have the resources and the motivation and they consider it an issue related to national security, whatever it might be, they're willing to do it. They're willing to try. So it is interesting. They're willing to do it. They're willing to try. So it is interesting. But, yeah, the Huawei thing and the ZTE, again, I think the rollout of that concern and the rollout of sort of trying to provide guidance has been a little clumsy. So one thing that was speculation was that people didn't have to worry about the phones, but what essentially they're trying to do is cripple the company financially and not allow them to get a foothold in America because they're

the third largest cell phone manufacturer in the world. Number one, Apple. Number two, Samsung. They're number three, but in America, no one knows who they are. And so the idea is what they're trying to do is make sure that the Chinese government doesn't get a foothold in this country where those companies, or Huawei, the company Huawei, becomes a popular brand for people to buy. And that would allow them, even if they didn't have any spy device on this phone, it would allow them to get other devices

into people's homes that could potentially spy on them. And then more importantly, get into companies and spy on the companies. And this was one of the pieces of speculation that I read about was that they had certain servers that were sending an exorbitant amount of information out, and they were trying to figure out what was going on with them. And that there was like an excessive amount of information that was data that was leaving the servers versus coming in. And they're like, this really seems like some fucked up shit's going on with this. Right.

Huawei, first of all, Huawei is already present here in the country. They manufacture a lot of things besides phones. And so they've already got a pretty big footprint in this country and with our allies as well. So I mean, I think it's smart to consider the nature of a particular regime or government, you know, when you're talking about the potential for their products to enter into the commercial sector where they may have access. Because if they've shown a pattern of activity for acquiring intellectual property, which is, again, a very delicate way to put it, then I don't think it's a stretch to say we should be concerned by their efforts to put communications gear, even if it seems pedestrian at the outset, into the marketplace. So I'm not sure that I'm buying the idea that it's some nefarious plan to shut out Huawei so that they don't get a foothold in the phone business. No. And I say that because I've been, you know, 30 years I've been, you know, dealing with the Chinese in terms

of their efforts to acquire information, both in the government and commercial side of things. efforts to acquire information, both in the government and commercial side of things. So I come at it from a very cynical point of view, much like I do with the Iranian issue and the likelihood that they have not been living up to their part of the bargain. And people will say, well, again, I go back to the same thing. Well, but we've been inspecting and they've been complying with all of that. Well, yeah, you know, this limited amount of inspection that we have to their civilian sites. It's not a secret, you know, at this point, it shouldn't be a secret that, again, we have no access to their military facilities. So I tend to look at things in that view. And if I see a pattern of activity, I'm very reluctant to think they're somehow going to stop that pattern of activity for whatever reason.

So again, North Korea, same thing. The problem with all of this, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and chemical weapons, the problem with all of that, I realize I'm kind of jumping around, I'm just a while ways over here, but is the verification issue. It's always the weak link in any type of agreement related to containing a weapons program is verification. And we know that. It's something we should know anyway. We seem to keep forgetting it. So unless we can lock that down with the North Koreans, then a deal with them or a deal with the Iranians or a deal with the Syrians over their chemical weapons efforts, it's not worth anything.

So that's where the focus has to be. And it's not worth anything. So that's where the focus has to be. And for whatever reason, the previous administration was keen to get this deal done. And they were willing to set aside this issue of all the military sites, set aside the issue of ballistic missiles. And by the way, the deal that the president has just scuttled, did nothing to impact or affect or tamp down or moderate their behavior. They've got more influence in the Middle East than they've had ever before. They're engaged in more activity related to the countries in the Middle East against our interests than they have been in decades. So that all by itself should tell us, well,

I'm not saying that they're using all the money we gave them to support actions against our interests by Hezbollah or by the Revolutionary Guard or others, but they are. And so, again, I don't have a lot of angst over the idea that we step away from the deal for a period of time. Maybe we can come up with something better. And we should. We should always keep diplomacy open. Always have a channel of communications. That's important.

Keep doing that. But be pragmatic and realistic about what you got. Right now, we don't have that much. And don't buy Huawei phones. Well, I would. Interesting enough, you know what? That actually came up. I know.

They make a great phone. But that came up in the CIA confirmation cia confirmation hearing oh really yeah they literally said um i forget which senator it was asked gina haspel about huawei and zte and um i don't know where they were going with it but then it devolved into just trying to get us all those senate confirmation questions do it just comes you know the senator saying well i just want a yes or a no answer. Like, wait a minute. Why don't you want some detail? So they would say, yes or no, would you buy Huawei?

And Gina Haspel was like, well, no, I wouldn't buy a Huawei phone. Okay. There's your answer. But I'm sure it left a lot of people wondering and scratching their heads thinking, what are they talking about Chinese phones for? That's a weird thing to ask someone, yes or no. It seems like a pretty complex situation. are they talking about chinese phones for that's a weird thing to ask someone yes or no it seems like a pretty complex situation yeah are you uh are we gonna take care of north korea yes or no you know come on what does that mean well i you know what it becomes a bit of a sideshow and it's

a format as well any confirmation hearing is you know five minutes for each senator and yeah you can't you know they spend three minutes making a statement right you know that they can then you know send back in sound clips to their constituents. Maybe they get a question in, and it kind of goes from there. So you don't really learn much, which is fine. They learn a lot in the closed-door sessions, and we rely on the senators to make decisions when it's classified information on behalf of the people they represent. So that's how it's supposed to work. Eh, what do I know?

I always like to finish my sentences with, what do I know? And my wife always says, why do you do that? Why do you, you know, you're leaving the impression that you don't know anything. And so people are going to say, well, why? It's good. Why is he talking to you? Gets you off the hook a little bit. Yeah, I guess.

Let me get out of here. What do I know? See ya. It is what it is. Think about what I said. What the fuck do I know? It's like running up the flagpole. Yeah.

See who salutes. What are you most concerned with if you look at all the international stuff that's going on? Yeah, that's a really good question. Is there one thing that you don't think people are looking at? Well, you know, I give people a lot of credit. I think people are a lot more engaged than sometimes I think the media gives them credit for. I mean, at least the conversations I have when people want to talk about something other than Joe Rogan, I get the impression that they're paying attention to what's happening out there.

You know, Iran, is it a big deal? Well, it is a big deal, but it's a regional issue, and I think there is a way we're going to get some success here. I think it actually is going to work out to our benefit. I'm not buying the doomsayers who say it's all heading to a conflict. So I am not looking at that one. Nothing really stands out. I guess if you said what's the biggest concern from a security perspective to the country, it would be the same thing it's been last year and the year before and for a number of years,

which is the frailty of our infrastructure and its susceptibility to either cyber attack or physical attack. And that's – It's like the power grid. Power grid. The internet. Yeah, all of that. There was some concern with Russian submarines camped out over the Internet lines in the ocean. I know. Which sounds like a Cold War movie, right?

Yeah. But it happens. I mean, the Russians never thought there was a peace dividend from the end of the Cold War. They never thought the Cold War ended. And we all act surprised that Putin was engaged in meddling in the 2016 election. Of course he was. They've been doing that forever. So...

And we have to them as well, right? Oh, I don't know about that. Well, yeah. Maybe from a defensive point of view. Sure. We're just looking out for our own interests. Yeah. I mean, here's what I would say about that is, and again, everybody speaks from their own experience.

People have their own perspective. My perspective is based on what I've seen in a lot of places around this planet. We better hope we do it, and we better hope we do it well, because it's a very aggressive world out there. And so when people kind of roll their eyes and go, oh, well, we do it as well. So we're kind of like dismissing the whole activity. I guess my point is, yeah, I get what you're saying. Okay, I'm not saying it from a self-righteous point that the Chinese are very good at acquiring intellectual property, or I'm not saying it from a self-righteous point that the Russians have been meddling in our elections. I'm just saying that's the way it is.

You better hope we do it very, very well. That's my argument for people that are super progressive and really liberal when it comes to these conversations. I always say, all right, if the world is the way it's described, if China really is constantly meddling, if Russia is really actively trying to sabotage our elections, if Iran is really doing what they're, what should we do? You don't think that we should be involved in meddling? You don't think we should be involved in manipulating or monitoring or making sure that our interests are safe or that we're not going to get attacked? The idea that we're never going to get attacked again or no one's going to get attacked, that

doesn't even, when you look at human history, that is completely preposterous. The idea that all attacks and all war is going to somehow or another stop because you eat vegan. That's fucking crazy. I mean, that's a crazy way to look at the world, and that leaves you incredibly vulnerable to attack. No, it does. It does. But you're right. I hadn't thought about it, but that is this notion that if we just – we have to speak to our better angels. Yeah.

Oh, Jesus. Well, that's great because nobody else is going to. Right. Every other nation acts in its own best interest, and we're the ones who seem to always apologize for it. But we better hope that we do because it is a chaotic, messy, aggressive place out there. And you may want it to be different, but it's not. And it's kind of like that questioning today in the CIA-designated confirmation hearing, how do you feel about it? Well, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how you feel about it.

What are the laws on the books? Follow those laws. Protect the American interests and national security. And if you don't feel good about it, then leave and go do something else. But this idea that somehow we're all going to – could you imagine a combat gate out there and half of them decide, well, I don't really feel good about this particular action. Maybe we should stay back. That's not how the world works. So I don't know.

Hey, it would be great if we all could be better people. Isn't it, again, we're talking – and this is coming from a person that hasn't experienced combat. But we're talking about a bunch of people that really don't understand and really haven't seen things that you've seen or seen the things that the military seen. And they're talking about the world in this sort of idealized rose colored glasses view of things that's not accurate. And so their their version of what America should do is based on it's based on ignorance and this idea that we don't need intelligence. We don't need a military. We don't need a presence in all these other countries. I just don't, I don't buy that. I don't think that makes sense when you look at all the different conflicts that are going on in the world. Yeah, I know. I agree. I think that there is a,

there's an element out there that says, if we just take Iran as an example. I've spoken with people who honestly seem to believe that – in part because the previous administration – I mean now former Secretary Kerry is out there publicly and President Obama is out there. They're all saying, well, but the Iranians have been complying. So it's – they're implying that it's our fault. It's our fault for backing out of this. It's our fault that somehow that the Iranians have been cheating on the missile sanctions. The UN even agreed at the end of 2014 that in just in October of that year, the Iranians had been busting agreements related to their ballistic missiles and their development. And we signed that agreement a few months later, three months later, right?

It happens. No matter what you may want to think, it's a messy place out there. I would love it to be different. I would love everybody to get along and it would be great. Think what we could do if we didn't have a defense budget and we could all be happy. Yeah, it'd be wonderful. Flowers everywhere. Oh, my God.

And unicorns. Maybe not unicorns. I guess that Oh my God, and unicorns. Well, maybe not unicorns. I guess that physically, that just wouldn't work. You can make one now with all the money that you don't spend on war. That's right. I could probably have one pop out of my watch if I knew how to work it. I'm impressed I know the passcode. I was about to

actually do the passcode and say it out loud. You ever find yourself doing that when you're typing a number? I was about to do that here while I was putting in my passcode. Anyway. Well, people are always going to have an idealized version of the world, especially when they don't experience it themselves. But I think that for the most part, when people think of intelligence communities, if they think about the CIA or the FBI, generally, for whatever reason, in America, you get a

negative response. CIA or the FBI, generally, for whatever reason, in America, you get a negative response. People don't think about it in terms of something that's necessary and beneficial and really a cornerstone of the protection of the people in this country. They don't think of it that way. No, I think that's been a tradition. You could go back to World War II, the end of World War II. OSS, which was the founding organization that then became later on the CIA, amazing people involved in OSS. And basically, what they did during the war was incredible.

So anyway, but they do this. And while Bill Donovan was the head of OSS. So imagine all these dedicated people dropping in behind enemy lines, both in the European and Japanese theater, and engaged in all this activity for the years that it took to win that war. And we got out of the war. We finished. And I'm assuming most people listening know how that ended. And Truman literally just kind of writes a little note to Bill Donovan.

I've seen the note. And it says, you know, Bill, you know, hey, great job. Thanks so much. Wrapping it up. You know, all the best. Good luck in the future. And they shut down OSS, right? They don't need it anymore.

They didn't need the intel service because we won the war and things are going to be looking pretty good. They didn't need the intel service because we won the war and things are going to be looking pretty good. Well, about a year later, you know, they got the band back together because what was happening, the Soviets were running, you know, all over the place. And it was the Cold War. And the Soviets had no intention of being benign and living in a community of nations. And so suddenly they got the band back and said, OK, so that's when the CIA was created, 1947, at the end of the Cold War, not that long ago, although it seems like ancient history now. There were a lot of serious people in Washington, D.C. when the wall fell, who basically said, let's wrap up the agency. We don't need the CIA anymore. So there's this pattern of people want, and that's good. People want to think the best and that's a good thing.

I mean Americans tend to be – whether it's ideological or naive or just optimistic, whatever it is, that's a good thing, right? But it butts up against the reality of how the world actually works. Well, because in America, things are pretty good. I mean they're about as good as it gets in the world when you wander around America. For as large a nation as this is, things are pretty goddamn good for the most part. And I think that's part of the problem is that these people, they're not traveling to these war zones. They're not experiencing. I've talked to so many people that have been overseas and been to these places of conflict.

And they come out with a dark view of what is possible if you're in the wrong place on the planet. Yeah, what people can do to each other is a, yeah, it can get messy. But I think there would be value if somehow we could enact some program where everybody had to spend a couple of years in service of some sort, military service or overseas service. I know we had the Peace Corps and all of that. And high school kids say, well, I went to Bermuda and I built a house for a week. So I got my international experience.

Well, that's better than nothing. It's better than nothing. But, I mean, I think something that would mean people would have a little more skin in the game. But you're right. I mean, you go to some of these places, fourth and fifth world countries, and you do realize. And people roll their eyes, but, damn it, this is the best country in the world. And I say that repeatedly, and I believe it firmly. We make mistakes.

There's no doubt about it. But we tend to course correct. We try. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. No matter what administration is there, we try to do the right thing. And so when people talk about us just stepping off and not worrying about our place in the world, someone's going to try to take that position on the ladder, and it's not going to be as benign as we tend to be. Again, I realize we make mistakes. Fine. Okay, fine. I'm not going to self as benign as we tend to be. Not always. Again, again, I realize we make mistakes.

Fine. Okay, fine. I'm not going to self-flagellate over it. But, you know, still, we do a pretty damn good job. We try to be the moral authority of the world or the moral compass, at least. I mean, that's the thought process behind it for the most part. That's the thought process, yeah. And, you know, sometimes, again, it's a human endeavor.

So it's not going to work all the time. Don't you think the people are more open to this idea that it's necessary now because of the Russian situation and because of understanding the amount of power that Putin wields and the way he has just really ultimate control over that part of the world? I mean, he really does. I mean, you could drone on all you want about Democratic elections, but we all know that's horseshit. I mean, he fucking kills anybody over there that's a legitimate threat, kills anybody over there that's a journalist.

Not just over there. I mean, look, they tried to bag Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. She was collateral damage. They put some shit on a doorknob that they touched with their hands and then did them in and put them in the hospital. And who knows if they're even going to recover from that. I mean, think about it. She's out of the hospital now.

