The Joe Rogan Experience - #1634 - Jack Carr

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

Jack Carr is a New York Times bestselling author,  former Navy SEAL, and host of the Danger Close podcast. His newest novel, "The Devil's Hand", is available now.

the Joe Rogan experience train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night all day good to go all right I have officially read more fiction from you than any there's like there's two other people J.R. Tolkien and Stephen King. He's the only other two people. That's rare air right there to be in. They're great, though. Thank you so much. I've been listening to the audiobook, I won't lie,

which is odd because the guy does the girl voices and the guy voices. I know, it's tough. Ray Porter, he plays Darkseid in the new Snyder Cut of Justice League. Oh, really? For those people that have four and a half, five hours on your hands to watch that, apparently it's incredible, and he's such a great guy. Is the new cut four and a half, five hours?

Something like that, at least four. Because I went to watch it because he's a friend of mine, so I went to watch it because I'm in the middle of all these interviews and doing stuff for the book launch, and I saw how long it was. I'm like, all right, Ray, I'm going to watch this in a couple weeks for you because it looks wonderful, but I just can't sit down for four hours.

Well, supposedly Tarantino made a 20-hour cut of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Oh, my gosh. People will watch it, too. Oh, fuck yeah, I'll watch it. People will watch it 20 hours. If I sat down for like an hour and a half in my house and watched some old movie from the 80s or something like that, I can only imagine the looks I'll get from the rest of the family. Like sitting there having a beer, watching First Blood or something that I enjoyed watching as a kid. That's not happening.

20 hours? That's rough. Well, I think the move to do, if they wanted to do, is to release it on Netflix as a series. Totally. That's a great idea. Tarantino, I don't know what his deal is in terms of his financial situation, like how they have who has ownership or how it would do it, but if they could sell it to Netflix or

HBO Max or whatever and just put it as a series. Oh, totally. Fuck yeah. It'd be amazing. Yeah, people will tune in. It'll be a big thing. Probably the only time a 20-hour movie was ever made into 20 different episodes to make a season. Right, and then you could compare it to the...

I saw the first one, the first cut, rather, with Chappelle, Dave Chappelle, Donnell Rawlings, and all the other people that opened up for Dave and Ian Edwards. We were in a movie theater. Dave rented out an entire movie theater. So we did a show. We did this arena show in Tacoma,

at the Tacoma Dome. Nice. This 25,000 seat show. It was fucking Nice. There's 25,000 seat shows, fucking bananas. And then afterwards, we all went out and went to this movie theater. And they had rented out the entire theater for just us. That's perfect. So we're just lounging this movie theater watching that movie. It was probably like 2 o'clock in the morning or something crazy.

Yeah, that's the way to do it. I think it's one of the last movies I saw in the theater before COVID hit. Because with kids, we just don't get out that often anyway. But that was one of the last ones that we sat down and actually had that experience. But it was great. Especially the end. I love the end of that movie. It's so crazy. It's a great movie. Yeah. It's a really

fun movie. Flamethrower at the end. It's fantastic. The thing about movies is if you go to the movies, you have to trust that your fellow humans are not going to be retarded. I know. You have to trust that your fellow humans are not going to be retarded. I know. It's tough. You've got to trust that they're not going to look at their phones.

You've got to trust that they're not going to talk to each other or be loud. People are so goofy. The home theater is the way to go. If things continue on this track, we're having a home theater. And I get nervous now, of course. The chances of something happening are so slim, but I get in there. I look where the exits are. Okay, if something goes off in here, if there's a fire or a bomb I get nervous now, of course, you know, there's probably, you know, the chances of something happening are so slim, but I get in there, you know, I look where the exits are. Okay. If something goes off in here, if there's a fire or a bomb or something like that, okay, we're going to move down this aisle, put your hand on the wall and move down so you can find

that exit rather than just like chaos. So I identify those things. I talk to the kids about that stuff and then I'm ready. So someone strange walks in like, I'm like, yeah, but that's the Navy sealing you. I guess it, but even before that, so i went to uh growing up they did a apocalypse now like 10 year anniversary or maybe like 15 year anniversary i went to see apocalypse now no one in the theater except me like oh my gosh huge theater i'm sitting there watching and somebody walks in some crazy person walks in so it's like two rows ahead of me so my experience watching apocalypse now for the first time is just looking like this at the back of this guy's head that That's like all jittery and crazy. And I thought, you know, who knows, you know, 17 year old kid, you know, or 16, whatever I was at

the time. I'm like, I'm like ready. Cause I'm training, I'm boxing, you know, I'm doing all my stuff. I know I'm going to the SEAL teams. I'm like, this is it. This is it. I'm gonna get tested right here. You know? So it was a horrible experience. I was just so, so even today when I see that movie, which we watched before going into Hell Week. Oh, really? So me and Andy Stumpf, that was our class movie. Now they show like, after that they show like Braveheart,

you know, to get you fired up before you go into Hell Week. We watched Apocalypse Now. That is not the movie to watch before going into Hell Week. That's a movie that makes you reconsider. Yeah, yeah. That is so,

that's why we had so many people quit, probably, is because they made us watch that movie. But anyway, point being movie theaters. I heard Arclight closed down in LA. Yes. Like today or something.

Today, right? Yesterday, something? They announced it yesterday, yeah. People are hoping some other company comes and buys those properties or whatever. Well, of course. Yeah, but the thing is, I really think that with HBO Max showing first cut, like King Kong vs. Godzilla was on HBO Max, Wonder Woman was on HBO Max, they're going to start doing that.

And when they start doing that and people have the option of staying home, if you have a nice television, you don't have to deal with people on their phone, man. I don't have to deal with that crazy person coming in, just getting all written ready to go. It's also just so many people are on their goddamn phone. It's just so goofy. They just can't put the thing down.

And you see them texting. The light thing down and you see them texting, the light, you know, lights up and you hear them talking. Yep. It totally, yeah. It disrupts the whole experience. And even for me, it's hard to put that thing down, you know, it's like we're programmed. So that's why I love getting away to a place where that's not even an option. But on the other hand, if you go to a movie and everybody's cool, it's a nice experience because you're all experiencing it together. Like, it really is fun. Yeah.

So you just have to take that risk of, you know, going and unfortunately running into knuckleheads. Yeah. No, it's sad that we have to think about that. Like, going as a kid, I never thought about that. I always thought, oh, it's going to be so awesome. I'm going to see Predator in the theater. I'm going to see Delta Force with my dad. You know, I'm going to see, you know, Running Man, whatever it was at the time.

You had no options. Loved it. Yeah. There was no place else. You had to wait six, seven months, a year for it to come out on VHS, then ride your bike to the VHS store and hope it was in there. It wouldn't be there for the first week because you're going to get in line, a waiting list to get these things, and you look in the return bin,

see if it's in the return bin. But, yeah, it's crazy. But, yeah, it was totally, totally different. It was such a fun experience. And now we have to think about bombs going off, people being crazy, and just looking at your phone being annoying. Yeah. You've got to think of so many different things now.

And the other thing is, like, people are watching movies on their phones now. If I was Quentin Tarantino and I made a masterpiece, like, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and I knew someone was watching on a six-inch screen, I'd be like, no, brutal. But the kids are doing that. My kids are on their little device and that's where they're

watching their shows on this thing. I can't even believe it. Rarely do we watch the big screen together. It's just crazy. But yeah, it's a bummer. That's for sure. Because I love it.

That was such a great experience growing up. I remember those movies. I remember all those different ones. Back to the Future. I remember all those and having such a great time and now we don't really do

that anymore. Well, there's something about the written word that seems to be, it seems to have a life outside of this digital world. You have to have someone write these things out. Even if it's going to be a

film, you have to write the script. And if you're modifying a script from a book like your books, someone has to add it. So it gives me hope that the written word is still valuable, that fiction. You can get caught up in a man's or a woman's ideas, and they take you on this journey of creativity. And there's something to it man like when you're reading it it's not just that you're getting enthralled with this this story and you're you're you know you're being taken on this journey but it's also for me at least I know that as a guy who wrote this or a woman who wrote this I know that I'm being I'm this is someone's

someone's labor like I know they sat down like with you we're friends so it's cool so I know that I'm being, this is someone's labor. Like I know they sat down. Like with you, we're friends, so it's cool. So I know you. I've seen pictures of your office. I know you're sitting there typing away. And as I'm getting this experience out of your books, it's like there's something about it still fuels the imagination. There's something great about movies where you see it all and it's wild and you know it's creative. It still fuels the imagination.

There's something great about movies where you see it all and it's wild and you know it's creative. But there's also something great about having your imagination fill it all in for you. Yeah. Some of that, it takes effort. Growing up, it was effort. You sit down, you read these books. In movies, more passive. You're there, you're enjoying it, you're part of this experience.

But your imagination, some of those things are filled in. You know what the trees look like. You know what the cliff looks like. You know what the water looks like, you're enjoying it. You're part of this experience, but your imagination, like some of those things are filled in, you know, what the trees look like, you know, what the cliff looks like, you know, what the water looks like, cause you're seeing it. But in a book, when you're describing a mountain range or, you know, someone walking into an office, you're plugging in all these little pieces from your own experience through your own filters and, you know, biases and all the rest of it. So you're actually an active participant in that creation, which is, which is kind of cool. But, And I loved that. I loved that growing up. I loved being a part of that as the magic of these books. And that's what I'm trying to recreate today with these. But also going to movies has helped huge. And growing up, I thought it was just fun. I just love going to these movies, especially the ones that had

main characters that had backgrounds that I wanted in real life one day. So I just naturally gravitated to all those movies. But it helped in that it helped me with my storytelling. It helped me read a book like First Blood, created in 1972 by David Morrell. Then we have the Stallone movie. Two very different things, both fantastic. How different is the book than the movie?

It is very different. I feel like we should be able to talk about it because it came out in 1972, without spoilers. Yeah, we can get that. So at the end of the novel, Rambo dies. Yeah. We can't have that. That's right. He's not even named.

No fucking way. Yeah, and Hollywood gave him. Chase the script. Which they did, because it tested very poorly with audiences, when they just rooted for this guy for this whole movie, and then all of a sudden he gets killed at the end. Oh, so they did do it in the first movie. They had him die.

Then they filmed it again. They filmed a different ending, which is much better and allowed them to continue on. So in the novelization. But now he's like 80. He's still getting after it though. Still getting after it. Still getting after it.

Weird. It's awesome. You're going to be like that. Yeah. Joey Diaz told me he went to see The Last Rambo and he did it on edibles. And he said it was one of the funniest movies he's ever seen in his life.

He goes, first of all, he goes, the guy is still, he's still in great shape, but he's, it's like, it's kind of almost like cheesy now. Like, they've turned it, like, they know what they're doing, so there's a scene where he, like, rips some guy's throat out of his, you know. It cuts his heart out. It's amazing. Yeah?

I love it. There's no way I wasn't going to love the movie. You know, I just grew up, I'm rooting for him. That's the whole point. Like, I'm rooting for that movie to do well. I want it to do well. I want him to do well just because I have such a connection. How old is he?

Gosh, he's got to be 70-something, right? 70-something, yeah. Well, I just found out yesterday that Robert Redford's almost 90. So what do you think? He's 84. I checked yesterday. Yesterday? Robert Redford?

Yeah, it's almost 90. Well, it's kind of almost 90. Why did you check yesterday? But that's like 14 is almost 20. 14 is not almost 20. Well, it's kind of almost 90. Why did you check yesterday? But that's like 14 is almost 20. 14's not almost 20. Sly is 74. 74, look at that. And still crushing.

Yeah, it's amazing. 74 years old. But point being, I was like, I love those movies. And then when I sat down to talk to the producers and all the people that are involved in making The Terminalist into this series, usually they like to get rid of the author right away because they don't want him saying, like, you ruined my vision and all this. So I got to talk to him about growing up and reading all these books and watching the movie adaptations of these different books

or the TV adaptations or whatever it was, and they realized, okay, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I understand telling a story visually is different than writing it on the written page. And they're creative people. Like, they're going to take this thing, and they're going to tell it in a way that is more – Palatable.

Yeah, for a visual. For 90 minutes. Yeah, for people to sit there. And it's going to be eight, so it's eight hours. So it's going to be eight – which isn't far away from a 20-hour – I mean, it's only 12 hours away from Tarantino's day. So, yeah, eight hours. So eight episodes for Amazon Prime. And so is it all four books?

It's just the first one. Just the first one. So you could conceivably do this for all four books. Yep. They're talking about the second one already, which is pretty cool. But I guess it all depends on how the first one does. Like if it just bombs, then probably not. I started your books out of order.

What did I start with? You started with Savage Son? I think I started with the third one. Yeah, you started with the third, Savage Son. And then I went back. And you went back. Yeah. So they're doing, yeah, they're started with the third one. Yeah, you started with the third, Savage Son. And then I went back. And you went back. Yeah. So they're doing, yeah, they're starting with the first one.

And then depending on Chris's schedule and Antoine's schedule and how everything looks, then maybe they do another season. So we'll see. That's the goal anyway. Even though I started with the third one, it works. Awesome. You could just pick it up from the third one. But when I went back to the first one, I was like, hmm, maybe I should have started this way.

Yeah. Much better. I think you started the first one because you understand the, hmm, maybe I should have started this way. Yeah, much better, I think you started the first one because you understand the characters, you have this relationship built with them,

that sort of thing. So I think it works better that way. It works either way and it works since I enjoyed the third one so much going back and listening

to the first two were great too. So cool. And it filled it in but do you anticipate writing with new characters? Are you going to keep Jack Reese? How are you going to do this?

Yeah, so James Reese. James Reese. Why is Jack? Jack is John. Sometimes, sometimes. John F. Kennedy, Jack, that sort of thing. No, it's easy to do. And then you have Jack Reacher character.

You have Jack Ryan. It was really John Ryan from the Clancy stuff. Yeah, James Reese, the main character, former Navy SEAL sniper background, similar to mine, but right now it's so hard to, uh, get an audience to connect with your character. Uh, and I didn't even think about that as I started, but since that's happened, since he is resonating with people and the stories are resonating with people, um, that I think I'm going to continue on with the same character, the same storyline, um, building on it, building along his journey, cause we're all on this journey and people can relate to that as well, to transitions and different struggles and all that. So I'm going to continue with this character for as long as people want to continue to read about him.

So do you feel like you just hit gold? So you're in a nice fucking vein of gold in this map. You might as well just keep running. I think so. vein of gold in this mountain you might as well just keep running i think so i mean you could uh i heard a story like my um from my editor and she has another another author that uh that had to come to the same thing like people resonate his character was resonating and he said i think i'm gonna do something different and she's like what no you're not no you know how rare this is so uh like uh jk rawlings she had this amazing success with harry potter and then she wrote

another book and you know I mean I'm sure it's probably pretty successful just because she's J.K. Rawlings and everybody loves her but I haven't heard shit about it sometimes it's hard to move over what's the new book about magic

no maybe not I don't know I feel like I knew something I couldn't tell you what it is I have no idea I'm sure it sold a million copies because everything she does. Yeah. Yeah. She could, you know. But we all know Harry Potter. Like that is part of the culture now.