She's doing good. He's doing a little bit better. But, I mean, think about what that entails as an operation, right? Not that they haven't. They've been doing this since they killed, what's his name, Trotsky in Mexico, right? I mean, this is what they do. But, you know, Markov, Litvinenko, Alexander Litvinenko, they killed him with polonium. And that was just a handful of years ago.

So they go after Sergei. He's living in a small, relatively small, quiet British town, Salisbury. And so that requires them to surveil Sergei. They've got to get – because you always have to do that. You've got to do some operation like this. You've got to know what you're getting into. You've got to figure out how you're going to do it. So there's a lot of – you've got to front load all that work, right?

So they're doing all the surveillance. They're figuring out what their operational game plan is going to be. This is in the work, right? And so they're doing all the surveillance. They're figuring out what their operational game plan is going to be. You know, this is in the UK, right? And their whole point of the exercise is to teach other people, don't, you know, betray us. Right. And so, you know, then they put this on the doorknob. They didn't care who else touched that. It wasn't like they could guarantee that, you know, postmen and a variety of visitors weren't going to come through the door. So they really don't care.

Yeah, he is definitely – he's an old-school KGB, very easy cat to understand. And we've always kind of acted like we don't get it or somehow he's going to change his stripes. He's never going to change his stripes. And he's going to always act in what he believes to be the best interest of what he would like to believe is still the former Soviet Union. Yeah, and Garry Kasparov was talking about him, and he's a vocal critic of Putin. And he was saying that if you look into all the different companies that they've confiscated and acquired, this is what they do. If they have a political enemy, they essentially just take over their company and charge them with some sort of a crime and throw them in jail. They do this to billionaires.

Khodorkovsky. He spent years in jail. And his mistake was he started getting political aspirations. So the deal has always been with Putin as far as the oligarch is concerned. You keep your nose in business. You focus on your business. There's going to be a cut going towards the government. So the deal has always been with Putin as far as the oligarch is concerned. You keep your nose in business, right? You focus on your business. There's going to be a cut going towards the government, and you're good because it furthers my agenda, right?

You're building up these businesses, and we're making some money on the side. But as soon as any of them start to veer off that path and maybe get some political aspiration, then it's done. And that's when he turns on them. And he's been very effective at doing it. Yeah, I mean, terrifyingly so. And does it open publicly? Yeah. Yeah.

Because, again, we look at it from a different perspective. We look at it and go, like, how could people with a straight face, you know, stand by while he gets a fourth term and is just, like, you know, president for life? Well, look over at China. Xi has spent the past few years locking that down, right? Building up the security apparatus, you know, kind of stepping on this idea that somehow there's a rule of law. He's now built back up this cult of personality that we haven't really seen since, you know, Deng Xiaoping or certainly Mao, and he's there for good. And so that gives them a strategic advantage, right? Because they can look at problems in the long haul, whereas here we're looking at it in an election cycle. So when we've got a major issue to deal with with China, Xi's not looking at it and thinking,

okay, well, I've got to sort this out in the next short period of time. He's looking at it and thinking Trump's got maybe two years left. Right. Maybe. Maybe he gets reelected. Maybe he doesn't. I have no idea. But that's how he's processing this. And there's going to be a transitionary time in between the two candidates or the two presidents where things get real sloppy and they might be able to slip in something. Right. And you talk about it. I mean, the Chinese really do play the long game. And you talk about it.

I mean, the Chinese really do play the long game. They really play the long game. They'll put an asset here in the country to go to school, right? And their only job is to get excellent grades. And then they'll go to grad school and they'll get excellent grades. And then they'll go get a job somewhere. And it doesn't really matter necessarily where they get a job, but they'll get a job and then they'll get another job. And eventually they are working at Arathion or they're working at Corning or they're working at some company that's got some relevance from their perspective in terms of what they do. And that's

a 25, 30 year commitment, right? And they do that all the time. And, you know, we tend to look at things in the shorter timeframe, right? I mean, even from an intel service, you know, I mean, our officers will get out there and they'll think, okay, we got to make some recruitments, you know, and I got maybe two years here and on the ground

if it's that sort of deployment or that sort of tour. And it's not that 30-year commitment. Right. Because if I'm the officer, I'm getting promoted based on how many

recruitments I get. I'm not getting necessarily promoted based on how well I handle assets that have already been promoted. And that was the plot of that Young America – the Americans show, right? The show about Russian spies that pretended to be just normal American citizens, moved in, did the whole thing, talked with a normal accent. That's right. That came out of that New Jersey incident with Anna Chapman. Yeah those individuals were just basically there to exist, right? Their whole point

of being was just to see whether they bump into somebody of interest. And they weren't going to be responsible for then developing that potential target. That would be somebody else's responsibility. And that person who had the responsibility to develop that target, it wouldn't be their responsibility to maybe task them or make some sort of light pitch. That would be somebody else's responsibility. So there's people up that food chain that take on more and more responsibility if they happen to find a target of interest. And that's just the resources devoted to one part of the country. So it's a cautious, well thought out, long term plan. Yeah. I mean, sometimes the Russians are just like a shotgun approach,

right? They'll pitch everybody and see what happens, right? They're not quite as patient and as long-term as the Chinese are. And they've caught Chinese spies doing this as well, right? Oh, sure. Yeah. We just bagged one who was working on behalf of the Chinese government against interests of the agency. How long ago was this? It's just past, I mean, it's become public over the past week in particular, but it's been bubbling away for a while.

What's this dude's name? Yeah, I'm going to leave it at that. It's long. Only because I'm not sure if I've seen it in print. Okay. But,

Chinese American and, you know, obviously, part of the attraction for bringing that person into the agency was their Chinese language. Right. Well obviously part of the attraction for bringing that person into the agency was their Chinese language. Right.

Well, part of the attraction from the Chinese intel perspective is the Chinese ethnic background. Right. First generation, second generation, third generation doesn't matter. They tend to play off that very well. So anyway, this individual worked for the agency for a period of time, then left, and then set up shop overseas, and then his actions became suspect. And so that's when we ended up getting him. But that happens. And when you catch somebody who's been engaged in that, first thought is, you know, thank God we caught him.

And the second is, how does someone do that? Now, you know, I say that, again, not to be self-righteous, because we're always out there looking for targets, you know, to recruit, to turn on their country. So, you know, if we could find ourselves an Iranian scientist, it's not like we would be coy and say, well, we don't want to put them under that stress of recruiting them. Of course we do for national security interests. But, I mean, just from a psychological perspective, you think about that. Well, our idea is that we're doing that stuff for good and that they're doing that stuff for bad,

which is very convenient that we think that way. Right, right. But I guess you're absolutely right. And, you know, I understand the people out there who say, well, that's – you can't make that equivalent. I don't know. But I had never had any problem. I never had any problem determining the good people from the bad people. And that's like today, one of the senators in the confirmation hearing – I'm sorry to keep going back to the CIA director-designated confirmation hearings up on the Hill, but one of the senators, it almost sounded like he was trying to make some moral equivalency between terrorists and agency officers who were doing what they were allowed

to do underneath the laws of that time and the DOJ, Department of Justice regulations and legal readings. And his point was, well, if you waterboarded somebody, well, then what happens if one of your people got picked up by terrorists and they were waterboarded? Would you think that that was justified? And I'm thinking, okay, wait, wait, wait. It's a very odd construct for a question. And, you know, I mean, frankly, if ISIS or al-Qaeda or Boko Haram picked up one of our people and all they did was waterboard him, that would be a happy day, right? Because they don't operate under any laws, which is what Gina Haspel said. She handled the question very well and kind of shut it down.

But this idea that sometimes you'll bump into that where people – I don't know what it is. They're apologists. They want to act as if we're the bad guys. Anyway, what am I going to do? No, that's exactly what it is, right? I was about to say, what do I know? Damn it. He pulled away from it.

But that is exactly what it is. It's like there's apologists. And they're also trying to frame a narrative instead of trying to understand the situation objectively. Instead of really asking someone who was there, asking a bunch of people who were there, getting a sense of what was the climate, what was going on, what actually happened. Instead, they're trying to frame it in like, wouldn't it be justified if someone got a hold of one of our troops and did that to them? Wouldn't that be justified? They're scoring brownie points. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I think that's true. I think there's so little, and it's obviously much worse right now with the current administration, the President Trump. It just seems like nobody, I mean, it's like World War I, right? Everybody's in their trenches throwing hand grenades at each other. Nobody's in the middle ground. Nobody's even trying to get up and go into the middle ground. And so nobody's having those conversations, like you said, where they even make a lame attempt to try to understand what the other perspective might be. And in particular, it's exhausting in the sense that not everything that this administration, again, you know, the caveat being I didn't vote for Trump. Hey, I didn't vote for Clinton. You know, we got 320 million people in this country. You think we could have come up with two other candidates? Yeah.

But who did you vote for? You know what? This sounds really lame, but I just sat it out. I couldn't get myself to go vote for – I just thought – I mean, I was going to vote for Ronald Reagan's ashes or something, but I figured I'd be the only person. So I didn't vote. I couldn't figure out how we got to that point. And the one person who should really be pissed off was Bernie Sanders.

I mean, the only collusion we've really proven up to this point is that DNC colluding to keep Bernie down. And people sweep that under the rug so quick. It's so adorable. It's adorable how people just make it like that's not a big deal. But the deleting of 30,000 emails's not a big deal. Yeah. The deleting of 30,000 emails, not a big deal. Not an issue. The collusion with the DNC to rig the primaries, not a big deal. Yeah, and Bernie, God bless him, he played the good soldier and fell on a sword.

Well, he hasn't made much of an issue of it. I think it's because he has aspirations to move forward and he knows they owe him one now. And he knows that Hillary Clinton is essentially done. That's interesting. If they try to bring her back in 2020, people will go fucking crazy. Like, are you nuts? Could you imagine? She might actually be thinking that way.

I'm sure she is. They probably got her on a vitamin IV drip right now and giving her hormone replacement therapy and getting her to do yoga. I just don't see her being resurrected, but maybe. They'll try. Maybe so. I do think Joe Biden is coming in. You think so? Yeah, I think he's viewing this. I think he's very upset with himself,

not upset with others, but I think he probably thinks at this stage of the game, times were different, it was tough regarding his family, but I think he probably regrets not going in the last time and i think we're gonna see him throw his hat in the ring because he's gonna look around he's gonna think what am i up against i'm up against harris and booker and you know who else but i mean i think he's got some baggage though oh he does people forget about when i was in boston we used to have joe biden night at stitches comedy club where we would plagiarize each other's jokes.

Because Joe Biden, people don't remember this, but in the 1980s, he got busted plagiarizing Kennedy speeches. People forgot about that. He ran for president in 88. Yeah. And that's a good point. Everybody loves the guy that's sitting on the bench, right? Yeah. So there were a lot of Democrats, I think, after the fact that were thinking, oh, my God, if Joe had just run.

But he's run a couple of times. Hasn't worked out. Yeah. And Trump would have chewed him up. Yeah. Yeah, it would have been true. So, you know, anyway, the politics of it all are fascinating. Did you see the crazy shit when Trump was saying he'd beat him up?

He's like, crazy Joe Biden said that he could beat me up and he would go down fast and hard. That's right. You think, wait a second. I think they should have just gone with that. I think they should have done some sort of celebrity match there. That's what I was saying. I was saying, like, let me be the commentator. Can you see what that, I mean, the president.

To the death. It would definitely be to the death. Both of them would die. Yeah. Oh, no. No, they'd get in the cage and it would be all over. I'm thinking five minutes at the president. To the death. It would definitely be to the death. Both of them would die. Yeah. Oh, no. No, they'd get in the cage and it would be all over. I'm thinking five minutes at most. Hair pulling.

Maybe, yeah. They'd pull whatever little hair they have left. The old school wrestling trunks. Yeah. Sure. Fantastic. Singlets. The boots.

Oh, we got to get this going. Yeah. Anyway. But it was just so ridiculous to see Trump tweeting that he would beat up Joe Biden if they ever fought. Yeah. Like, who the fuck have you ever fought ever? Have you ever even thrown a punch? This is the world we live in.

I mean, if, I mean, you think about all the, you think about the things we should be talking about on a daily basis, right? Right. talking about on a daily basis right right and yet because of the self-inflicted wounds that they constantly have coming out of that white house because of his tweeting for the most part people aren't focusing on you know look we should all be able to agree democrats and republicans should be able to agree that if you can get your way to peace on the the korean peninsula that's pretty damn good yes um they just released the uh North Korean prisoners – well, American citizen prisoners who were held in North Korea. So Secretary Pompeo is flying back right now from Pyongyang, and he's bringing those three back. That's a good thing. That's a very good thing.

But we can't – But it's the way they got there that freaks people out. Right. What I'm saying is nuclear button's bigger than the other guys. his nuclear buttons bigger than the other guys. It's like, but I got to tell you, I was really happy watching the video of Kim Jong-un shaking hands with the president of South Korea and the meeting and the DMZ. I was happy. That to me was like, wow.

Like that made me think this might, they're both smiling. I know Kim Jong-un's a fucking murderer and he killed his own uncle and his nephews and all these different people that he thought might go against him. But seeing him shake hands with the president of South Korea made me think, like, wow, they might settle this. They could. I mean, look, that's the very first time. His granddad, Kim Il-sung, and then his dad, Kim Jong-il, neither of them ever stepped foot on the southern side of that DMZ, on the southern side of Peace Village. Never happened. So that in itself, you're absolutely right, that's a major development.

Now, maybe nothing comes of it, right? It's a low percentage shot. You have to agree. There's so many moving parts. So maybe nothing comes of it. And I think the administration is making that case, saying, look, we have to be realistic, but this is a good thing that it's moving in that direction. Yeah, it's something. Right, it's something.

And the fact that this guy's a young guy who actually likes Dennis Rodman, I mean, Jesus Christ. Well, in his playing days, I liked Dennis Rodman a lot, right? I just didn't anticipate- He likes him now. Yeah, I didn't anticipate he would develop into the character that he is now. But he also seems to be like some sort of a spokesman for America talking to Korea. It's weird.

Do you remember Robin as a player, man? Yeah, he was a bad motherfucker. That guy was fantastic. A hustler. Ah, defense. He was rebounding. Man, that guy could rebound. And if you talk to people that know him, that were partying with him,

that guy would be up all night drinking and partying and then show up and play fucking phenomenal the next day on zero sleep. Here comes another title. Oh, good. Yeah. Billy Corgan was friends with Rodman. And Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins on the podcast was talking about how they were mad at him because Rodman was taking Billy Corgan partying and then showing up the next day with zero sleep and playing. And they were blaming Billy Corgan.

He's like, motherfucker, I went to sleep. He's like, that guy was still out. He's still up. That's fantastic. Pumpkins are coming out to Boise. Oh, excellent. Everybody Big's coming out to Boise. I like Boise.

Listen, man, the way you talk about it, I'm thinking about getting a fucking house out there. Wall Street Journal just had, now, some of my friends said, you got to stop talking about Boise. They'll move there. The Wall Street Journal just had an article. It's the fastest growing state in the nation. For wolves. I know.