Yeah. That is a part of the culture. But yeah, I'm continuing on with this for a while, but I'll do other projects as well. Like I learned a ton working on these scripts and I didn't know anything about screenwriting going into it. And the screenwriter, David Agilio, awesome guy out there in L.A., he really just kind of mentored me along. And we worked on these things together and I got to advise on each of them. So I got to see how that process went. Got to see what it looks like when you bring a writer's room in that I knew you have experience with. And now you have 15 people in that are all giving their different ideas to how to adapt your work. So it's really interesting.

Were you there while that was happening? Not physically. So they sent me the, yeah. So COVID hit pretty soon into it. So they were all virtual too. so they're all doing that uh that virtual the room was virtual so you did a virtual meeting though so you were at least uh digitally in presence so was it weird having people talk about your creation and sort of move it around and did they keep all the main characters like katie and yeah his ex-wife and his daughter and all that stuff is yeah. So Chris wanted to keep it. So Chris optioned it right out of the gate, Chris Pratt.

So January of 2018, before it even hits shelves, Chris Pratt options it because my dear friend Jared Shaw gives him a copy and says, this is your next project, which is just crazy. By the way, who's better than Chris Pratt? I can't think of anybody. He's my favorite Chris. He's great. He's just such a great guy. He is.

He's so nice. And for it's he's perfect for that role so perfect you know he's done you know he had a small role in zero dark 30 where he plays a navy seal um and very small part but uh you know his other stuff hasn't been as violent hasn't been as visceral hasn't been as primal and so people are going to be surprised how graphic is this going to be pretty graphic well the books are so graphic. There we are. There we are right there. Yep.

I think that was Antoine wasn't supposed to post that, so I'm so glad that he did, though. Antoine, you fucked up. It's on Chris's page, actually. Yeah, Chris did it, too. Chris reposted it, which is great. So Antoine, and Antoine Fuqua right there, man, he is such an amazing guy. So he did Training Day, did Tears of the Sun, Magnificent Seven, Shooter, Equalizer.

And it's one of those guys, like, when you meet him and you're in his presence, like, something's different. You know, you have this, like, you meet a lot of people that come through here. And maybe a couple of them have had that sort of presence. Incredible. Such a nice guy. So having Chris and Antoine at the top of this thing, so many people came up to me on set and just told me, hey, this feels different than other movies we've worked on. Like everybody from, you know, in craft services to whatever else, technical advisors, you know, all coming in saying this is different.

And plus we had like 12 SEALs on set, guys that I knew in the teams that are there playing SEALs or acting in it or doing stunt coordination or technical advising or whatever it is. So we were all on. So it was like a reunion. That's awesome. We had a blast. Yeah. So all those guys there, it was a huge reunion. That's awesome. So we had a blast. Yeah. That's awesome. So all those guys there, it was a huge reunion

for a week on set and we had a blast. But yeah, it could not be, and you trust, a lot of this is trust. So when you hand something over to somebody

to take your work and change it into something and adapt it to film or it can be anything, but there's a lot of trust involved because you're, especially me,

if you're not J.K. Rowling or you're not Stephen King and you're not maintaining creative control, you hand that to somebody else and you cross your fingers. And there's no two better people to be in charge of this than Chris Pratt and Antoine Fuqua. They're incredible people. Yeah, you knocked it out of the park with those guys. And it's just also like the idea of doing it the way you're doing it as a series is so brilliant I just I love like Ozark and all these these series are almost better than movies because you get to follow it along

and like realistically you're not going to read this book in an hour and a half or two hours or even three hours yeah I mean how many pages this is a long one this is longer so you can use it as a you know blunt force object weapon if You need to or a doorstop. Well, it's the longest one. Yeah, exactly Did you really in three? Dude's mouth and oh nice bang and then he put him over put the dudes while it's in the dude's mouth He put he took it out of his mouth put it on the dude's neck, and slammed him over a table. Nice.

Oh, I love it. Snapped his neck. It was pretty ridiculous. That's one of those GIS I got. Look at that. Jamie, how do you do that? Jamie's the best. How does he do that so fast?

Incredible. Just go to the end because it's a long ass scene. Oh, nice. This might be my new favorite scene in a movie. It's great. Well, this is in John Wick 3 where all of the bad guys are trying to kill him. There we go. Because he's been excommunicado.

Right. So at the end of this, here's when he shoves it in this dude's mouth. Get some. Bam. Love it. He kills him with a book. So great. Bang, bang, bang.

And then he stuffs it in his mouth. Here it goes. Boom. Right there. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. his mouth here it goes and boom right there boom boom boom and then afterwards hits the guy throws him against the table puts his neck down there and boom kills him with a book ah i love it

i love it yeah it's on me exactly i love it boom i have to use that it's uh yeah i actually was i stopped at terror and tactical on the way out of town. I'm leaving L.A. the other day, and I met the stunt double for Keanu Reeves for these movies. Yeah, John Ninja, I think, is his name. So nice. So nice. We got pictures together, and I'm like, oh, man, I got to start working out. I've met Chad, the director, Stileski. Did I say it right?

I think so. I think I might have nailed it. He was a stuntman, too. That's how he came up, I think, right? I believe so. He's a very good shooter, though's how he came up, I think, right? I believe so. He's a very good shooter, though. He really knows his guns. Oh, nice.

Yeah, so it made sense that he would make a movie like that. Yeah. Because, you know, we get to shoot together. He knows his shit. Yeah, you've been out there a bunch of times. I love those videos. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's where I learned to shoot, really.

It's fun. It's fun. You never know who you're going to run into out there. No. Kevin Hart's been there a bunch of times. A bunch of my friends come out there. Bert Kreischer goes down there, Tom Segura. He's great.

Taron is, he's so, first of all, when you watch him shoot, it's so inspiring. I mean, multiple time world champion. He's incredible. Yeah, next level. Yeah, next level. And so fast. So fast. And you're like, what the fuck?

You know, I mean, it's amazing to watch. Yeah. It's a skill like everything else. Yeah. And there's levels. Yeah. And when you see someone who's at a world championship level, and I've been there, I've been fortunate to be there too, where some other guys who've won like really big championships

were there as well too, and you get to see them shoot. Yeah. No, very cool. I think Antoine was out there just the other day, but yeah, super fun out there. It's like a little playland. I can't believe how close it is to the Reagan Library. Maybe I'm not supposed to say that, but really close. Really close. Yeah, I can't believe that that's how it goes out there. And then you can't believe it's California.

I know. Well, it's Ventura County. A little different. Ventura County is a much more sane version of California. Just more regular people. The further you get away from the radiation that is Hollywood, the less sick people are. Interesting. You know what's crazy is that, so I didn't know what to expect out there because it was

my first time down this path and my experience was so great, you know, knowing Chris and, you know, spending some time with him out in Utah and like with you and all that stuff. We had such a great time. And so I didn't really know when they started bringing other actors in and I didn't really know. Yeah, I didn't quite know. Everybody was so normal. You can get lucky. There's some normal actors. You can get lucky. Yeah, I didn't quite know. Everybody was so normal. You can get lucky.

There's some normal actors. You can get lucky. Taylor Kitsch is in it. He's awesome. He plays Ben Edwards. Such a nice guy. Texted me, Jean Triplehorn, who's in The Firm and in Waterworld and in Basic Instinct. And she's texting me saying, oh, it's totally normal.

Like asking questions about the book. Who plays the South African character? What's that guy's name? We don't know yet. Oh. Yeah, yeah. So that's Rafe. That's totally normal. Like asking questions about the book. Who plays the South African character? What's that guy's name? We don't know yet. Oh. Yeah, yeah. So that's Rafe. That's Rafe.