For wolves, too. Yeah. Yeah. We got so many people coming in. We're bringing the wolves in, too, to sort of sort that out. It's a balancing thing. Yeah. Don't hike too far, you fuck.

Yeah. Well, you could go 10 minutes outside of, I mean, we're right downtown, basically, but you go right 10 minutes out. The Frank Church Wilderness, right? Up in the foothills, and you don't see anybody for the next day. It's fantastic. Fishing's great. We got more river mileage than any other state except for Alaska.

Yeah, the fishing's supposed to be incredible. Fly fishing for trout. If you like fly fishing, if you like trout, it's the place to be. I mean, other states, Montana, some other spots will say, no, it's us. It's them, too, is what it really is. It shouldn't be who's number one. It's like they're both fucking awesome. To be fair, we got the best trout, but still.

Better than Montana? I think so. We'll have a trout off. Well, I have friends that live up there in um what is that fucking where first light is where the hell are they they're in some small town some ski resort area real high-end ski place up in montana no no no in idaho oh uh sun valley oh ketchum yeah the town is ketchum the resort is sun valley right they rave about it they say it's fucking incredible we were just up there um we've got a place up in another um ski, and it sits on a lake.

Unlike Sun Valley, Ketchum doesn't have a big summertime attraction like a massive lake, but our place sits on Payette Lake, and it's got a great little ski place nearby. But there are a lot of areas like that. But Ketchum is a great town, great little community. Skiing at Sun Valley is really good. It's not like Aspen or, you know. Good. Exactly. But it's not Deer Valley, Park City,

where there are massive places. Those places are just filled with rich people, too. It's like they're overrun with high-end stores. Look, I love Sun Valley. I think it's gorgeous. I mean, not Sun Valley. Deer Valley. And Utah.'s gorgeous. I mean, not Sun Valley, Deer Valley in Utah. It's fucking gorgeous up there. But man, it's just all like wealthy skiing places.

It's crazy. It's weird. When I want to spend $2,000 for a pair of ski boots, that's where I go. But if you want like a normal burger and a beer, Ketchum or McCall up there in Idaho, it's really great. You're going to love it. You're going to get a great reception up in Boise, man. Look, I purposely decided to go there just to check it out. I decided to book a gig up there just to see what it's like.

Just take a couple of days and, you know, spend a little time up there. Maybe do some fishing. We'll go fishing. I'll take you out fishing. We'll go. Well, I have a friend up there that I actually just know from internet, but he knows. You got an internet friend? Well, I know people who actually know him in real real life but i've only talked to him online but he's uh got a pet coyote

he actually took a coyote as a cub and we've talked about him on the podcast many times i'm gonna meet his pet coyote nice and he recently got a pet badger he found a fucking baby badger this dude yeah man that's what you want yeah Yeah, Honey Badger. They don't give a shit about anything. Well, when they're real little, apparently you could raise a badger. His Instagram is Seth Simpson. You want me to tell you what it is? Yeah. Because it will pull up the video, Jamie, because it's pretty fucking hilarious.

Ryan Callahan, my friend, just tweeted me, or just texted me. He's my friend in Ketchum. Nice. But this dude has a— So he's got a coyote and a badger. Yeah. Seth Simpson 208. Somebody send me a clip.

Look at his fucking—so they're shooting squirrels. And then, look, he's got his little—this is a new pet coyote that he has. This is a new one. And that he has this is a new one and this little coyote puppy is chewing on this squirrel or I'm sorry not squirrel they're shooting pigeons rather not squirrels but he's uh go down

and see the badger see the badger up there in the right hand corner look at this this is a badger baby so it says um someone was shooting ground squirrels they saw a badger carrying what they thought was a squirrel. They shot it, and it was actually carrying a baby. So they took this baby badger, and now they're raising it. And he's raising this baby badger.

And he says that you can, given the option of fight or flight, they will often fight. But if they're bottle-fed, handled constantly, and extremely well socialized, they can be kept in captivity for easily and make fun pets. How crazy is that? Guy's got a pet badger. Good God. Don't piss that thing off. No. This has nothing to do with a badger, although we're still talking about small animals.

Somebody sent me a clip of an incident where a police officer was driving down the road, and he stopped traffic on both sides because a groundhog was trying to come across the street. And so he was trying to, it was about a quarter of the way across this two-lane road, and he was trying to back it off the street. Okay, that was a nice humanitarian thing, right? He's trying to help this animal get off this road, doesn't get hit by cars. this uh uh he keeps trying he keeps trying it's not working you know the the groundhog won't leave and eventually the groundhog i guess something snapped in his mind and he decided you know fuck this i'm gonna go after this police officer right i guess he got tired so he kind of waddles after the police officer but this is it yeah this is it

now watch what happens this is insane So the cop is standing there. Oh, he didn't shoot it. He did. He got on his knees and shot the fucking groundhog. I like how they blur it out. Yeah, the identity. The identity of the groundhog. So it's moving around still?

Now it's still moving. Does he shoot it again? Yes, but watch. Here comes that form again. Well, that seems inappropriate. A groundhog who police said was blocking traffic was fatally shot Sunday, according to the New York Daily News. Where was this? Maryland? Oh, boy.

He realized it was not responding as expected for an animal that was not being cornered or trapped. Believing the groundhog to be either sick or injured, he shot it. And I love this response. I'm sure the officer did the best thing in this situation. It's not for me to judge. Yeah. If you can't kick a groundhog's ass, you shouldn't be a cop. That's what I have to say.

That groundhog's coming after you, sidestep, bitch. And also, you can't take it down with one shot. What the hell's wrong with that? How slow is it moving, too? It was just, it was like, you know, I do not think that, they're not the fastest animals. No. Yeah. So it was not in a full sprint towards this officer.

I'm just saying. Who knows? None of us can put ourselves in that officer's shoes. Let's just put it that way. Maybe he's got an irrational fear of mammals. Yeah. None of us have been in combat against a small animal like that. Woodland creature.

Yeah. I mean, a fucking groundhog? I know. What are you going to do? It seems like you just get out of the way. You don't have to shoot a groundhog. Yeah, just get back in your cruiser and assume people are going to drive around it. Yeah.

I mean, anyway, I thought that was interesting, and someone thought it was interesting enough to send along. That's crazy you did that. I think sometimes you give people a gun, they're just looking to shoot something. After a while, they're like, I'm shooting something. Oh, this groundhog is fucking with society. That's right. It's like that old Farsight cartoon with the vultures sitting up there and saying, damn it, I'm just going to kill something.

Yeah, well, you know... You know that expression, if you only have a hammer, everything seems like a nail. Exactly, yeah. I mean, if you gave that cop a can of bear spray... Well, that's a good point. Less than deadly force, right? He could have tased it.

Probably. Maybe he would have killed it. Would have killed it, right? Would have made for a more interesting video. Just give him a tennis racket and slap it in the ass. Get a move on, little fella. Just pull the tennis racket off your utility belt. Stop traffic. That sounds like a dumb ground squirrel, too.

He's about to get fucked up by a dumb ground squirrel. Yeah. Maybe it was suicide by cop. Maybe it was one of those deals. You think he was just, he had issues. Ground squirrel had enough. Like crazy person that rushes the cop

because he wants to die. We get that in Idaho. You get that deer that just like, I just want to end it all. They do. And they just like come out of nowhere

and you know they've been sitting in the bushes waiting for you to drive by. So, yeah. Well, they get super confused during September, October, November, during the rut in particular.

Like when they get horny. There's a video, a hilarious video, this deer that's so fucked up from the rut, this guy walks up to it and taps it on the head with an arrow. And the deer's like, what? I've seen that. What's going on? That's it. Every deer hunter in the country was like, where the fuck was this deer when I was hunting?

Because most of the time a deer even catch this wind that you're 200 yards away. They fucking bound out of there like the hills are on fire. How did you do out in Hawaii? I got two. I got two axis deer. That looked great. There it is. This deer is just emaciated from rutting, paralyzed and confused

with his own hormones, and this guy walks up to it and just taps it. This is crazy like this thing is just so baffled hey buddy hello hello i mean that is crazy the deer high it looks like yeah oh he's definitely he's definitely done yeah when they get rutted up yeah like when they're like i've never seen anything like this before. But sometimes they just blow a fuse. Look at this. He's tapping the antlers.

Hey, fella. It's just too much to process for that deer. Yeah, look at it. What's going on? I guess I could leave. I don't know what to do. But it doesn't seem like it understands life anymore. Probably thought if he just stands really still, he won't be spotted.

I don't think it's that. And now he takes off. What in the fuck, man? That's just hormones. That's men. That's what happens when dudes get boners. That's how guys get their kidneys stolen from Russian, you know, those gals that take your kidney, you wake up in a bathtub full of ice.

And your wallet's gone. You've heard of that before? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Organ's missing. Is that real? Yeah. It used to happen out in Southeast Asia.

There were occasionally reports of that. Really? Yeah. I was out there for quite a while, and occasionally you'd hear some reports, some dude getting screwed up, and next thing you know, he wakes up and he's missing a kidney. Really? Yeah. That really did happen.

It did happen. Think about what that means. So not only does the dude get knocked out, but then you've got to get the doctor in, right? Because the girls probably aren't doing it themselves. The doctor's just sitting there with rubber gloves on waiting. Right. Yeah. It sounds like a bad movie.

Well, it could be a good movie, actually. It could be a very good movie. Yeah. So it does happen. And all the more reason to always know where your pants are. That's a good move. Yeah. I don't know. You should definitely know where your pants are. You should know where your pants are. That's a good move. Yeah, I don't know. You should definitely know where your pants are.

You should know where your pants are. Know what you're drinking. Kids, I'm just telling you kids. I used to tell my daughter. My daughter's flown off. You know how I keep bashing China and their intellectual property acquisitions? My daughter's now in China. Oh, no.

Working in Beijing. She's working for the government? No, no, no. No, she's working. Thank you. And she's a great kid, but she always says, you know, Dad, could you just not maybe bash them as often as you do if I'm flying back over there to work? Yeah, do they ask her questions? No, no, no.

He does what? I don't think they give a crap about me. What does your father do? Although I will say I was given a speech one time about national security issues, and I got off on the subject of the intellectual property theft that's perpetrated by a lot of different countries. And this was a large conference. And so I'm talking about the Chinese and their tendency to do this. And I look down there.

I see a guy that I know who's with one of the companies uh that brought me in for this speech and and he's got this funny look on his face like oh my god i can't believe you're talking about this and he kind of like motions over there and they're in like the third row of the this this area is this contingent of chinese business folks sitting there and they just look and i've just been spending 10 minutes just just railing and talking about you talking about how awful they can be sometimes in this world. Although good, I praise them because they're good at it. And they were just horrified about this whole thing. What am I going to do? I can't walk that back. Yeah. Look, it is what it is. If you don't want me to talk about it, don't do it.

Don't do it. Yeah. So that's another issue. I'm just ticking off all the issues that we've solved here so far. We're going to fix the world here, Mike Baker. Yeah. But the North Korean release of those prisoners, that's a good thing. It is a good thing. And I think both Trump and Pence, I think, are going out to Andrews Air Force Base to meet them as they come in.

Wow. And, you know, but it will be, it'll be interesting to see. Look, it wasn't, I think it was an easy give for Kim Jong-un to do, right? And what were they over there in prison for? Well, one of them, one of them was a businessman and he was serving 10 years hard labor. Imagine hard labor camp in North Korea for supposedly for espionage. He's a business guy. And they don't care.

I mean, they've done this numerous times in the past. It really doesn't matter if you show up and you're in business. The other two were also interesting. They were academics. They were at the Pyongyang University for Science and Technology. Both of them were teaching there, which is, oddly enough, where I got my degree. And my undergrad degree, Pyongyang University. I went there for the sports.

And I worked during the year as the man. It's the Pyongyang Missiles. Like a guy dressed as a missile. You can't stop with this. I was a mascot. I can't stop. You just keep going. Honestly, You can't stop with this. I was a mascot. I can't stop. You just keep going.

I just, I can't, you know, honestly, I can't remember where I was going with this story. And so I just like rambling until I get my head straight. I'm like that deer in that video. So those two were, again, same thing, supposedly engaged in espionage. And so they got chucked in. So we'll see. I mean, you know, whether we're able to get anything from this who knows but that's a good sign the fact that he met with as you pointed out

president moon from south korea a very good sign um the chinese have uh they sent their foreign minister over to pyongyang um a couple weeks ago first time foreign minister's been over there and maybe 11 years 12 years wow so they understand the importance of this. And I think everybody's – the dynamic has shifted because I think we've kicked the can down the road for so long that they're basically at the point where their programs are close to being fully developed. And I think the Chinese understand that that means that all those other options perhaps of kicking the can down the road aren't on the decision tree anymore. And so they don't want chaos on the peninsula. They don't want military conflict. Nobody does.

And so I think the Chinese for basically the first time have been aggressively assisting with the sanctions that were put in place. And that had a very quick response on Kim Jong-un. He's not suicidal. He just wants to survive in position of leadership. So he's looking at it thinking, okay, the calculus has changed. So I got to do something different. And again, you know, being pragmatic, maybe it doesn't work, but at least we're trying. And I think that's a good thing. No, unquestionably, it's a good thing. And also the video of that North Korean soldier fleeing and getting shot, shot at as he escapes North Korea.

I mean, that had to get to North Korea, too. And they realized, like, Jesus Christ, this second guy. And how many months that was fleeing like that and got away. And they're finding parasites in their body and extreme malnourishment. And this is a soldier. So you've got to think everybody over there is probably in dire straits. Right. And we've talked about this in terms of just a simple,

not simple, but the idea that, you know, the population in terms of its physical stature compared to the South Koreans is, you know, they're shorter, they're, and that's a malnutrition issue. I think also, I think they've realized that there's only so much they can do going forward to lock the place down. And technology at some point, even though it's North Korea and there's not a lot there, there's enough.

And I think there's a sense that how long they can control the population the way they have. So, again, he's not – Kim is not suicidal. He wants to maintain power. When you think about every country acts in its own best interest or every leader acts in their own best interest, that's his thought process. And how do I do that? Well, okay. So I think that it could happen. We could get something really good out of this. We'll see. But the Iranians are watching it and North Koreans are watching what we did over Iran. I disagree with that whole notion that North Koreans are going to look at it and go, ah, that means we can't trust them.

Look, if President Obama was so enamored with that deal that he made with the Iranians, well, then take it to the Senate, right? Make it a treaty. You made it an agreement, an executive order, basically. And so, you know, they're not looking. I don't think the North Koreans are looking at this and going, Trump is going back on his word. I think they're looking at it and going, Trump's, okay, he means it. He's not going to put up with a bad deal. And this wasn't that good a deal. So I think that's the way that they would process it. And we'll see. But, you know, who

knows where the Iranians are going to go with what they're doing. And people right now listening are probably thinking, okay, I'm tired of listening about the Iranians. Well, that seems to be something you're really concerned about. Well, I think only because if it's not handled properly and there's a lot of moving parts, meaning our allies, meaning the wild card of what Rouhani and the regime is going to do. But look, make no mistake. There's no idea that somehow this was a moderate Iranian regime. All you got to do is look at what they're engaged in doing in the Lebanon, in Yemen, in a proxy war with the Saudis and others, in Iraq and Syria, in the work that they're doing. And all the soldiers, U.S. soldiers that they killed in Iraq through the provision of weapons, the training that they gave to the Iraqis that were fighting against us.