So he comes in at the end of the first book. So they have a little time to cast him. You haven't cast him yet? No. No. So they're trying to figure out how to do that because he's like a fan favorite. So they want to try to like get somebody in there that maybe is a little mysterious or can definitely do the accent, like the Rhodesian accent, which is different than the South

African accent. So they want to get all this stuff right, which is really cool. They want to get all these details right. Chris wants to get it right, so all the gear is right. I'm trying to help out my friends that I mentioned in the book. Is there an actor that you would want to do it? There's a few that could pull it off, and I have another idea that I'm debating, floating to them about.

Anyway, we might talk that one off. You want to say it? No, no. So, cause then if it doesn't happen, they're like, well, you know,

you didn't get the right, you know, exactly. But it's so fun to be a part of it and to be brought into it. Cause usually, like I said, they get rid of the, the author right away,

but, but it's cool. I got a Josh Hall surfboard in the, in, in, in James Reese's garage. You know, he makes Jocko's up with some Jocko go on the counter.

You know, I got all these, like trying to incorporate my, my friends and knives and Winkler Tomahawks and half-faced blades and, like, stuff that I actually use. But they want to do it right. So they don't want to just, like, get a knife from the prop house that, like, looks cool, but they have no idea of his actual utility or if SEALs actually use it or if this makes sense for the character. Yeah. Because all this gear tells a story.

Like, what you wear, your boots, your belt, your pistol, all those things tell me a story about you. So I use that as character development tools. And they want to stay true to that for the film. So they've gone to some extreme lengths to track down. Like they had a Night Force scope that Night Force doesn't even make anymore. And Night Force made them this scope that they don't even make anymore for the film, which is pretty cool. Yeah. So they're getting really, really into it.

And the prop house guys are amazing. And they love all the gun stuff. The car guys, awesome. Yeah. So cool. Like, uh, they got, they sent me pictures of the, uh, of Land Cruiser and like, is this right? And I'm like, uh, you know, it's an 88. It's a, uh, it's, it's their FJ62. It's the right one, but the wheels, somebody put some modern wheels on this thing and it's just not quite right. And so they're like, okay. So they went and switched out. So Antoine had them fix, switch it out and put on these wheels that are kind of like the one that I have from Jonathan Ward. And it's awesome. And they have three of them. And I think I'm going to try to try to get

one after the show, after they film. Yeah. You need one of those. Well, you already have one. I have one, but it's, it's tough to like drive that to the ski resort when people banging doors and skis and kids going by with poles, you know, you know, so it's a, that one doesn't really come out in the winter. I got that one under lock and key. So this one from the set, like it looks awesome, and you can just, I have no problem just getting that thing up. Getting scratched up. Don't you feel funny about cars like that?

They're like velvet prisons. It's kind of weird. I mean, it's awesome because you can just hammer it. I love, like you have that one that has, I think, 100 or 200 more horsepower than mine does, but you push on that LS3, and man, it just rocks. I got a couple little dings in that car. Oh, did you?

Yeah. I want to keep them there. I thought about cleaning it up. I'm like, no. No. Resist. Yeah. Well, it's like an expensive rifle you take on a hunt or something like that.

You have this rifle, this handcrafted rifle that someone made. Maybe it's a woodstock, hand-fitted, everything, and you get a scratch on it somewhere. You're kind of like, ah. Oh, but it's a woodstock hand-fitted everything and you get a scratch on it somewhere you're like huh it's character yeah you pass that on your kids and maybe tell a story about the hunt you were on where you got that ding in it or whatever else so all these things tell tell a story but I'd rather not ding up the the the icon yeah I know it's just they're so beautiful so there's something about that design to that that FJ62. It's one of those things that everybody doesn't appreciate. Like I pointed out to my wife once, and she's like, it looks like a station wagon.

I go, what the fuck are you saying? Get out of the car. How dare you? Exactly. How dare you, woman? That's an FJ. That's a 62. My wife's the same way.

Four headlights. You don't know shit. I know. My wife says the same thing. She's like, which kind do you have again? I'm like, FJ62. I know. But that is specifically one because regular people don't think they look cool.

Like if you see like an FJ40, regular people think they look cool. Yeah. It's like Jeep looking one for those listening. It's like for not people that aren't like totally into those communities. Aficionados. Like that. There we go. So that's a 62 right there.

I see that right there. Even with the stupid shit on the side of it, I go, ah, look at that. Even with that shitty bumper, I'm like, ah, look at that. There we go. So that's a 6.2 right there. If I see that right there, even with the stupid shit on the side of it, I go, oh, look at that. Exactly. Even with that shitty bumper, I'm like, oh, look at that. Yep. But I'm doing another. Look at that one. Come on.

That's nice right there. That's tight. Yep. So that's a 6.2 right there. So those wheels are a little modern though, right? Yeah. So I couldn't do that. I would ask Antoine if he would mind having the prop people switch those out.

That fucking paint scheme's got to go. I know. It's so great. Old school, 80s. Well, Jonathan doesn't do these anymore, you know. I heard that. Is that true? Yes.

I tried to get him to do one for me, and they're done. Really? They stopped. Yeah. No way. So you got to get them on the second. Hey, there's mine, I think. Bottom left.

Yeah, that is. There it is. That is it. That is it right there. Boom. That's the Jack Car Land Cruiser right there. That's the one. That's tight.

That is it. That is it right there, boom. That's the Jack Car Land Cruiser right there. That's the one. That's tight. That is the one. But the one they made for the show, like looks similar to that but more beat up. And it's awesome. Because they made three, because one, they changed the script a little bit, so they have like three of them for the show, they have to do different things.

And in the book, it's a white one, because I wanted to have that, have it fairly symbolic to the pale horse coming, like behold the pale horse. So I wrote that. That's why it was white in the first novel. But those look better. And this one was like, hey, white vehicles don't work well on screen.

So now when you notice a movie, you won't notice too many white vehicles. So they're different colors. So they have a sweet color, and it's just, yeah, they have three of them because it has to do different things. They have to put them on pulleys and do all sorts of cool stuff. Why doesn't white look good on screen? I don't know. I don't know, but when I thought about it,

I was like, yeah, you know, I haven't really seen too many white vehicles in TV shows or movies before. Well, you're very detail-oriented in your writing. Like, everything, you talk about all the various gear and the different aspects of it and what's great about these different things. You could tell that this is coming from,

not just, you're not, it's not, you're not it's not you're not doing research on this stuff this is shit that you're already really familiar with yeah very intimate oh yeah yeah i was that way before the military into gear during the military of course and just and today it's just it's just a part of who i am always wanted to be go farther and faster into the back country growing up so external frame packs became internal and i remember my first one like 1988 or something like that. So I've always been about that.

And I didn't really know how much it was going to help. See, what you just did there, external frames versus internal frames for backpacks. Most people are like, what the fuck are you just saying? What the hell is he talking about? Go back to the Lankers or stuff. But that's very detail oriented. Because when you're dealing with really high-tech, really well-made backpacks, that is where the rubber meets the road.

Yeah, I mean, showing up in the military, we still had these Alice Frame packs that they gave us. I was like, what on earth? You guys are like 20 years out of date on these things. It's ridiculous. There's a lot of these guys that you'll hunt with some guides, and they have these old-school packs, like real old-school with the metal tubes. Yeah, yeah, that's it.

That's it. Yeah, and there's some like that that are actually really good, obviously, for carrying out weight. You know, that external frame is probably, I mean, it is very good for carrying out weight out of the back country. But if you're just going in trying to be lighter,

faster, further, like that sort of thing, it's a little bit different. But what I didn't realize, just because I use all this stuff because I'm so passionate about it and it's such a part of me and it tells a story about these characters. What I didn't realize is that other people have that passion, too.