Look at all of that. You think, you know, at what point, you know, did somebody make some decision that the Iranians were somehow moderate? Because they're not. That regime isn't. You know, the people themselves, we keep hoping one day, I mean, you go all the way back to the fall of the Shah. And, you know, people hoping that the people will rise up and overthrow the clerics. Do you think it's the same attitude that causes people to be apologists, like the same attitude that's causing people to ask how do you feel about those people being tortured? Is it the same sort of mentality that allows people to want those Iranians to be – to want the people that are in power to be moderate?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's an element of that. I think it's a desire to, again, sort of think well. That part of it I don't really understand, again, because you would think that you would base that on people's performance, and all you've got to do is look at past performance of the clerics and the regime there in Iran that runs things and I don't know how you come away from it thinking well they're being actually pretty

pretty moderate they're being pretty conciliatory you know and that's what we got the previous administration did they just stretched themselves then trying to sell this deal I mean they did everything they could to try to you know race to make sure it was going to happen. They set things aside. And we've caught the Iranians in the past cheating. And this business with Netanyahu, and he came out with this information that they pulled out of this warehouse where it was being stored. Yes, that was historical, covered the period of 1999 to 2003. And what was that again? How did that work? Mossad had an operation that they engaged in. There was a warehouse in Tehran where the Iranian regime, rather than destroy all their research and all

the work they were doing on nuclear weapons facility. Mossad and some others, liaison service, found out the location. And then they mounted an operation, which is very labor intensive. You got to do a lot of surveillance. You got to recruit assets who can provide you with key information about this. And then eventually they hoiked out a bunch of these documents, 50,000 pages of documents and almost 200 CDs. And that information covers 1999 to 2003. And one of the things that it shows definitively is that one of the things the Iranians were doing were they were designing and looking to build a minimum of five nuclear warheads, right, for their ballistic missiles that they're also developing and building, which puts a nail on that whole idea that it was nothing but a peaceful program. But people looking at it, they're apologists, and they're saying, oh, it's old history. It's

old news. It doesn't tell us anything new. Well, it tells us and confirms to us what we've been saying all along, which is that, you know, they were lying about it. And they were lying about the extent of their centrifuge operations, the extent of the stored materials that they had. And so, you know, I'm not, I just don't know how you make that leap to then say, okay, now they're fine. You know, now we can believe them. Why? Because why? I don't get that part. So I'm not willing to see it until they want to give us 100% access to all their sites. They want to say, come on in and look at Parchin. Come on and look at the military facilities where we used for weapons development in the past. Great.

Now you got something. And now I'll back off and say, okay, maybe that's a good deal actually. Give us access to all those sites and let us go in and look around. The IAEA, which is the international organization for inspection of these nuclear sites, they spent 12 years trying to figure out what the hell was going on at Parchin, which is a military site near Tehran, and never, never were able to get the access they needed, never were able to solve the question. And they went on and on with that investigation. Well, guess what? As a result of the drive by the administration to get a deal signed, part of the conditions from the Iranian regime was that they stop this investigation, just draw a line under it. They had no answers.

They just said, well, no, we're not going to sign a deal unless you stop that investigation. So we did. We stopped the investigation. And like I said, they also said, well, you can't visit our sites, our military sites. Oh, okay, fine. We won't. You know, by the way, this doesn't affect our ballistic missile technology development or weapons program. Okay, fine. Who made these decisions? Well, this was two years, as former Secretary Kerry would like to say. You know, it was two years, as former Secretary Kerry would like to say. Two years of diplomatic work

and hard negotiations. Come on. So, we worked reportedly in concert with the Brits and the French and the Germans and the Russians and the Chinese, although it was mostly from our side. And

it is what it is. So, are they complying with what they've got in in the terms of the agreement yeah fine but i like like i said i i just think and it kind of goes to that point about there's the truth is always kind of in the middle right i mean the truth is somewhere there it's not like it's not it's not me throwing you know grenades at the at the progressives of the left or the democrats saying uh you know it's's a terrible deal. It sucks. It sucks. No, look, a deal could be good. And I'm glad that we've been able to inspect those sites that have been available. That's a good thing.

But don't couch it as something it's not. And, you know, if the Brits and the French and the Germans are now willing to say it's an inadequate deal but we still want to stay in. That should tell people something. But anyway, that's not where we're at. We're at everybody's stance around screaming at the sky because they're upset about one side or the other. And crap doesn't get done. How much time do you spend thinking about this? Because you're in civilian life now. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what? Are you ever really in civilian life? Oh, you're in civilian life now. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Are you ever really in civilian life? Oh, you're in civilian life. Yeah. No, we are. Of course we are.

Yeah. And thank God for that because it's a young person's game. But I probably spend more time. I don't have a lot of friends. So I invite you to go fishing come on Joe be my friend

go fishing with me I'll go fishing with you we'll just sit around and say like it was good fishing but all he wanted to do was talk about Iran fucking boring

so yeah you know I'd probably spend a little more time but I will tell you what's fun is that some of it does rub off

right like my three little guys you know or even my daughter she loves international You know, I'd probably spend a little more time. But I will tell you what's fun is that some of it does rub off, right? Like my three little guys, you know, or even my daughter. She loves international affairs. She loves international relations and what's going on in the world. She travels a lot. And I think that's good, right? So maybe some of that rubbed off, you know, sitting around the dinner table and talking about these things or me banging on about it. And I thought every now and then I think I'm being boring.

But maybe they picked up on something. And sometimes my kids will say something, you know. Like Scooter, the oldest one. He's only 10 years old. The governor came in or a governor candidate came in because we're coming up on an election cycle. A governor candidate came in. And a good guy. We know him.

A nice guy. And he came in to talk to Ben's class, fifth grade class. And Ben raised his hand during the question period and said, so what would you do differently because Idaho is ranked 43rd in education? And I know he said this because this guy then called me later on. He says, your kid asked this question. First of all, I was going to look. I said, hey, come on.

Do you want more homework? Lighten up. Yeah, give us more homework. But, you know, the point being is, you know, my wife, the world's greatest person, is in politics and focused in, you know, strategy and campaign problems and all sorts of things. So she talks about it as well. So maybe the kids absorb something like that. And maybe if you talk about these things at home, this is not rocket science, right? But maybe if you talk about these things at home, maybe the kids do pick up on some of it.

Or they start to imagine that there's something else other than just, you know, what happens on the schoolyard. You know, I don't know. So I guess there's an upside to it. I don't know where I'm going with that. People are going like, oh my God. There's certainly an upside to talking about things. I mean, and the more kids know now, the better it is. But we don't teach civics, right? We don't teach civics in school, the workings of government, how the government is supposed to work. Yeah, most people get out of high school and they barely understand

what's the difference between the Congress and the Senate. Right, and so then you get what we get, which is people reading crap on Twitter and thinking that it's always true or that's how they form their opinion or it's all this or it's all that. The world is not that. The world exists somewhere in the middle ground. But I don't think we're failing our kids. or it's all this or it's all that. The world is not that. The world exists somewhere in the middle ground. But I don't think we're failing our kids by a desire to make life easier for them maybe.

I don't know. I think there's definitely some truth to that. I mean I think there's a shocking lack of adversary or adversity rather that a lot of people have to go through in this life and um when you go through too much soft living you start to develop these lazy habits and this distorted perception of reality and a lack of understanding of what what really hard work is and how difficult it is to get by in this life if you don't live in this cushy place that we live in. Did you work, when you were a kid, did you work

summer jobs? Yeah. A lot of construction jobs, mostly. Yeah. I mean, same thing. You know, I blacktop parking lots. There's a job, right? That's a job for your lungs. But you know what? You made some money.

You felt good about it. At the end of the day, you were exhausted. But I tell my kids, I mean, they're going to have to start – the oldest one is going to be 11 soon. It's time for him to do something, get a paper route, mow lawns. So he's – You're going to make him mow lawns at 11? Sure, yeah. Damn.

Yeah, he could have mowed lawns this year. But, yeah, I mean – That seems early. mowed lawns this year. But, yeah. That seems early. That's not early to push a lawnmower. I didn't have a lawnmower job when I was 11. That seems early. No, I don't think so. I think it's, you know, you tell them where not to put their feet in their hands and they're good.

Let the little fella have a life. Get him involved in sports. Yeah, no, they all play. They all play a lot of lacrosse. They play a lot of basketball. Do they shovel snow yet? Swim team. Yeah, they shovel snow. They get out a lot of lacrosse. They play a lot of basketball. Do they shovel snow yet? Swim team. Yeah, they shovel snow.

They get out there. The 10-year-old and the 8-year-old shovel snow during the winter. The 6-year-old's like, hmm. Yeah, Muggsy's not doing a lot. I've got to figure out a way out of this shit. He's going to be management. I think that's what he's going to do. He's going to be management somehow.

But, yeah, you know, the work ethic, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, every generation, right, like my parents wanted it to be easier for me and my brothers. And their parents, I'm sure, wanted it to be easier for them. And so you do that, but eventually you get to diminishing returns because it becomes so easy. And, you know, the kids forget what it is like to actually have to work for something. And to compete. And to compete. And, you know, it's like I saw some story, not that I troll the social media,

but there was a story that popped up that some community, they had a cheer squad tryout, and one of the girls didn't make it on cheer squad. I don't even know what cheer squad. I guess it's cheerleaders. And the mom was upset, and so she went and complained. And so the school decision was that everybody who tried out gets to be on the squad. Yeah. You can imagine what that looks like.

That's – Well, you've got to teach kids the opposite, that if you didn't do good enough, you need to figure out what you did wrong and go back and improve and work on it. And then if you do get in next year, you'll get an amazing feeling of accomplishment rather than an amazing feeling of entitlement that you belong in everything you try out for. Well, that's going to be a big, fat wake-up call when you go out to compete in the workforce. Right. You try to get a job. Oh, my God. Nobody's going to cut you any slack, theoretically.

Yeah. But, no, that's right. The idea that, you know, you've got to – I mean, it's like my two older boys are – you know, people are saying, Mike's now talking about his kids all the time. My two older boys have gotten to the point now where the sports thing, they play, and if they don't play well, they sit. Because earlier than that, everybody plays. It's equal playing time. That's what you typically get. The coaches.

And that's a good thing that little kids are learning how to play the game and where to stand and all the rest of it. But then they get to a certain point, it becomes merit-based, or it should, anyway, which is how it works in Idaho, basically, at least with the teams that we're associated with, is that if you don't play that well, then maybe you don't make the team. And if you make the team and you're not playing as well as the other kids and you're sitting on the bench. And so, you know, my kids, you know, when it first started happening, you know, they were complaining, you know, like,

ah, you know, screw it, I'm not getting any playing time. And I'm thinking, well, okay, what's the next part of that thought process that you need to work your way through? If you're not getting enough playing time. And I'm thinking, well, okay, what's the next part of that thought process that you need to work your way through? If you're not getting enough playing time, it's because you're not, what, playing as well as you should be compared to the other kids. Therefore, what do you need to do? So you have to walk them through this process. And that's okay because kids don't know this stuff inherently maybe.

Right. And so you teach them that, but you don't teach them that, well, you're right. Why don't you try a different sport? Or, you know, or you're right. We should talk to the coach about your playing time. Or worse, they're making it too difficult for the children and they're not having a good time and it should be about companionship and it shouldn't be about competition. Well, you're setting your kid up for failure because it can be about both. It could be about companionship but also about competition. And Look, the world is competition.

It's filled with it. If you're not competing, if you just decide you don't want to have anything to do with competition, that's your choice. But if you engage in something that does require competition, you want special access. Right, right, right. If you're not that natured, if you don't have that competitive side of you, okay, fine. But then don't go through the rest of life thinking, well, just because life is a competition, which may upset you when you find that out, that you don't get special dispensation just because you're not a competitive person. So I agree with it. Participation trophies and all the nonsense that's going on today.

Well, I was walking one of my boys, the oldest one off the lacrosse field, not too long ago, and he said, how'd I do? And I said, well, you could have done better. You could have played harder. It wasn't into it, right? He was tired or whatever. So he kind of looked at me and I didn't realize I was walking and there

were some parents around me as we were walking across the field. And so he kind of looks at me and I knew what he was thinking, which is, Dad, that's not right. And so I looked at him. I said, do you want me to be honest with you? Do you want me to just stand here and blow smoke up your ass? And I found out afterwards that a couple of parents were upset about the fact that I would say that, but he knew exactly what I meant. And he said, no, you should be honest.

And I said, well, that's true. The parents were upset at you for being honest. Yeah, exactly. And, and, you know, to be fair, Muggsy, the youngest one got called in for, uh, uh, I'd say that's just, he got called for using the word douchebag one time, but a funnier, a funnier one was when he and two of his buddies, um, who shall not be named were out in the playground not too long ago and they were sitting down and they're playing some game, right? And it was recess and all the kids, all the different grades are out there running around. And everybody knows my little kid, Muggsy, he's like the mayor of the town.

He's just a jolly, happy guy. He's going to be the guy that takes 10 years to get out of college, right? And so he and his two little buddies are sitting there and they're playing some game where they got to count with their fingers. So at one point, Jack has the number one and he puts up a finger. And one of the other kids starts laughing and because he's got an older brother who told him what it means so he tells him what it means so they start shouting this out right and this word they start shouting and well a couple of

the older kids walk by and they hear these three kids you know six years old yelling this way and laughing uproariously because i think it's the funniest fucking thing they've ever heard and so they get called into the principal. Well, what happens next? I have to find out about this, right? So now they notify the parents. And admittedly, the principal's laughing when they're telling the story. But now I have to have a conversation with Muggsy when I come home.

So I come home and I said, Muggsy, anything happen today? And he goes, no, nothing happened. And he walked right by me. And I said, wait, wait, wait, come back here. I said, did you get called into the principal? He goes, nah, nothing happened. And he walked right by me. And I said, wait, wait, wait. Come back here. I said, did you get called into the principal's? He goes, oh, yeah. He said, we were playing on the playground. And I went like this.

And do you know what this means? And I look at him. I said, no, I don't need to know. And I look out of the corner of my eye. I see his two older brothers around the corner just waiting. Because they know he's going to get his ass kicked for this. And they're just like, they can't wait. And so I said, I don't need to know what it is.

Just don't do it again. Whatever you do, don't do it again. And he goes, no, no, no, no. You got to know what this means. And he's really intent on it. And so I said, and these two other boys, I go, oh, he's going to get so much. And I said, all right, what does it mean?