And when you mention, hey, like like Danny designs packs and, you know, he was like kind of a he's now at Mystery Ranch, but like he was a super innovator. It's just amazing. That's his life has been about making these things better, tweaking them, you know. And and when you mention that, other people are like, oh, I remember my first pack, you know, and it resonates with them. So they have a touch point, a data point rather than just a a story when you say, oh, I picked up a backpack. Okay, that can be anything. But when you say it, like Dana Designs or whatever else, people are like, oh, I remember that one. I got it in 1993, and I took on this trip. And all of a sudden, they're a part of the story, more in that respect.

Like, I'm doing an FJ40. So with Brian Corsetti at Corsetti Cruisers in L.A. I don't know who that guy is. So Jonathan Ward has tutored him along, mentored him along. He's been on Jay Leno's Garage a couple times, I think. And he's doing a similar deal to the way Icon does it? Similar deal, but more one that I can beat up. So not quite Icon.

So if I get a ding, I won't be like, no. But we're going to drop the LS3 in there, I think. And yeah, so he's doing it. Standard or automatic? It is a standard right now, but I think it's going to switch out to an automatic. I still have to go through the details. I'm not sure exactly. We've identified it. We got it. It's in LA right now, but I think it's going to switch out to an automatic. I still have to go through the details. I'm not sure exactly.

We've identified it. We got it. It's in L.A. right now. I found it in Denver. I remember in Revenge with Kevin Costner. Remember that? Yeah, I do remember that movie. He's driving an FJ40.

He's got a green FJ40 in that thing. I had a friend who had an FJ40 when I was like 16 years old. There was this guy named Skip Hakala. He was a black belt at this Taekwondo place that I went to and he was like this sort of

rugged older dude and he had this car and I was like what the fuck is that yeah he didn't realize how cool it was well it looked cool

but it just was I'd never seen one before I was like what is this thing but it was that kind of a deal I never forgot it yeah

and then when I saw one later I recognized like oh that's what Skip used to have. Yep. And now there's this whole subculture of people. There it is. There it is right there. Yep. Nice.

Nice. He was a lawyer too. He was like this interesting character. Nice. He was like this rugged, interesting character. Yep. Yep. There it is.

So yeah, I saw that in- They're so dope. That's such a classic shape. Exactly. You know? Exactly. And back in the day, you know, people were kind of like, ah, it saw that in – They're so dope. Yeah. They're such a classic shape. Exactly. You know? Exactly. And back in the day, you know, people were kind of like, ah, it's a beater. It's a, you know, if you bought one of those in 1973, like, ah, it looks like a mail truck maybe.

But some of the advertisements, have you seen the advertisements from the 60s and 70s for these things? No. It's kind of like some of the old Rolex ads. Same thing. Oh, yeah? There's a, you know, big game hunter with his thing, like, in Africa with the dead animal right there posing with the trophy. And Rolex is sponsoring it. Really? Yeah. Amazing. big game hunter with his thing in Africa with the dead animal right there posing with the trophy, and Rolex is sponsoring it.

Really? Yeah. Amazing. Rolex sponsored hunting pictures? Back in the day. Wow. Yeah, back in the day. I'll send it to you.

You can go online. There's all sorts of cool old retro ads like that, but same thing with this. People don't realize that Rolex was a tool watch. When people think of Rolexes today, they think of Rolexes being this luxury thing that you're flossing. You're showing everybody you've got a Rolex. But Rolexes originally were tool watches. It was a watch that you wore because you wanted to go to 300 meters under the sea. You wore Submariners. Sure.

And Jacques Cousteau, I think, wore one. I'm sure he did. I'm sure he did. I'm pretty sure he did. I think he wore one. I'm sure he did. I'm sure he did. I'm pretty sure he did. I think he wore one of the first. And there's like between them and the Omega Seamasters, like those watches were tool watches. Yep.

And when you look at the prices for them back in the day. Oh, my gosh. Look at that. There we go. Yeah, there's one out there that if you put in like Rolex ad plus hunting or something like that, it should pop up. See, that's the classic. That's the Explorer.

There you go. We built the Rolex Explorer because there isn't any watch repair shop at the top of the Matterhorn. Yeah. They made that watch to – it was sort of an homage to the guy who climbed Everest the first time. Because they did it, but he didn't do it with an Explorer. They did it with a different watch. Oh, really? Yeah, and then they made the Explorer afterwards

for that. So they brand it Rolex and not say which exact one it was. Yeah, Sir John Hunt. Sir John Hunt. There we are. I love it. I love it. Yeah, but some of those ads, same thing with the Land Cruiser ads. They have these ads that are talking about how they're used in Africa on hunting expeditions and stuff like that.

And Toyota probably wishes and Rolex probably wishes that these would go away because now it's more, hey, tennis and golf and sponsorships like that, sailing, that sort of thing. But back in the day, it's tough. I don't think that's the guy who they made it about. I think he said that and so they quoted him. I think the guy who climbed – who's the guy who climbed Everest the first time? Sir Edmund Hillary? I think Sir Edmund Hillary and the other guy who was with wore Rolexes. Tenzing Norgay.

I think that's the legend behind the creation of the Explorer. Of course, there are people out there saying, no, they didn't. Is that right? There it is. Look at that. There it is. Found the Rolex Sir Edmund Hillary wore

to the peak of Mount Everest. No way. Oh, my God. That's got to be worth a fucking million dollars. Oh, yeah. That is definitely a price. Maybe even more. Probably more.

How dope is that? That's a beautiful watch. That is beautiful. Can I see that again? What is that called? Which one's that called? Oh, Sir Edmund Hillary's Rolex Explorer. Wow.

Is it called Explorer there? It's just Rolex. I didn't even say. Oh, original? Is that what it says? Oyster Perpetual? Yeah. Yeah. Is it called Explorer there? Just Rolex. I didn't even say. Oh, original? Or Oyster Perpetual? Yeah. Yeah. I'll say that.

Okay, so the Oyster Perpetual, and then they created the Explorer from that, but that didn't have any numbers on it. The Explorer has, I think, a 369. I think that's what the Explorer has. That's amazing. These ones just go up in price. These are the ones that really maintain their value over time.

This watch was produced in 1950 and was never purchased commercially. Rolex is one of the sponsors of the 1953 Everest expedition. Only one expedition was allowed each year by the Nepalese government. Isn't that amazing? Wow. Now you've got a fucking line of people trying to climb up that thing. And part of his sponsorship included providing Hillary with this watch. It was not a gift, but rather a watch for Hillary

to wear during the expedition and then to return to Rolex for extensive testing after the descent. And that was exactly what happened. So you've got to think, in 1950, man, just the ability to make something so complex that was an automatic movement that was on your wrist,

was that an automatic? I'm assuming it was, right? It wasn't a windup. Even if it was a windup, I mean, that's crazy shit. Yeah, that's amazing. I love that craftsmanship, that old school craftsmanship, and I'm really getting into some of those older watches like that. Oh, yeah. Because it's pretty cool. I can't do the newer ones. I can't do an Apple Watch. I can't do that sort of thing. Just things that are monitoring me. I mean, I have enough things monitoring me and beeping at me and telling me to stand up and exercise. I've got it. I had an. Just things that are monitoring me. I mean, I have enough things monitoring me and beeping at me and telling me to stand up and exercise. Like, I just, I've got it.

Okay. I had an Apple Watch for a day. And while I was doing a podcast, it was vibrating and telling me I was getting text messages and emails. Yeah. Get the fuck off of me. No, can't do that. I took it off on the podcast and set it aside.

I'd never put it on my wrist again. Yeah. No, you can't do that. I love working those things, man. What is that? This is the Rolex Sea-Dweller. Oh, that's a thick one. This is a thick one. But the new one is a lot thicker.

But this is one from 1981, I think. So it's a little older. But yeah, weave that into the storyline as well. There's a Rolex in there. Well, the Rolex from his dad. That's a gift from my dad when I graduated from Bud's. Oh, really? Yeah, so it's a special watch.

And it's cool. Rolex also, they had Frederick Forsyth, an author. He just has his book called The Outsider, which is his autobiography that came out, I think, a special watch. Rolex also, they had Frederick Forsyth, an author, he just has his book called The Outsider, which is his autobiography that came out, I think, a year ago. They sponsored him. So Rolex sponsored authors back in the day. This seems like a Rolex sponsored podcast. It does. I'm wearing a Rolex, too. And I very rarely wear one.

Nice, I know. I saw that when you walked in. See? It's that thing. It tells you something about the person. It tells you that, hey, he doesn't like this Apple watch thing. Probably appreciates fine craftsmanship. It tells you that, hey, he doesn't like this Apple Watch thing. Probably appreciates fine craftsmanship. It tells you a story. As time goes on, I'm trying to get more. I appreciate technology, but I want its grip to be more and more away from me. I have no apps on this phone.

This is my main phone. Oh, nice. Okay. I occasionally have Instagram and Twitter on it, but I also delete them. Oh, do you? But I don't have anything else other than that. this thing is just I can get my email on it but I rarely do nice yeah I have another phone that has fucking everything on it okay yeah I've got the two phones after we talked last time about that so I have

the two phones going now trying to figure all that out people out man it's crazy it's crazy I was talking to you about it talking to Chris I mean what a great problem to have though I mean I feel so fortunate and i still even i was thinking about you last night because it's uh so many people reaching out because the book launches and uh so many people were reaching out and i try to get back to everybody normally and there was just no way and this morning i woke up and it was like boom i try to like repost people's things and stories just as a thank you to them because i sincerely appreciate them taking a risk on me and telling a friend but i woke up this morning it was like ding ding ding ding ding it was just

it was insane you know what I do I have a 20 minute time limit for Instagram so if I have to do stuff or respond to things I give myself 20 minutes and allow myself to but if I fuck off and just look at nonsense for 20 minutes that's it time's up that's your time that's it I like that so sometimes I go to my Instagram and I look in the inbox and there's fucking 185 messages. I'm like, I can't. You can't. There's no way. There's nothing I can do.

No. I was up like 2 in the morning, 2.30 in the morning last night just saying thank you. It's all sincere. Yeah. But I was like, okay, I got to get up and I got a 6 o'clock interview for the East Coast first and then I'm going to see Joe and I got to be awake. I got to be awake. I think people will recognize that you can't.

They know you're very, very, very busy right now. I mean, with launching a television series with Chris Pratt, I mean, how the fuck do you have any time for anything? It's wild. No, it's crazy. And I definitely have to get better. This is the year to get smarter about things because up to now it's been this full-on sprint,

just leaving the military, following this next passion in life, getting this door cracked open, kicking it in, having this book resonate with people, having Chris get, you know, get on board like crazy. But now it's time to, I think, take a breath, put some processes in place, get more effective and efficient. Like it was, it's like my wife is packaging up merch stuff. Like she's in the, it's in her bedroom. It's in the, it's in the living room.

It's in the bed. It's all over the place in the house. Boxes everywhere. She's customer service. We're finally like at Christmas, she's like, okay, stop, we can't do this anymore. Yeah, you're too big for that. This is just too crazy. It's too much.

Yeah, we're going to get that out to a fulfillment center, I think. Yeah, you have to. It's insane. But it's a good problem to have. Good problem to have. It happens so quickly with you, from getting out of the military to starting this book and then having this book take off and then writing the second, the third, and now the fourth. Yeah.

What is the entire timeline? So I got out in 2016, got the book to Simon & Schuster in the fall of 2016. They called me in December, wanted to publish it, and then started that process, and then it came out in 2018. So four books, five years. Yeah. Boom. Bam.

And killing it. There we go. Pretty wild. It's crazy. But they're great, man. They're great. They are fucking... They lock you in. They're gripping. Thank you. And this one, actually, each one has a distinctly different theme, and I wanted to make sure

that I stayed on theme for each book, which actually helped out a ton, because when it got to Simon & Schuster, I thought they were going to change it big time. I was like, oh, it's at the big leagues now. If they want to put exploding robots from outer space in, guess what's going in? Exploding robots from outer space. Did they actually give you those kind of suggestions? No. Nothing.

So I've had no... Yeah, they changed or they asked me to change almost nothing. And I think that's because I had that theme. I had it on a yellow sticky pad because I heard Stephen Pressfield on your podcast talking about... And I misinterpreted him. What I thought he said was that he took a yellow sticky and put it on his typewriter with a one word theme for his novels.

That's what I, so I was like, yes, so that's what he actually did. He told you a story about a playwright who wrote a one sentence theme for his plays. And somehow I translated that through whatever filters I have going to one word. So it was revenge. So that was right there. So everything had to go back to that theme of revenge for that first one. Second one, redemption. And then by the third one, I got to know Steven Pressfield.

And he's like, that's not what I said on this podcast. So give me a little more leeway. So for the third one, it's really exploring the dark side of man through the dynamic of hunter and hunted. And then this one, much more than a single sentence. This one really is something I've thought about. I thought about it in the teams because going back and forth to and from Iraq and Afghanistan, but I continue to think of it as a citizen and as an author today,

and that's what has the enemy learned by watching us in the field of battle for the last 20 years of war? Because we've been playing poker, and they've been circling. So if you're Iran, if you're China, if you're Russia, if you're North Korea, a super-empowered individual, a terrorist organization, they've been watching us play poker, look at our cards, see how we play them. And then they've been applying those lessons to future battle plans. So that formed the basis of this thing. And that's what I came up with in August of 2019 on the way to and from Kamchatka Peninsula. I went over there for that bear hunt and I left my computer behind, left my phone behind. So Russian intelligence wouldn't pull out all these emails

and who knows what people have sent me over the years. So I outlined this thing in my notebook and got back, wrote that down, started doing research into infectious diseases, the weaponization of infectious diseases in the fall of 2019, and then COVID hits. I want to get to that and I want to get to that bear hunt too, but it's crazy the synchronicity of you writing this book about a pandemic while a pandemic hit. Yep. Like you wrote the book, you were way deep into the book and then COVID-19 hits towards the end of your writing.

Well, the middle. Yeah. Middle. Yeah. So, but you had already had the concept, you'd already outlined it. You started the writing. You're in outlined it. You started the writing. You're in the middle of the book. Yep.

When I talked to you last time when we were here in early May of last year, I was in the middle of it. And some authors I heard talking about how they didn't want to incorporate COVID-19 into their writing because they want people to have an escape and that sort of thing. But for me, the book is about what the enemy is learning from us. And they're watching our response to COVID-19. They're watching our response to this virus. And they're watching our response to COVID-19. They're watching our response to this virus. And they're watching our response to the civil unrest of the summer. They're watching our response to a very contentious political season and election cycle. And they're taking those lessons and they're applying them to those future battle plans.

And I ran into a problem. This is the problem I ran into in October or November. I've had myself in the enemy's shoes for over a year as I'm writing this thing, looking at things from their perspective. And I'm like, you know what? If I was the enemy, I might just sit back and watch. We're doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves from the inside out. We're doing a pretty good job of tearing ourselves apart right now with all these what seem like irreconcilable political differences, all this cancel culture, all this violence. We're doing a pretty good job of messing up this amazing

thing that we have here in the United States. So I had to figure out a tool that would allow the enemy to actually need to strike while we're kind of on our knees right now. But you have to solve those problems as you're writing. But it was a serious problem because we're in some dire straits right now, I think. It's a very strange time. It's a very strange time because we haven't done this before, and then it's being accentuated by social media. You know, there was the civil rights unrest of the 1960s,

but what we're in now is different because there's opportunists now, and not just at home but also abroad, that are engaging with these social media thought bubbles and poisoning the water. And so you're aware of the Internet Research Agency from Russia? Do you know about all that? No, I don't. It's really fascinating, right?