And I had no idea what he was going to say, but what he did say was, motherfucker! And that's what they were yelling on the playground. All three of them at the top of their lungs yelling, motherfucker! And they're six. That's six years old. That's adorable. And I started

laughing and the two other boys walked away disgusted that I was laughing. And that's the end of my story. They're great kids. So how do you take that genie and put it back in the bottle? You know, you just say don't use it. Once a six year old starts screaming motherfucker and they're

yeah. There's not much you can do. Jubilantly throwing their finger up in the air. It's hard to do. I mean I find myself having to constantly catch myself. I'll say you know things like hey you know you quit jackass and around and to constantly catch myself. I'll say things like, you know, you quit jackassing around. And then I'll think, okay, I probably shouldn't say that, you know, but that's fine. I can't get, you know,

my dad was the greatest guy I've ever known in my life and he swore and I don't, it didn't scar me in any way. I don't have a problem with it. It's part of what I do for a living. But when I was, we were skiing with my youngest daughter, who was three, and we were packing up the stuff, and she forgot to pack her helmet. And her helmet wasn't packed in the thing.

And she looks down at her luggage, she looks down at the helmet, and she goes, shit. This is something adorable. She was three at the time, about a three-year-old saying shit. Well, see, if she could get together with Mugsy, then she could have said shit. And he could have said, what happened? And she could have said, I forgot my motherfucking helmet. Then she's got it completely sentenced. Oh, God.

I mean, there's something really cute about kids swearing. It's just adorable. We try to tell them, you know, don't, don't, yeah. We try to teach them the basics. Don't swear if you can help it. But that's part of the problem is that they're going to, it seems so attractive, you know, to do because they're not supposed to do it. And when no one's around, like, you know what I heard?

I found a new word. It starts with a C. Yeah. Oh, you know they're doing it. You know that. Yeah. What's that one? I don't know.

It's cunt. Well, we learned everything we learned from older brothers, right? Or from friends who had older brothers. But it was a slower process, right? Oh, yeah. In part because we didn't have the internet and all that crap, right? And so I think you learned a little, it took a little bit longer, you know, to learn. Like, I don't think I really rolled out douchebag until I was probably 12, maybe 13.

I really rolled out douchebag until I was probably 12, maybe 13. Well, we were talking yesterday about access to the Internet where kids see so much more and hear so much more today. Like they're especially like violent images and their access to terrible things. And there's just so much that if you leave a kid alone with a computer or a phone that's online. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're just going to find out everything about the world way before their little brains are ready. No, you can't do it.

You've got to lock it down, right? I mean, it's a good thing. They've got to learn the technology, unlike what I apparently did. I'm going to leave my watch here for you, since I don't know how to use it. What year are you going to let them get online? Well, they can do school research if they need to. They can, like, the middle one loves basketball. He loves basketball.

So he can look up, you know, Steph Curry videos, things like that, as long as they've got supervision. They have to have supervision. You have to know what they're doing. But you're right, because if you let them have free reign, it's a freak zone out there. And they'll find it just by accident. And you're right. I think their minds can't...

I mean, you can't ask kids to process all the crap that's out there on the internet at that early age. It's not fair. It's not right. And you can't tell me that there's not some correlation between access to all that imaging and violent images and everything else and some of the problems that we have in the world today. When we ask, how does that kid, how does he go so far off the rails that he steals a gun

or takes a gun out of the house and shoots up a place? How does that happen? And I don't know. I mean, again, I'm not a psychiatrist, so people don't listen to me and take that as medical advice. I know what you're saying. I mean, there's a reality of and take that as medical advice. I know what you're saying. I mean, there's a reality of the world that we live in. And these images, I mean, you're not going to change the world that we live in by limiting the access these kids have to these things.

But it is strange how much access we have to disturbing images, violence, violent videos. And there's just, your brain knows that that's out there and that there's just so many more examples of it to watch. I mean, if you were 12 years old or whatever, and you know, in the old days, and maybe you found out where your dad stored the Playboys. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. In this case, a cardboard box in the back hall closet. Then that was, you know, that was it. But that was what you, how, I mean, that's how you learned. Yeah, I this case, a cardboard box in the back hall closet. Then that was it.

But that was what you – I mean, that's how you learned, right? Yeah, I never saw – I mean, I saw a few altercations in my neighborhood when I was growing up. But like a real violent encounter, I never saw anything. No, no. Shoot-em-up games now that we've got. So we use that Xbox that I talked about. It's all sports games. You can't – the whole Gears of War and Call of Duty and all the rest of it.

You don't allow that? No, you can't do that. But then again, you know, your kid will go out to his friend's house. Yep. And the next thing you know, they're right. This is awesome. His head exploded. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. So, you know, what do you do? You're right. You can't protect him, but you got to do your best. Well, the world's changing, but it's changing faster than we realize, than we're aware of in regard to the impact that it has on kids. I just think it's changing for the people that are adults.

Like, wow, the world's changing. Yeah, it's changing for that four-year-old that's growing up in that world right now. changing for that four-year-old that's growing up in that world right now. And they're going to have, the moment they get online, it's going to go from, I'm just a little kid, live my little kid, that's my mommy, that's my daddy, to woof, the big world, all in one big smash. And I don't think anybody's little, I don't think an adult's brain is designed to handle most of the shit that we have access to online. No, no. But forget about a growing mind. think an adult's brain is designed to handle most of the shit that we have access to online no no

forget about a growing mind and what what influence that has on society is really yet to be determined what are they doing to that donkey and why yeah yeah um how much do they get paid for that i didn't know that was a career you could engage in uh no it's it is i i i've got it like i said i've got a daughter. There's an interesting age difference, right? So what is that? That's about 12, 13 years age difference, right? And so I feel like there's a social thing there where you can study this as a case study.

What my daughter went through growing up and access to information, which was uniquely different than now, even though she started, there was really no internet or anything, but then it exploded by the time she was essentially a tween, I guess. Well, the difference between you and I, who grew up with nothing. Right. No internet. And then it became the internet when we were fully formed and as an adult. And then you got a chance to see it. And even then screwed it up and made mistakes and got online with it and got viruses on your computer and saw some stuff you really didn't want to see.

Had that dial tone. Remember you dial in when you would get there? And then the picture would kind of come in in little blips. Oh, yeah. And you realize when you didn't really want to see it anymore. Like, uh-oh. When did you first get a cell phone? I got one real early.

I got a cell phone in the 80s. Wow. Yeah. Well, I was a comedian. And like 89, I think, I had a cell phone. I had a cell phone in my car. It was like permanently bolted down to my car. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I got it. I remember those. So I could get – the thing about it was I could get gigs with it. So people would get a hold of you. Yeah, like Bill Blumenreit, who's the owner of the Wilbur Theater in Boston, who was owner of the Comedy Connection back then, always jokes around about it. He was like, you got a lot of work because you were the only comedian with a cell phone.

So he could call me up and say hey you know this guy just got a flat tire on his way to new hampshire can you do the gig i'm like fuck yeah i'm in i'm i'm there i'm already in my car because that's where my phone is how much did you have to pay for that phone i don't remember it's i couldn't afford it no i couldn't afford it i remember not being able to pay for it after a while yeah it was just i a dummy. I always spent more money than I had. Yeah, I've never been good with finances. I've never been frugal. But it was one of those things where I realized I could get it, so I got it. But you remember those times

you'd have to drive around before that, before you had that phone in your car. You'd have to drive around looking for a public pay phone. Oh, yeah. And you'd have to get quarters. Or you had to have a calling card. Remember those things? You'd have a card. I would get. Oh, yeah. And you got to get quarters. Right. Or you had to have a calling card. Remember those things? Yeah. You'd have a card.

I would get fake cards, too. You could buy them off people. They were like counterfeit cards, and they were good for a couple days, and they'd go under, and you could buy other ones. And then there was other things you could do. You could take a sound device and put it up to the phone, and you could get a call with that. Like you would put up this thing to the phone and you could get a get a call with that like you would put up this thing to the voice box area and it would make noises like yeah yeah and it would somehow

another trick open up the uh yeah yeah the line yeah no i i remember that we we used to before the you know before the cell phone technology hit and this is early days of being with the agency um when you were overseas, if you were in an urban setting, you spent half your time looking for operating pay phones, right? You know, like some third or fourth world country, you're trying to find a pay phone that actually works because you've got to make some sort of, you know, call related to whatever operation you're engaged in. And, you know, the kids, the kids, the kids today in the agency don't understand that, you know, because they've all got,'ve all got great technology and mobile communications.

But, yeah, in the old days, it didn't work that way. Most people don't even know what a phone booth is. No, yeah, exactly. They say it like about fights. That's like a common expression. These two could have fought in a phone booth. They could have fought in a phone booth. They could have fought in a phone booth.

But today you say fought in a phone booth, and people go, why not just say they could have fought on a fucking, you know, something else that doesn't exist anymore, a wine barrel. Well, London, you go to London now, and there's those iconic red phone booths. None of them have a phone in it. None of them work. What are they now? They just keep them there?

They just kept them up, yeah. I think they kept them up. You could probably find one occasionally that's got a phone in it, but it wasn't that long ago. I remember they actually had functioning phones in those things. You would go outside any 7-Eleven or whatever, and there would be a bank of payphones. I actually stopped and took a picture. I forget where the hell I was.

I was out of nowhere. Pulled into a gas station. I was pulling out after, oddly enough, getting gas, and I looked over to the side, and there was a payphone against the wall. Now, the receiver was just dangling on the ground. But I literally stopped, got out, and took a picture of it so I could show my kids. You know, we used to make calls on these things. This is how it worked.

I remember when there was no answering machines. You remember that? Yeah, yeah. And the first answering machine, and whoever your buddy was that got the answering machine first, you thought, man, that's the deal. You're so posh. And I remember we got an answering machine where you could call it, and then when the dial tone went on, you would punch in a code. Yes. And you could listen to your messages, and you weren't even home.

You could retrieve those messages. It was crazy. You could have called from your car to your answering machine. It was crazy. You could have called from your car to your answering machine. There's a funny, okay, maybe, I guess, what do I know? But you should never start a story out by saying there's a funny story. There's a story that when Lyndon Johnson was president, not president, I take that back.

He was in the Senate. And there was another guy, Dirksen, who was a famous senator. And so Johnson was, one day he was driving, Dirksen gets this call, I think I got that guy right, gets a call from Johnson. And they're talking, and Johnson said, well, I gotta talk to you about this thing. He says, hold on, hold on a second. He says, I gotta, you know, we're just pulling up outside the building. I gotta get out. I'll call you when I get to my office. Dirksen says, where are you calling me now? And he goes, I got a phone in my car. And so Dirksen hangs up and immediately says, I got to get one of those. So as the story goes, pulled some strings there in the Senate, got somebody to put a phone in his

car. And so then he calls Johnson and he says, Lyndon, I'm just calling you from my car. And Johnson says, that's great. Hold on a second. I got a call coming in on the other line. Hangs up on him. So, hey, whether it's true or not, it's an apocryphal story. They had phones in their car back then? Yeah.

Well, you know, if you're a senator. What year did they invent car phones? Probably the year you got one. No, I have no idea when they invented car phones, but, you know. Jamie? We should look into that. 1946. 1946. What? Yeah. What?

Wait a minute. 1946? Imagine what kind of pimp you had to be in 1969 to pull up in like a 69 Corvette with a fucking phone in your car. Or a Lincoln Town car. Whoa, this is what it looked like? A car phone is a mobile phone device specifically designed to be fitted in an automobile. That's what we used to call them back then, car phones, remember?

Yes, yeah. Service originated with the Bell system and was first used in St. Louis June 17, 1946. Wow. Before the fucking end of the war, right? Was it? No, no, no. That was after the end of the war. When did the war end?

45. Okay. Yeah. So a year after the World War II. That's incredible. They had a phone in their car. And more importantly, why St. Louis? What the hell was going on in St. Louis if that's the site of the first car phone?

Wow. It was a radio enthusiast who had the foresight to invent the annoying habit of talking on the phone while in the car. So it basically worked on a radio, and it would somehow or another connect to a regular phone line? Is that what it worked? Jesus Christ. Yeah, this is way beyond my Apple watch now. So presidents had this. Johnson had it when he was in the Senate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that would have been, you know, what's that? That would have been like 15 years after this happened, or 14 years after they invented it in St. Louis. But, yeah, I remember when they, you know, the mobile phone then was that big case that we carry around. And you have to get out of your car, set it out on your car, and then it started getting there. Yeah, that big fucking thing you throw over your shoulder, a big handle. I got a big box at home full of all the old phones that I've had over the years. And it's like if I could ever get myself organized,

I would turn it into some sort of wall art installation because it's cell phones through the years, at least covering the past three decades. Well, it's certainly interesting. What do you got there, Jamie? This is the first thing he had developed in 1920. What is that? It's like a mobile wireless transmission device,

so he could send and receive messages. In the 1920s? Phone-like, in 1920. Jesus. That guy behind him is the boss, you can tell. He's listening. He's the guy in charge, man. He's, yeah.

Wow. That's crazy. Yeah, I think that would be a great idea to show kids today. Oh, yeah. That old brick phone from Wall Street. Fantastic, yeah. To the, remember the, what is it called? The StarTAC?

StarTAC? Those were, I saw somebody still using one of those the other day. Yeah, the little flip phone. Hipster. The little flip phone with the little antenna would come out. Yeah, yeah. To be fair, he did. He had a dork knob and a beard. Yeah, there it is. StarTAC. That was a flip phone. Hipster. A little flip phone with a little antenna would come out. Yeah. To be fair, he did. He had a dork knob and a beard.

Yeah, there it is. StarTAC. That was a sweet phone. I had one of those. I was like, oh, baby. It was like Star Trek, right? You were like Captain Kirk with that thing. You'd flip it open and you'd talk on it.

Remember you can get an extra fat battery for it? Yeah. Although that didn't set so well in your suit coat. No, it's terrible, those fat batteries. But if you didn't have a fat battery your suit coat. No, it's terrible, those fat batteries. But if you didn't have a fat battery, you could make a call for four minutes. Battery technology was terrible back then. That Huawei phone, by the way, has an excellent battery.

It's got a great battery. 4,000 milliamp battery. It's giant. Yeah, you know what that battery's doing? It's sucking all the information out of your system. But the sweet, sweet signal that you get for so long while it does that. It is true. It is true. Go out there, kids.

Get yourself a Huawei phone. Amazing cameras. They have a 40 megapixel camera in one. They make all sorts of white goods, too, like washers and dryers and refrigerators. Huawei does that? They're putting all that stuff in our homes. Spying on you. Yes, it is.

You think so? I wouldn't engage in any shenanigans in my kitchen. Not while my fridge is watching. But I don't have a Huawei fridge. I got a... Who does? I have no idea what I have. I have no idea what I've got.

We're about ready to start a... And this is actually what the viewers, or the viewers, the listeners have been waiting for, is to hear about my kitchen renovation. What are you going to do? Oh, we're going to renovate the kitchen. Put a pizza oven in? Are you going to go crazy? We're going to put a big wine cooler.

I know that. Are you? That was the only thing I was actually concerned about with this kitchen renovation. I have no- Like Baker boozing it up. Yeah. Well, you know, every now and then. Mostly martinis, but a nice glass of wine is nice.

I do like a glass of wine. Oof. Yeah. So we're going we do this thing. And I don't know. They came over the other day. And my wife, who's definitely out-punted my coverage. She is a lot smarter than I am and much more organized and efficient.

But she wasn't there. So the guys with the plans, whatever they call them, the planners, they came over to show me the drawings as if I cared. Right. Or as if I could actually read these drawings, right? The blueprints for what they're going to do to the kitchen. So I dutifully kind of paged through them and nodded and said things like, oh, yeah, well, look at that.

That's good. I made a little notation on one. I actually really did. I just said, oh, my God. Look at it. Oh, skylight. And so the guy says, what do you think? And I said, yeah, let's go for it. Let actually really did. I just said, I don't know. Look at it. And so the guy says, what are you thinking? I said, yeah.

Let's go for it. Let's do it. So I approved it just by... I have no idea what I've engaged in at this point. But it's going to take about three months and we're going to have ourselves one hell of a kitchen. So it won't be done by the time you show up. But... So then you'll be eating off of one of those

fucking... We did that for a while. We had our kitchen get renovated, and we had a hot plate. We were cooking off of a hot plate for a while. Right back in college. It lasted a while, but it let us appreciate the kitchen. Did you have kids at the time? Yeah.

Okay. It was kind of funny. We were laughing about it. We thought it was funny. I made out a lot. With our three, we're probably just going to go up. We got this little place, little cabin up in that great town of McCall. We're just going to go up there and hang out for the summer.

Oh, you got a cabin up there, too? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. So we'll just stay up there and let them spend their days fishing and swimming. That's every man's dream is to have a cabin somewhere. Just get away. Just a cabin.

Every man who works too hard, just give me a cabin somewhere where I could just go. Just getting in the car. Yes. No one would be pointing the car towards the cabin. Yes. You could be sitting in traffic for two hours. But I'm going to the cabin. Right.

I'm going to get there, especially a cabin by the lake. Yeah. That's a dream. It's a beautiful lake. I have some friends who have a house on Coeur d'Alene. Oh, yeah. They took a picture, and they're in a boat, and you could see the ground like 80 foot deep with a photograph. You could see the bottom of the lake.

It's crazy. How is that possible? That water's clearer than, that's like Fiji water. Yeah. You got a whole lake full of Fiji water. You should go up there. Well, that's what we do. Get in Idaho. We got a lot of money to burn up there. It's fucking Fiji water. Yeah. You got a whole lake full of Fiji water. You should go up there. Well, that's what we do. Get in Idaho.

You know, we got a lot of money to burn up there. It's fucking crazy, though. I mean, it was so beautiful. That is that Coeur d'Alene area up. It's northern part of the country, Kootenai County, and it's great people up there. Look at that place. Right? Man.

Tiger Woods has a place up there. I bet he does. Yeah. He bangs chicks up there like crazy. Ships them in. Not anymore. He's focused on golf now. Oh, is he?

Oh, I think so. I think he's giving up everything except golf. I think that's why he's winning. That's how you have to do it, Tiger. Yeah. Remember back when you were young and ugly? Well, now you're rich and ugly. It's too easy.

You weren't wealthy. You weren't doing as much of that. You were winning. Those pictures are amazing That might be one of the most beautiful spots in the country Yeah, they've got And it's just a great spot It takes about

It's a hell of a drive to get up there from Boise But you can fly to Spokane, Washington Great town, and it's only about a 30 minute drive From Spokane Is it really? Oh wow Are you going up to Spokane to do a show or not? No That's the move, huh? Where else are you going up to Spokane to do a show or no? No. You should.

That's the move, huh? Yeah. Where else are you going? Is this a one and done or are you traveling around? Well, I just did a Netflix special that I filmed, but it's not going to come out until September. And so now I'm just going to do a bunch of gigs and get ready to put together another hour. How long does that

take? It takes a while. I might have to do some illegal substances. Don't tell anybody. No. I need some ideas. No, I won't say. Hold on a second. I won't say anything to anybody, including the director-designate. Try to tell all these folks to make mushrooms legal.

It's not hurting anybody, and it's giving a lot of folks some real good ideas. Oh, hey, before I forget, and I probably should have told you this offline, but Newt Gingrich thinks it would be excellent to sit down and talk to you. Get the fuck out of here. It's the truth. Newt Gingrich? Newt Gingrich. And I'll tell you how I know this. How do you know this? I know the person who runs his admin and operations, his media stuff and the things that he does. And he does a lot. And she's a great person and she told me, you know, that's what he'd like to do. So she brought it up?

Yeah, she brought it up to me. That's when I know I fucked up and I got too big. It's time to quit, Jamie. We gotta move to Coeur d'Alene. Go pike fishing. They got some awesome pike fishing out there. They do. Yeah, they do. Yeah, and good hunting up there too. Yeah.

So that's a great part of the country. Look at that. Oh, yeah. See? That house is on a... That's a precarious situation. Yeah, I gotta assume that's a septic tank situation as well. They're not hooked up to city water.

What a fucking weird spot to put a house. He greedy bitch. Can you find Payette Lake? McCall? I mean, since today's travelogue, we're taking you

to Idaho today. How do you say it? Payette Lake. Payette. P-A-Y-E-T-T-E. So that's where you got a cabin? Yeah.

Look at that. I know, right? How many people out there? Not many. It's a small town. It's much smaller than Ketchum. Give me a number. Oh, geez. I don't know. 30? 17? How many people out there? Not many. It's much smaller than Ketchum. Give me a number.

Oh, geez. I don't know. 30? 17. How many of them are white nationalists? All right. There's a lot of that out there, too, isn't there? You're thinking of one of the other states.

You're not thinking of Idaho. Oh, no. Idaho has some white nationalists. That's what they say. I've never met one. Well, they wouldn't tell you. I know. They keep that from me, as well. This guy knows too many people. I know. That's really that lake? Yeah. Holy shit. Right. I've never met one. It's not real? Well, they wouldn't tell you. Look at that. I know. They'd keep that from me as well. This guy knows too many

people. I know. That's really that lake? Yeah. Holy shit. Right. I'm telling you. Holy shit. It's fantastic. That makes me, right now, I'm getting anxiety. I want to push a boat out there and start fishing. I can see the water. Look how flat it is. I can see the trout breaking the surface.

And during the summer, you just go out there and in the high season, when you're not fishing, you just float around. Do a little water skiing if you want to. But mostly just kind of hang out. That looks fucking amazing. And 10 minutes from there is the ski area and the ski resort. It's a great little ski place. You know what, man?

I think I'm done with skiing. Every time I ski, this is what I'm doing. Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Didn't get hurt. Right. Yeah. I know the feeling. Another't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Didn't get hurt. Right.

Yeah. I know the feeling. Another one of my friends just blew out her ACL. I know three friends that blew out their ACL in a year. All skiing? All skiing. Three in a year. Yeah.

You got to adjust, right? It's like everything else. But you're right. Once you have that thought, and I know exactly what you're thinking. I'm doing the same thing. I'm heading down the slope thinking, I cannot afford to hurt myself. I got too much work to do. Don't get hurt.

Don't get hurt. Don't get hurt. Didn't get hurt. I was snowboarding one time, and I just completely lost it. Cracked some ribs. Couldn't catch my breath when I was laying on my back, right? And it was towards the end of the day, and that's when it happens, right? You're exhausted, but you think, I'm going to do one more run because it sounds like a good idea.

And so anyway, I'm laying down down there and there was nobody else out i mean it was it was getting twilight and i'm looking up at the sky this is i hear this this is how i'm gonna die i hear this noise behind me and these two guys it couldn't have been both of them are probably like 19 maybe they come they come screeching to a stop and i'm looking up and i'm trying to catch my breath and i can't really move and so all i can see is when their faces come into the frame above my head and they both look down at me and they go, oh, dude. And then they take off, right? They take off.

They just left you there? They left me there. They didn't even, I guess they, cause I didn't say, oh, I'm in a little pain. I just, I didn't say anything because I was trying to catch my breath and they just take off. I'm thinking, that sucks. You have a small window to say help. Yeah.

And then your pride and your ego. Right, right. You're like, I don't want to tell these little fucks that I'm hurt. Yeah, no, exactly. Little punks. I dropped into a tree well a couple seasons ago and we were out. A tree well? A tree well and I was in the backcountry.

Well, you know how you have a tree, lots of snow falling, you know, you got powder. And so what will happen sometimes is you get the appearance of solid snow. But around the tree, the base of the tree, you'll get these little caves almost. Like there's nothing around the bottom of the tree. So the tendency is for the snow, if you get too close to the tree, well, you'll collapse into it. And then you're at the bottom of this hole, right? Oh, no. And you're trying to get out.

And usually it happens, you know, when there's beautiful snow and it's all powder and you can't get out so anyway uh my wife and i were uh on the back side of this mountain and so there's nobody around she got out ahead of me um and uh i fell into this thing and that's the time when i thought to myself after about 35 minutes of trying to haul my ass out of there i thought i could actually die here but the snow was falling lightly you know and there was still a little bit of sun coming through. And it was a beautiful thing. And I literally thought, I had to lay down for a minute to catch my breath and think, I gotta give this another try. I thought,

meh, it's the worst places to die. And I thought, yeah, I thought, you know, what if you gotta go here? Because I'm thinking at some point my heart's gonna explode because I was working like a son of a bitch to get out of this. How were you trying to do it? How were you trying to get out? At first you think, okay, I'll get my skis back on and get out of here.

Or maybe I won't get my skis on. I'll try to just step out of here and get out. But it's just all – it's like being in a – Quicksand. It's like being in a quicksand, I guess, is a good analogy. Yeah. And so it's just – you can't get a grip on anything. You can't get a hold of anything.

And you're trying to pull yourself back up. And even if you do get a little ways out, you're on powder, right? And it was a beautiful powder day, right? Blue skies. How deep is this powder? Well, you sink into it, up to your thighs and beyond. And so when you're doing that, think about it. You're trying to get – because at a certain point, you've got to get your skis back on,

right? And then you're about done by the time you get out of a tree well. And now you're trying to get your skis back on, and you're in powder, and you're trying to do that, and it turned into a real goat rope. But I guess my point being

is it was a beautiful day, and I thought, not that I was going to lay down and die, but I thought if you had to, if you happened to go, it's not a bad place to go. That's a great attitude, but it's also, I think,

indicative of how much shit you see in your life. Like, at least I'm here. I was worried about the wolves. The wolves could come by and gnaw at my bones. They would do that, too. They would. Like that guy's coyote. It was a horrible story in Africa where a toddler got stolen by a leopard.

I put it on my Twitter. Jeez. I put that stuff on my Twitter all the time. People go, why do you put this up? Why do you post this? Because I want people to know. You've got a delusional sense of wildlife, you fucks. You dummies out there taking selfies with bears.

Well, I was in Connecticut just a couple days ago. And I was talking to some folks there that I know because we used to live out there a while back before we moved to Idaho. And they were telling me a story that they've got this alert out. This bobcat is on the loose in Connecticut, right? Now, it's a pretty rural state. People don't realize that. Yeah, it is. But it's a rural state.

But anyway, this lady was walking her two little dogs, right? I don't know what kind of dogs they were. But out of nowhere, this bobcat just swooped in, grabbed one of them, took off, right? And she's chasing the cat, trying to save her dog. Well, that dog is done, right? And so she's trying to chase. Anyway, so they had sightings of this thing. But now everybody's freaking out because it's a danger to their shih tzu or whatever.

They found a mountain lion in Connecticut a few years back. And I think he got killed on the highway. I think. What was he driving? One of the things they found out from this mountain lion was that it had traveled from, I want to say North Dakota.

It made its way all the way across the country. That's fantastic. Yeah, they can roam, man. Yeah. It's like, we used to have coyotes come across our front yard in Connecticut. Oh, yeah. I mean, they're so adaptable.

They're in New York City now. Really? Yep. That is not where I would go as a coyote. What is this? A lynx in someone's kitchen. Oh, that's not good. That ain't good.

Wow, look at the noise it's making. Like if you... Whoa. I don't know how it got there yet. Oh, Jesus Christ. So creepy. I tell you what, the noises this thing is making. I think that's the person taking the video, don't you?

No. I guess so. I would punt that thing into another dimension yeah no fucking question I would get the omelette pan out yeah if this is going down

it's going down right now and I'm gonna choose yeah that thing was crazy wow but you're right I didn't know they made that noise I could have sworn

that was the lady taking the video. Let me hear that again. Give me some volume. I think that is the lady. No. That's the cat. That's the noise. That's the cat. That's some noise.

That's the cat. Yeah, you're right. Fuck you, cat. That thing is... There's something wrong with that cat. That cat's got an issue. It's got a problem. Yeah.

It's on meds. Yeah. That's opioids right there. There's something going on. Holy smokes. Well, thank you for bringing that up um but you're right the the notion about what wildlife is like yeah you know i mean if you're you know and it's just and it's that difference right it's a difference if you're living in new york city you've got this perspective about about it and it's all that's why i'm happy

the coyotes have made their way into new y City. You're going to start snatching dogs, and people are going to go, hey, they're not our friends. They're not like Wile E. Coyote. We just need to understand why they're upset. Yeah. We've encroached on their land. Nope. Nope. This is what they do.

What was the best hunting trip you ever took? I'm curious. My favorite to hunt is elk. Elk. Okay. Yeah. Because first of all, because you get one elk elk and you get hundreds of pounds of meat. I love that.

Yeah. It's delicious. The only thing that's as delicious is this axis deer. Axis deer is pretty damn delicious. The thing about axis deer, too, is it's one of the most ethical trips because you have to kill them because they don't have any natural predators at all, and there's 20,000 of them on Lanai alone. Then they have them on Molokai. They have them on Maui.

And there's no predators. So they literally have a responsibility to kill them. Otherwise, they're going to face starvation and disease and overpopulation, decimation of plant life. I mean, they just eat everything in sight. Do you have to get a separate license for each island? I do not know. I think you get a Hawaii state license, but the way it works in Lanai You can you could shoot 12 of them. 12? 12. That's how many they have which is crazy for deer Yeah, I mean the most you ever hear is like two bucks in some states

And you know they really have a lot of deers. What do you end up with once you dress it? They really have a lot of deers. What do you end up with once you dress it? I would say each one you're getting around 50-plus pounds of meat. They're about 200 pounds on the hoof. Okay. Yeah. They look more delicate than that.

No, it's a fairly big animal. They're heavy. They're fast as fuck too, man. Yeah, when they run, you're like, whoa. I mean, they run like a – it's like, again, it's like an African animal. Run like a deer. Yeah, but it's much faster than a regular deer. Because it's like that white tail that took off in that video, they're way quicker than that. Way, they would be.

Well, that guy was not exactly the Usain Bolt of the deer. I wouldn't use him as the bar to set this by. Yeah, he was like a light bulb that you have to slap a couple of times to get it to go on. Oh, God. Yeah. So I had a follow-up question to the deer. Damn it. This is what happens.

You get older. I know. Sad. Holy smokes. Then you start getting up in the middle of the night to go pee. But you're out in this island. This is this gorgeous island on the Pacific Ocean with just beautiful views. I mean, it's just unbelievable, stunning.