There's this woman named Renee DiResta and she came on the podcast a little over a year ago and she outlined what she learned from watching the social media use from Russia from the 2016 election. And what they do is they have untold numbers of accounts that are coming from this company called the Internet Research Agency. It's Russia funded and it's a state thing where they basically are trying to get people in America to argue with each other. Oh, okay.

And they do crazy shit. Like one, they had a Texas, like a pro-Texas, like Texas secession meeting, and they scheduled it across from a pro-Islam meeting, like on the same block. Right. Like they do it on purpose. And it was like, and these memes, one of the things they do is they write funny memes.

She reviewed thousands and thousands and thousands of memes, and she said some of them are really funny, and they're really well made, and they're done by these Russian agents, and their job is to sow unrest. There we go. So their job is to start, and she also outlined how they would start one page and they would build it up and get a bunch of followers, and then once they got followers, they'd get like 20,000, 30,000 followers,

then they would switch the theme and make it a Black Lives Matter page or make it a pro-trans page or whatever it is. Anything to try to get people upset. A pro-Christian page, a pro-atheist page, whatever it is. And then have people duke it out and then have other dummies that don't know what's going on, don't know that they're being set up. Manipulated.

They jump in and then they engage in it, whether it's on Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is. And you realize these fires can be fanned. They can be stoked. It's really kind of fascinating when you see how they've done this and how they've manipulated. And I'm sure we're doing that as well. I'm sure the United States is doing that overseas. Yeah, I don't know. I think there's more controls in some of those other societies that we don't have here.

And I think we both know some good people that would be really good at that job, though. Oh, yeah. Some people that would be great at sowing the seeds of discontent. I would be fucking great at it. Exactly. I was thinking comedians would be really good at it. For sure. If there was a reason to do that.

There might be. You can get recruited by the government. I feel like if that— They can't afford you, though. If you were thinking about doing that, you're thinking about like you could really manipulate people really well by just creating two opposing pages and getting them popular and then having people duke it out with each other. No, it's the weaponization of social media. No doubt about it. We see the weaponization of the law, lawfare.

It actually has a name to it. There's a book called Three Felonies a Day by Harvey Silverglate. Um, there's a book called three felonies a day by Harvey, uh, Silverglate. Um, and he writes about how you wake up in the morning, average person wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, has dinner, goes to bed. And then of course that day has committed three felonies because the laws are written in such a way that they are so broad, they can be interpreted to go after whoever they want. So it's, uh, it is real.

Yep. Three felonies a day, three felonies. And cause there's so many laws that can be targeted, can be interpreted all these different ways. It's like what Stalin did in the Great Purge when his head of secret police said, show me the man, I'll find you the crime. They can do that. And we're very close to being able to do that with almost anybody in this country. But, yeah, social media is just something that the enemy can look at and figure out hey how do we how do we weaponize this against our against our against our enemy so against the united states

and we're just suckers for it yeah we're the perfect environment we're the perfect group of people uh to get turned against one another on social media it's just it's it's sad it's it's sad it makes you worried for the for the future it's a little sad but it's also fascinating it is fascinating and i get to use it in the stories. You know, there's still a lot of things that I can weave into future storylines. But growing up, like we grew up in roughly

in the same time. And it seemed like in the 80s, in the late 70s, 80s, into the early 90s, we were still a group of people as a country that would stand up for your right to say whatever you wanted,

especially if I disagreed with you. Like that was the one thing we could all rally around. I mean, there's other, you know, other certain things out there that, yeah, we couldn't, okay. But the First Amendment, we could rally around that, and we could stand up for one another, like sticking out, like, I'm the only person that can beat up my little brother type thing. You know, you can't.

I'm sticking out. And we could all do that. And private companies acted in the spirit of that First Amendment. And today we see a private company, we see those people that used to be guardians of the First Amendment, lawyers, politicians, newspaper editors, magazines, publishing houses. They used to be the guardians of the First Amendment. And now we're seeing this whole, this complete shift where they're actually calling for censorship, calling for cancellation. And so it's

fascinating to watch, especially if you grew up in a time where that was the one thing that we could really all rally around as Americans was that First Amendment. So now as an author, obviously, that is something that is, and it's something I thought about because my mom was a librarian. So I kind of grew up with knowing about banned books and the history of banned books and censorship and what that means. And as you just talked about, you talked about civil unrest of the 60s. Like a lot of that was to give people freedom. Yes. And now we're having civil unrest and all these other cancel culture and all these other

things that are kind of associated rather directly or indirectly. And it's all about restricting freedoms, restricting those freedoms. Well, they think restricting freedoms is what's going to save us from these bad things. So the bad things get highlighted and they say, we have to stop these bad things. How do we stop that? Well, we're going to have to restrict freedoms. But it's just a confusing time. And this is, it's really new territory in terms of, because of the social media aspect of it, it's new territory. these the companies that you're talking about that are engaging in this they're doing it because they're worried if they don't

that they're going to get canceled themselves and it's going to hurt their bottom line so they're doing it like they're acting in this sort of woke way but they're only doing it because it's a good financial move maybe that's it's why it's weird. Yeah, but if you take it another step further and think of like AT&T. So if someone's talking on AT&T line, AT&T doesn't try to censor that conversation between us or a group call. Or maybe the Telegraph back in the day was that censored.

So it seems financially, I don't know, it's a tough thing to figure out in this next 10 years. The thing about AT&T though is it's private. See, it's private. If you and me are having a private conversation and you're saying some horrible shit to me, no one's going to know. But if you put it online, then everyone can see it.

Then things get weird. It does get weird. Yeah, then it gets weird because then you're saying, well, freedom of speech is important. Yeah, but this is a different kind of speech that we've ever had to deal with before because now you're dealing with something that can actively affect

and influence the way other people think and behave. And when you have something like the Internet Research Agency where they're actively trying to manipulate the way people think and behave, you realize, oh, wow, this is a complex spider web we're kind of caught up in. Yeah, it's not as easy as many would make it seem. There are complexities to it, and this next 10 years is going to be pivotal for the history of our country when we're talking specifically about the First Amendment and free speech and these companies that have more wealth and control of information

than any other country or person and really in the history of the world. So I worry about our kids growing up during this time and then going to college during this time and moving forward into the private sector during this time and what freedoms they're going to have as they move forward. What options and opportunities are they going to have in a country that looks like it's continually infringing upon multiple rights? And they're doing it in a way that they think they're doing the right thing. Like there's a lot of people that are calling for COVID passports and a lot of people are freaking out and going, hey, listen, this is going to be abused because this is not something you're going to be able to pull back.

If they do have COVID passports, what's going to happen is they're just going to apply that to all kinds of other things. Once you have a passport that says you need something in order to go here, you need to make sure that you have a vaccination in order to go here. In order to move around, you have to have something. That means they're going to be tracking you. So if they're tracking you, if they're not just tracking you like they are because of your cell phone, like you can, if you go in tower to tower, they can track you no matter what. But what if it's required that they track you? Because right now it's not required that

you have a phone, right? If you have a driver's license and you go to the airport, you don't have to have a phone on you, but what if you do? And that could happen if you need a COVID passport. We could get to a point where everyone needs to have some sort of a smartphone with a GPS in order to be able to travel freely and you have to be able to do the right thing. Well, then something comes along and they decide, well, now we have the flu or now we have this. Or, you know, you can't do that because you've supported X or you supported Y. There's a lot of people that after Trump was out of office, they wanted to find people who had supported Trump and put them on a list. And blackmail or blacklist those people and keep those people from working.