And it's filled with these deer. I mean, they are everywhere on that island. That's the best thing about it. When it comes down to it, the hunting, the fishing, it's just being out there. Yeah. And sometimes you have to remember you have to stop. I mean, you want fly fishing sometimes. You get caught up and all of a sudden you have to stop and you step back and you kind of look around and you think, oh, yeah, this makes sense.

I don't do enough fishing. I fucking love fishing. I've done fishing a few times recently with my kids, but it's ocean fishing where you're out there trolling. You're in a boat and you're pulling the line. It's not as fun. Casting on a lake is the best, like topwater bait or something like that. Yeah, that's great for kids. Kids love that.

Oh, man. And I've started taking – I've been lucky enough to be part of an Alaskan fishing trip that happens every year. What do you guys go for? Halibut, salmon. That's the best. And I've actually got a picture of a couple of the halibut that my boy – because now he's old enough I can bring him with me. And so we go every year. It's a group of guys, maybe 20 guys.

And he hauls up this halibut. This was his first time going, right? He's up in Alaska, this beautiful place. And you could just tell it just snapped him, right? He was just like, oh, my God, the expanse of it all. It's just the size of this place. And then you get out on the water, and he starts hauling up this thing. And it's this massive halibut.

And he's just like, he couldn't even put two words together. And then you have to tell him it's got to go back in the water because it's not big enough. Really? So halibut's got to be either below or above a certain size. The middle range is maximum for breeding. Yeah, if they get them too big, they have to let them go, right? Range is maximum for breeding. Yeah, if they get them too big, they have to let them go, right?

If you get them big enough, while I'm talking, I'll bring this photo up. I don't know why. Oh, my phone's dead. Never mind. Really, technology fails me again. But, yeah, the prime space in between, I forget what the cutoff is. I think they have to be over 80-something inches. I'm sure somebody can dial in and tell me.

80 inches? Yeah. And if it's not over that, it's a little bit over that, then you've got to toss it back in because they're still in prime fucking time and they produce more babies. Yeah, I've heard that. The really big ones. A buddy of mine got a huge one and they cut the line on him. Yeah. They were saying it's too big. We've got to let it go. And he was like, what in the really big ones. A buddy of mine got a huge one, and they cut the line on him. Yeah. They were saying, it's too big.

We've got to let it go. And he was like, what in the fuck? Yeah. No, if it's big enough, then they can. But you look at them, and you think, that's got to be big enough. It can't be 80 inches. Yeah, it is. If this damn thing was working, I'd show you this photo of Scooter with his halibut. Well, plug it in and charge it back up.

It didn't fly. Jesus. I know. I didn't know whether you had electricity here. I need to. We do. That's how the lights are on. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I don't know how things work in Idaho. Yeah, it's a little different there. But if 80, look at the size of that fucking thing. 300 pounds. That's a beautiful one. Yeah, there you go. Just pretend my, you know. Yeah. know, one of those kids is my kid.

Pretty much said. Wow. They're enormous. But if they're bigger than that, they probably have to let them go. I mean, if you get a fish like that, you're eating that thing for a year. See, what happens is, no, but if you catch one that, say, is about, I don't know, eight inches smaller than that, then you've got to toss it back in. So the point being is you'll look at something, you'll think, wow, this is definitely big enough to catch.

Then you've got to measure it. And if it's not over that 80-some-odd threshold, you've got to chuck it back in. But when you talk about a fish that's that big, you think, there's no way I've got to toss this back in. But you do. It's state law. That's crazy. How many – what is 80 inches? Is that six foot what?

Six and a half feet. Six and a half feet. Jesus. Crazy. Yeah. That's a big How many, what is 80 inches? That's six foot what? Six and a half feet. Six and a half feet. It's crazy. Yeah. That's absolutely crazy. That's a big fucking fish, man. And you just haul this. And you can imagine what it's like winding.

Yeah, 400 feet down maybe. Right. Right? Because you're down towards the bottom and you're just kind of banging the bait down there on the bottom. And you're bringing up a door to a castle. That's right. Yeah.

Look at this. Wow. And I mean, halibut are delicious, too. Oh, it's really good. And so we end up with kind of like what you're talking about when you're thinking about, well, what do you end up with? Well, I end up with an entire freezer just from this one trip. Wow. An entire freezer full of salmon and halibut.

It's pretty tasty. And you get to do it in Alaska, which is one of my favorite places to go to. Alaska is just crazy that we stole that from the Russiansussians for like 15 bucks how much did we get it for cheaper than manhattan i think yeah i think it was um but uh yeah alaska and yellowstone two places i tell people all the time you got to go yeah go to both what which is seven million dollars that's it that was in 1867 so oh so okay and current dollars that would be like i don't know 7.2 million. But Manhattan was like $15, right?

How much did they give the Native Americans? And then people are getting crazy right now. They stole it! They stole it from the Navy! Okay, okay, okay. But apparently we paid the Russians pretty well. But we stole it from the Indians. $24.

$24. Yeah, but you have to remember, it was undeveloped at the time. Unlike Alaska. Alaska is still undeveloped. 20 years before it. Imagine how angry the Russians must be. They sold that to us for $7 million. It is so big.

I mean, at least Manhattan is fairly small. Well, think about the Louisiana Purchase, right? I mean, think about Jefferson getting that from Napoleon. I mean, what that was like. And it is crazy when you think how this nation was cobbled together. Yeah. And the foresight that took and the sort of the just the balls of saying, yeah, we're going to take that. Thank you. Like a fair price? Holy shit. It was a purchased treaty by the Senate on October 20th of 1803,

doubled the size of the United States, and opened up the continent to its westward expansion. Yeah. Holy shit. First thing they did was encourage people, move out there. You've got to populate that place, right? That was the whole plan. Well, one of the things that we saw when we were in Montana for the first time on the Missouri was you would

saw these homesteads where people tried to make it out there and they realized you can't grow anything out there because you know that mud is just yeah it's it's not you can't till it you're not going to grow anything in it whatever's growing there is what grows there and you're not going to grow anything extra you can't have a farm there and people tried forever because they just thought let me just find some ground and all you have to do is live there for a certain amount of time, then it would be yours. But there's these really old, broken down houses from, you know, the 1800s, 1700s, whenever people were out there. And you could still go there and touch the wood. It's really weird.

You can still see, yeah, there's homesteads like that in Idaho. And it is crazy when you think about people making their way across, right? We talked about how people are getting softer. That's why when people see photos of people from those days, they look hard. It's a tough life. Skinny faces.

They don't often look happy, but they were living a hard life. They're making their way across the country. Sometimes you imagine they're just thinking, fuck it. This is as far as i can go and they just put up stakes there right they said fine we'll just build here and maybe it was good land maybe it wasn't but can you imagine when you get to that point where you're you're suddenly staring at the rockies and you think really i got to cross this in those days i mean the the expansion, the westward movement of people, there was a series called, it's misogynistic, but it was called The Men Who Built America, right?

Or The Men Who, The Frontiersmen or something like that. That is misogynistic. Yeah, it is, right? Fucking sexist. I know, exactly. The women didn't build anything, you assholes. No, I mean, you know, they did some cooking and, yeah, mending. Made some babies.

Mending. But no, that series was really good. The first one was The Men Who Built America and then they did another series about the frontiersmen and that is the one

I'm thinking of. I think there's like, I don't know, five or six episodes to it. I think it's on Netflix. But it talks about, I mean, it covers the whole thing,

but it covers Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, all the characters that you remember hearing about. Right. But it goes into real historical detail about it and it's fascinating when you look at how this place was cobbled together.

And quickly. And quickly, yeah. If you think about just a couple hundred years' time in relation to the rest of the world, a couple hundred years, things didn't change that much at all. No, exactly. It's a remarkable story, but yeah, it's also, you get an appreciation for kind of how we might have treated the Native Americans yeah for sure yeah my seven year old came home the other day with a pale look on her

face and I go what's going on she's like I learned about the Donner party today oh jeez fucking seven they're teaching kids about the Donner party she's like where did they die I'm like the mountains they tried to make it across during the winter and they didn't make it.

And she's like, they ate each other? Like, they ate each other. Like, they were teaching my fucking seven-year-old that people eat people. We were playing Oregon Trail back then, which is, I mean, it's a video game. That's the video game violence. Yeah, it's a different thing.

But, you know, it's just something about learning that that could happen, I mean, and did just a couple hundred years ago. Yeah. Not that long ago. Well, you look at Lewis and Clark, right? Yeah. Look at what they did and what they were wandering out into, which they had no idea what they were doing. They didn't know what the fuck was out there in terms of predators, in terms of natives.

They didn't know what was going on. I had a call one time from a production company. I wanted to know whether I wanted to take part in a serious... It was on the Donner Party. They were going to recreate that whole expedition. Right down to the last thing. Everything was supposed to be historically

accurate. I listened to what they were doing and I thought to myself, nah, thank you very much. I couldn't get myself nah, thank you very much. I couldn't get myself excited about it, I guess. I thought it would be interesting, but probably only interesting for the first couple of days. And then you're thinking, why am I here? Why am I here, right?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, for the sake of a show. But, you know, I think they pulled it together. I'd have to look and see. They probably faked a bunch of shit anyway. Oh, yeah. What does it do with those shows? Things don't go well, like, hmm, time to fake it.

Yeah, yeah, because the crew's always right there, right? It's like Bear Grylls. It's like, hey, will I survive? Well, you might, and hopefully your cameraman does too. Yeah, Bear Grylls, it was a direct response to Survivorman refusing to fake things because he did it on the same network. Oh. Les Stroud's a friend of mine. He was telling me what happened. to Survivorman refusing to fake things because he did it on the same network. Les Stroud's a friend of mine.

He was telling me what happened. They were trying to get him to fake things. And he was like, no, I'm going to go by myself with just cameras, and I'm going to film myself actually surviving. And if you watch Les, he'll do a show where he's out there for five, six days. By the end of those five days, his cheeks are sunken in. He looks like shit. He's barely sleeping.

He's just eating anything he can find. Sometimes he's not eating for days. Bear Grylls looks great. He's all good. He's sleeping in the Marriott. He's like, that's what I was going to say. Drinking bottled water. Now I'm off to the days end. On camera, he's drinking his

own piss and trying to survive off of roots. As soon as the camera's like, cut, give me that Twinkie. I don't remember where he came out of. I can't remember where he was in the British military. I'm trying to remember. I don't think he was with SBS or SAS or anything like that. I thought it was. I thought it was SAS.

I thought that's what they said. Maybe it was. Maybe. But anyway, yeah. If you're doing it for real and you think about the amount of calories you burn and what you need to replace, and then you realize that's what it was all about. People spent every damn waking hour collecting

food and water to keep themselves going. That was it until whenever. Well, you realize until, you know, whenever. Well, you realize that when you go on hunting trips, like if you had to just hunt for survival, a hunting trip, you could easily go five, six days and not even see an animal. Yeah. If you're in the wrong spot, you got to try to find them. I mean, there's many days where you go and you don't see anything.

Like what if you're hungry that day? Well, tough shit. Yeah. Tough shit. And those people did that with muskets and bows and arrows and tried to make it across the country without any idea what the fuck was in front of them. I mean, Lewis and Clark burned

or Powell going down to Colorado. The amount of food they needed to consume as an expedition was astounding. And the time that you had to spend hunting and ensuring that you could keep everybody fed. And Lewis and Clark, they ran out of food. At a certain point, they were eating their leftover candles, basically.

Were they really? Yeah, made out of, what, beef tallow. So, yeah, they were down to, that was it. Candles? Yeah, that's all they had. Imagine how hungry you have to be to eat a candle. Yeah, who gets the wick? It's chewy delicious

it's anything to fill your stomach I'm sure yeah but it anyway so that's you know

but the interesting thing is if you live in a place like if you live out west you're surrounded

by this all the time you think about it right for some reason I have no idea why but it's again I've lived all over hell and back.

I'm never moving. I'm never moving again. Yeah, it's obviously a gorgeous place where you live. I get it. And fuck Connecticut. You went from Connecticut to there. I did, yeah. You went from one of the places that I would never live to one of the places that I would definitely live.

One of the world's – one of the country's worst managed states, you know. I mean, it's just incredible. That, New Jersey, obviously, you know, they just underfunded pensions or unfunded pensions. And a shitload of Lyme disease, too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Have you ever had Lyme disease? No.

I had it. It's not good. Have you got it? Yeah. Some people get it and they keep it. Yeah, hold on to it. It's chronic. Yeah. It's like dysentery or malaria. It just kind good. Have you got it? Yeah. Some people get it and they keep it. Yeah. It's chronic. It's like dysentery or malaria. It just kind of sits with you. Yeah. I came down with this. It was like flu-like conditions.

People are fascinated. I hope Mike tells us about his Lyme disease story. And you just feel like absolute shit. It feels like a bad flu. And so I would go and I talked to a couple of doctors there in Connecticut. And they were like, I think it's the flu, right? And they couldn't, they didn't diagnose it. So then we go out, we're out in Idaho. We hadn't moved out there yet, but we went skiing and we were in Ketchum. And I go into a clinic because I said, just not feeling any better. Just this thing is

just lingering. So I go into a clinic there, and I talk to the guy. And it's a young doctor, not too long out of medical school. And he says, where? Where do you live? I said, Connecticut. And he goes, you've got Lyme disease. Whoa. I'm in Idaho, and he diagnosed Lyme disease. Turns out he went and did his medical school in Yale in Connecticut.

And he figured it out. And so, yeah, it's pretty much what it was. You had to go to Idaho to get a good doctor. That's what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, we're 43rd in education, but we are tops in health care. So there you go. Yeah, but it's going to be a bad tick season out west, too,

because we didn't get really a big freeze in parts of it, not all over. They're creepy little animals. Yeah. The fact that they carry such debilitating diseases. Have you ever heard about the Lone Star Tick? The Lone Star Tick that turds people, there's a certain derivative of

one of those diseases that comes with this Lone Star Tick that it attacks something called the Alpha Gal, which is short for something else, but essentially makes you allergic to red meat. No.

Yes. Yeah. There's a tick that if it bites you, if it can give you a disease, it will make you allergic to red meat. And it's spreading all throughout Texas. Texas has a great bunch of cases of it. There it is. Ticks can be the size of a poppy seed.

Can you spot all five ticks in this photo? There they are. They're all grouped right there in the center. Yeah. Oh, fuck. What kind of nonsense is that? That's the CDC? They just tweeted this out the other day.

Why did they do that? Learn how to prevent tick bites. People got grossed out. Yeah, like, don't eat a muffin. Yeah, if you avoid muffins, you won't get ticks. Why are you putting ticks on the muffins, you asshole? You did that on purpose for a picture? You're ruining food?

Yeah. They scare the shit out of me, those little creepy bugs. Yeah, we got a big old English golden retriever, so during this time of year, we're always pulling ticks off them. He'll come inside and sit down next to you, and one's crawling off of him. Yeah, it's not good. So you got lime in Connecticut, right? Yeah. A lot of people on the East Coast are getting them. Yeah, it's not good. So you got lime in Connecticut, right?

Yeah. A lot of people on the East Coast are getting it. Yeah. It's super common. It's all over. Connecticut's covered in ticks. I mean, I had no idea when we moved there, but we had a nice little property,

and we had a big pond out there and a little stream running through. It was very picturesque, but it was also just covered in ticks. What can you do about that? Nothing, right? You know, they'll go through and spray, but then you can't let the kids out. Nothing, right? You know, they'll go through and spray. But then you've got to probably let the kids out.

Yeah, right? What the fuck is the spray killing besides the ticks? Well, exactly. Yeah. So we don't do anything like that out there. And it's not so bad out west, but they still have it. And they don't have the same types. They certainly don't have this red meat tick.

I had never heard that before. That's a new one. That's a creep show right there. I think it's within the last, they discovered it within the last five years. Yeah, that wouldn't be good.

I mean, I've given up a lot of red meat, but now I'm not going to give up red meat entirely. Don't give up red meat. Well, no, you know what I mean?

I eat less than I used to. Eat it all. Nah, eat it all. Don't listen to those fucking monsters. Yeah, I try to,

I try to come back to some degree. Why? You know, just for, you know, you get a little bit older, and I'm trying to watch. I got a family history of heart disease, massive problem with heart disease. My parents went both that way. One of my brothers has a defibrillator.

Another's got several stents. The other's on heart medication. I mean, it's just like, so it's a family thing. So you try to do what you can, but I'm not giving it up. Just like I'm not giving up my martini. Are you kidding me? I really don't believe that red meat has any effect on that. I think it's processed carbohydrates and sugar.

I think that's what it's all about. And this comes from conversations with real scientists and nutritionists and people who understand the actual studies and data. There is an issue combining carbohydrates and simple refined carbohydrates with red meat. Saturated fats by themselves, not an issue. Saturated fats with high levels of carbohydrates, definitely an issue. Why? Just the interaction?

Yeah, the interaction between the two of them. The way Dr. Rhonda Patrick talked about it, I could get a hold of her and try to get her to do it again and explain it to me but it's the interaction between saturated fats and and carbohydrates it's not saturated fats on themselves on their own saturated fat like red meat and and organ meat in particular extremely healthy for you very Very good for you. But people are so used to consuming sugar and simple carbohydrates and processed foods for fuel that your body just gets accustomed to it. When you add saturated fat to processed carbohydrates and sugar, that's when you get issues. That's why a lot of these studies that show that red meat increases heart disease. If people eat red meat over four or five times a week, have higher instances of heart disease.

But they're not asking what are they eating with the red meat. Are they eating it in a burger? Are they eating it with fries and shakes? Because that's different than eating a grass-fed steak. With avocado and maybe a salad. That's not bad for you at all. It's a – look, if cancer – if red meat really gave people heart disease and cancer and all these things that people say, there'd be no people, okay? Because people have been eating red meat from the beginning of time, and literally 97% of

the population eats meat. But people process this stuff differently. Exactly. Nitrites, processing, all the different preservatives that people put on in red meat and processed foods, that's what's fucking people up. That and refined sugars and carbohydrates. Do you pay attention to cholesterol issues? I mean, is that something that-

Not dietary cholesterol, but neither does American Heart Association. You know, even Weight Watchers now says that dietary cholesterol has no impact on your actual blood cholesterol. Weight Watchers lets you eat as many eggs as you want. Eggs have a zero-point system in Weight Watchers now. Eggs are zero points. Yeah. You can eat as many eggs as you want. I've been doing that egg white thing.

Everybody their whole life. Egg whites are not good. But the good part is the yolk. Yeah. You want use as many eggs as you want. I've been doing that egg white thing. Everybody their whole life. Egg whites are not good. But the good part is the yolk. Yeah. You want the egg and the yolk together. But the protein's in the white, right? I mean. No.

No. There's protein in the yolk, too. Okay. All right. They both have protein. This is nonsense. But the cholesterol's in the yolk. In the yolk.

Okay. But it's not bad for you. Cholesterol's the building block for hormones. Yeah. I mean, it's just, we get lied to from the beginning of time when it comes to, well, first of all, there's a lack of understanding. And then there's also these studies that come out that are fucking funded by the sugar industry. You know about that?

Where the sugar industry paid scientists to take the blame off of sugar and put it on to saturated fat. There was a whole New York Times article about it. The sugar industry bribed scientists to lie about the dangers of sugar. What's the difference between, I don't even know what you would call it, refined sugar and beet sugar? Is there a – There's different sugars have a different effect on –

like they have a lower glycemic index, and it really usually is dependent upon whether or not they're connected to fiber like sugar in the form of fruit is not bad for you like if you eat an apple it's connected to fiber that you know you're eating the whole fruit that's what it's supposed to be right that's how it's supposed to be consumed the real issue comes when you take that sugar out of that fruit you know whether it's high fructose corn syrup or whatever the fuck else you're getting sugar from, and then consume that sugar. Because then it's sugar-free of all the natural things that contain it.

Fiber. And the actual fruit itself, the tissue of the fruit. We try to keep processed foods out of the house for the most part, right? So we try to keep the kids eating healthy and all the things we're supposed to do. But it is interesting in the sense that, you know, from an economic standpoint, right, eating healthy, there's a, you know, you're advantaged if you're, you know, middle class

or upper class, right? If you're, if you don't have the financial wherewithal, I think that's, I don't know, maybe I'm just blowing smoke on my head, but I think that there is something to be said for that. I mean, because if you're going and you're thinking, I'm going to eat organic, I'm going to eat all this. It's fucking expensive. It's expensive. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, you know, okay, well, so you've got a group of people that are disadvantaged in the nutrition side of things because they end up defaulting to the processed foods. Yeah. Yeah. And so you think, okay, well, so you've got a group of people that are disadvantaged in the nutrition side of things because they end up defaulting to the processed foods or the fast foods. Yeah. But I'm happy to hear about the red meat. Now, you know, I'm going to walk out of here. I'm going to say, I can eat a steak whenever I want, and then I'm going to get bit by this tick. I'm not going to want a steak. Well, salmon is fantastic for you. That's 100% true.

Yeah. And the essential fatty acids in salmon, omega fatty acids, salmon is just one of the best things you can eat. Wild salmon. Oh, my God. Phenomenal for you. You haul it in. We've got a freezer for you. You haul in some king salmon. Beautiful.

It's fantastic. It's beautiful. It's so good. And, yeah, that's the best meal is that and some basic vegetables. Exactly. Boom. And you're done. And luckily, you know, we're lucky.

Our kids like fish. They really like fish. And a lot of their friends, you know, they'll come over for dinner. I don't want fish. Oh, those little fucks. Yeah, I'm not going to have that, you know. And they want a burger. Okay, fine.

But, yeah, we eat a ton of fish because you catch a lot of fish. Sure. So, yeah, it's really good. Kids get really addicted to bread. They get really addicted to hamburgers and sandwiches and things with carbs. It's about carbs with kids. And, you know, you need a certain amount of carbs for sure, but we eat way too much in general.

And that is most likely what's responsible for heart disease, most likely what's responsible for the overweight epidemic in America. It's carbs. Yeah, I can believe that. I do think that people react differently. So, you know, we could have two people, we've got the same diet, I'm going to process it one way and I'm going to end up with very high cholesterol. That's a fact.

It's going to be a problem. But, yeah. So, anyway. But bottom line is, you know, you get to a certain point and you start thinking, ah, I'm going to pay a little more attention. So that's where I am in life. I'm paying a little more attention to what I'm eating. I'm paying a little more attention to what i'm eating i'm paying a little more attention to my regimen as far as what i do for you know i'm gonna send you some podcasts to listen to that would be good give you a real understanding of the the actual science behind food versus the misconceptions and versus the misinformation because there's so much of it

out there and then there's so much uh you know we've talked about this before this is probably a good thing to talk about this now and i need to know what's true and what's not true. Remember we talked about how the guy who started the Atkins diet died and he was 258 pounds and all that. Well, apparently when he fell and hit his head, he had serious problems in the hospital and gained somewhere around 50 pounds while he was in the hospital, even more than 50 pounds. I believe he was 195 pounds, they're saying, when he was checked into the hospital. And his heart disease had nothing to do with his diet. It was a viral illness that caused his heart to fail. And this was all related to organ failure.

He had massive organ failure and massive water retention because his body was falling apart while he was in the hospital. I mean, most people think he died how? Well, most people think he died falling and hitting his head, which is true. But the vegan propaganda was that he actually died of a heart attack and that he was 258 pounds when he died. So his diet didn't work. But they're saying that, no, when he was checked into the hospital after he hit his head, he

was only 195 pounds. So all this weight gain that they're attributing to his diet, they're being disingenuous and untruthful. The first thing you do when you check into a hospital is you got to check yourself out as quickly as possible. Well, this guy, I mean, when he checked into the hospital, he was fucked. Apparently, I mean, he fell and cracked his head open on the ice. And, you know, it wasn't a good scene.

And he was an older gentleman when it happened. I believe he was in his 70s. Okay. Yeah. But he died. He gentleman when it happened. I believe he was in his 70s. Okay. Yeah. But he died. He had massive organ failure. And it was – so somebody sent me some thing yesterday about it so that whatever his heart disease was, it was not from like hardening of the arteries, from cholesterol, from eating all that food.

Yeah. It's so hard to understand what's right and what's wrong too because people get so ideological about it, especially vegans. And even some meat eaters get ideological about it. People aren't looking at the real relationship between food and health. I've got a few people in my family who are

vegan. Yeah, it's a little religion. They're wonderful people. They're great people. But when it comes to this, it's a little bit of a religious thing for them. And I'm thinking- It's definitely ideological. Yeah. Yeah. And they want to think there's only one way, and that's to be plant-based. It cures all

diseases. It fixes- Well, I know I've had people that have gone vegan, and they got sick. And they had bad blood work. And Sam Harris is one of them. He tried it for a little while. He tried it for quite a while, and he did it the right way. And he just, he got ill from it. Yeah. I, you know, I'm a big fan of moderation, you know, just moderation and everything. Right. I mean, just that seems to be a reasonable attitude, I think, in terms of when it comes to your diet, right. And just, or, you know, it's, I try not to overthink anything in life. And we just, you know, we're in that point in society where maybe because things are easy, and we have made it easy because of technology and everything else, that we're able to just analyze everything fucking fairly well, right? So I'm just thinking maybe it's not that complicated, you know, just, you know, you work out, you burn more than you take in, you know, you try to eat healthy, you stick to the basics, you know, grains and fruits and vegetables and meat and fish.

Even grains are fucking terrible for you, man. Really? See, I didn't know that. I always said grains. Somebody told me grains. Most grains are not good for you. Most grains are bullshit. It's just carbohydrates.

All right, nuts and seeds. How about nuts and seeds? Vegetables. Nuts are great. All right. Seeds are great. Vegetables. Almonds.

Yeah, almonds are fantastic see i ate a ton of almonds all right yeah look at that good stuff i know high in calories too yeah there you go they are good calories healthy fats oh we used to there were times when if you if you were traveling or whatever and you were sitting in some safe house somewhere and uh just waiting for something to happen or you just happen to be holed up for whatever reason and there was like nothing in there, right? I mean, I remember times when I would eat oatmeal. That was all I would eat because that's all that was available.

And you'd eat oatmeal for like three weeks in a row just, you know, because you were waiting to get on the road and move and you didn't have access to other foods. You think, wow, that's a lot of oatmeal or something, right? And so I developed when I was younger, I developed sort of this attitude. It's just fuel. Just, you know Just keep moving forward. So you've got to eat something. So for a long time, I didn't really put much

stock in, oh, it tastes great or it's really good. It was just more, you know, got to consume something to keep moving. So it's only, it hasn't been, it's been recent when I've really got to get focused on it. What do you have to do to, when you've got little kids, you know what it's like.

You want to stick around, right? Yeah. Yeah, so. I'm going to send you some podcasts. Yeah. Do you cook? I do. Oddly enough, I like to cook now.

Oddly enough? Yeah, oddly enough. You know, well, you know. Most people assume if I can't operate my watch that I can't turn a stove on. But I can do that. And I find it actually a lot of fun. It is. And it's stress relieving.

It's very satisfying too. You sit down to a meal that you prepared yourself, especially if you grow your own vegetables and pull them out of the garden. Which we do. My wife has a great little vegetable garden. And so we do that. We have a few fruit trees.

Nice. And so that's nice. Yeah, it's good. It's good. But the whole process is nice. And I'm one of those people, I think there's two types of people. You cook and you've got a big mess all around you, or you cook and you clean up as you're cooking, right?

Yeah. Which one are you? I'm the one that – I like things to be the way they're supposed to be. I like to clean up while I'm doing things, right? Oh, okay. Yeah, so it's – I'm that. The rest – yeah. And my kids are actually – the two older boys, they take a part in it now.

They like to grill. What's grilling? Is grilling bad for you or good for you? No, grilling's good. Okay, all right. I was afraid you were going to tell me you shouldn't grill meat. I like grilling. Okay, all right.

Okay, good. That's because that's what we do, basically. Nothing wrong with that. We've got a big 100,000 BTUs outside, and we just fire that up. But, yeah, it's, you know, there's nothing more to say. When you pull a fish out, whether it's the ocean or the river, you know, and then that's what you're eating that night. Phenomenal.

It's the best. It is, especially if you can do it that day. Yeah. Like campfire, like if you get it right by the, bring a skillet and cook a trout right there on the beach. Trout for breakfast. It's amazing. And a couple of eggs.

Oh, yeah. You're making me hungry, Mike. Yeah, I know. Well, but there's something about it. People always say, really? You're going to have fish in the morning? That sounds odd. But you're up there early. The sun's coming up. You catch a couple of fish. You cook. People are weird

with what you eat in the morning. Yeah. What? You should always have cereal in the morning? What does that mean? It's just food. It's food. You should have food whenever you want the food. If you want to have a steak in the morning, What does that mean? Well, it's sugar pops. It's just food. It's food. You should have food whenever you want the food. If you want to have a steak in the morning, there's nothing wrong with that. I remember when I was a kid, that was back in the days when, you know, boxed cereals,

you know, that's what you ate, right? And the sugar pops. They didn't even make it. They didn't hide it, right? It was like, this, that, whatever it is. What was the name? Sugar pops. Super Sugar Crisp.

Remember that? Yeah, Sugar Smacks. Yeah, that cartoon bear. Super Sugar Crisp. Remember that? Yeah, Sugar Smacks. Yeah, there's a ton of them. Cartoon Bear. Yeah, it was fantastic. And as a kid, you could go through an entire box in one morning before you went out and played baseball. Listen to me.

You were cracked up on sugar. Just running around out there with your eyes bugging out and your pupils dilated. Mike Baker, it's always a pleasure talking to you, my friend. Hey, man, listen, thank you very much. Three hours just flew by. Believe that? Good God. That's why your phone's dead. I'll to you, my friend. Hey, man, listen, thank you very much. Three hours just flew by. Believe that? Good God. That's why your phone's dead.

I'll see you out in Boise, man. Sounds good, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. What happened? We're still live. Don't say anything crazy.

Don't talk.