Make sure those people are punished. Like, Jesus Christ, folks, do you remember history? Like, this has all been done before. You guys need to read history because you can't put people on a fucking list and you can't make people held responsible for a political decision that may or may not have been correct or wise, but then you can change your mind in the future. What you should be doing is trying to influence people's opinions by giving them better information, not putting them on a fucking list and telling them, you know, like you're never going to work again because you were an enemy and now we won.

So we're going to do this. We're going to do that. Like, oh yeah, it's all being all being weaponized and it's a, the marketplace of ideas and being able to express your opinions in this marketplace of ideas. That's what really is the, is part of the foundation of this country is having those best ideas then gravitate to the top because that's where it's competition. It's out there. And now when you have one side able to restrict something they don't agree with, so maybe

it does start off as a way with a good intent. Let's just say that that's true. Well, very soon thereafter, it starts to become something else and a way to weaponize and restrict your political opponents because it's always about power and control. Do you know the story about this guy who is a liberal journalist? What did he do? He agreed with someone that said something. He liked something about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

And the police came to his house. Did you hear this story? I did. Pull this story up because it's so crazy. Crazy. That you go, this can't be real. And here we are. Now, I don't think that it's AOC who's doing this.

It's probably some fucking nutty AOC reporter or supporter, rather. Police visit the home of Podcaster after he criticized AOC on Twitter. So pull up the story because this is so crazy. This is like communist China type shit. It's so crazy that I feel like there has to be more to it. When I heard about it the other night. No, it's not. Please scroll down so I can read this.

Here it goes. No, no, no. So I can read that tweet. Oh yeah, it's about that interview that she had. See, yeah, the interview was fucking insane and so ridiculous. On April 1st, AOC did a live stream with Michael Miller, the head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. She was asked about peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Her response was incredibly underwhelming,

to say the very least. Now, if you listen to her response, she's unprepared. She doesn't really have a thing to say about this, so she basically just sort of uses word salad, and it's a nonsense answer. Go back down. Go back right there. I'm really shaken up right now. So the guy puts this thing saying it's underwhelming.

He puts it up on Twitter. I'm really shaken right now. This is the next tweet. I was just visited by two plainclothes police officers from California Highway Patrol at my home. They said they came here on behalf of the Capitol Police and accused me of threatening AOC on Twitter yesterday. This is provably false. So go back up to what we just saw. So this is all he said.

Her response was incredibly underwhelming, to say the very least. So someone decided that what he's... Now, the reason being is, I'm sure this is some sort of a supporter of AOC that contacted the Capitol Hill police and probably lied. But the fact that they could just come to your fucking house without any proof that you... It's not like he's saying, this lady deserves to die. She must be stopped. We have to stop. None of that. None of that.

None of that. Underwhelming, to say the least. Which is be stopped. We have to stop. None of that. None of that. None of that. Underwhelming, to say the least, which is a very mild criticism. It is, especially if you watch that interview. The guy's face is classic, though. The guy interviewing, it's just like he can't believe what she's saying. It's classic if you watch his facial expressions.

It is. But this is what happens. We should play it just so people understand because it's really a ridiculous answer. It is. But it's the kind of answer you give when you're in seventh grade and you're doing a, like the teacher

asks you a question about a book report and you didn't really read the book. Exactly what it was. It's about Columbus and this is, it was so important that Columbus was here because without Columbus, there were so many things that would not have happened. You know, what Columbus did was brave and amazing.

Yeah, yeah. That's exactly what it is. Now you have to be careful. They might be showing up at your house tonight. They might be at the studio when we walk out of here. I don't think AOC does. I really don't. I think it's a crazy person that thinks that this is just my opinion.

I think it was most likely a crazy person that is angry at this guy for not towing the liberal line. Yeah. Because he's a liberal journalist or a podcaster. That's the interesting thing too. When you talk about growing up when we grew up, when you talk about liberalism, it means something different than it does today. And there's a difference between a classical liberal and a leftist. And what we're seeing more of in this country is those terms intertwined and they're very different things. And leftists are kind of what we're seeing more of, which is grabbing this control, restrictions on freedom of speech, restrictions on owning firearms, restrictions on whatever they think might be, quote unquote, dangerous.

Yeah. Especially when they throw in dangerous to the children. That's the other key when talking about it. But then they take power. And guess who's buying all the expensive houses and has the power and the control? The power and the control, all those same people that were fighting for the little guy a little while ago and talking about all these restrictions that we needed to place on some of these more natural rights that are inherent at birth, namely to be able to defend ourselves and our family, defend that gift of life. Yeah, like when a Marxist starts making money and buys million-dollar houses.

Did that happen recently? Yeah, it did. Yeah, that's what happens. You're a Marxist. If you're a Marxist, you're not buying million-dollar houses. You're not on a fucking real estate business. That's not happens. You're a Marxist. If you're a Marxist, you're studying our history, and if what you know about a certain event or a certain issue is based on someone else's tweet that you just retweeted, and all of a sudden that's your opinion of something that's going to affect multiple generations down the line, particularly their

abilities to defend themselves and their families or to start a business or whatever it might be, well, you owe it to put down the phone, to get into these books, realize, hey, why are these amendments in place? Why is this important? And from the inception of this country up until today, people have died to give you the right to be able to make these decisions,

to follow your dreams, to have these options and opportunities. They gave up everything. People have died supporting these things that you support. These things, like when people are really into Marxism, like you need to learn what happened when that was the rule of law, because it's a terrible, terrible history. It's horrible, but it seems good. Like the idea that everybody should have something. It should be equal for all. And all the workers should be even. And everybody should have equal things.

Well, you know what happens then? You don't have the same amount of effort. Because there's a reason why some people work harder than others. Because they realize you can actually get further ahead. There's a competition. And that competition fuels innovation. It fuels all sorts of things. There's incentives. There's incentives competition, and that competition fuels innovation. It fuels all sorts of things. There's incentives.

There's incentives to discipline. You wake up an hour earlier than the next guy. You do it seven days a week. You've got seven hours of work that that guy doesn't have in. Yep, where you wake up seven hours earlier like Jaco does than everybody else, something like that. Yes. But, yeah, you have that option.

You have the option. I can write books. You can do this. We have these amazing freedoms. And when have you ever read a book, whether fiction or non, or studied history, where the people that put names on lists, the people that restrict rights, the people that confiscate firearms are the good guys in any of those movies? Let's just say fiction. Never. Never. Exactly. Exactly. So that should be a clue right there. But it seems like when you say it the right way, if you restrict the

rights of these people to have guns, then there'll not be any mass shootings because there'll be no guns. Like, oh, OK. And someone just retweets that. That becomes their opinion rather than, hold on, let me look at the, if this was even the issue, let me take a look at the FBI crime statistics, the actual ones, and be like, oh, why are they going after this one thing that causes almost nothing? They should be going after hammers and baseball bats. one thing that causes almost nothing. They should be going after hammers and baseball bats. Or if they really wanted to save lives, you should make sure that every single phone just turned off when you got in your car and just wasn't allowed to operate. If you really cared about the children, or at least start 18 and under, no texting. This thing turns off when you get in a car if you were

really concerned about saving lives. So it's a disingenuous argument from the beginning, but it sounds so good. It does sound so good. To some people, unless it is something that you are not even passionate about, just explore a little bit. Ask some questions. Look at some history, and then make your decision rather than just seeing a tweet and retweeting it. Young people that have these good ideals,

their ideals are, their heart's in the right place. Their mind's in the right place. They just want things to be better for people. They're sensitive, kind, compassionate people, and that's what they want. But they just don't understand that this is not how you do it, because if you do it that way, someone's going to take advantage of that, and they're going to control everyone. And this is what's happened.

That's what happened. That's what Stalin did. That's what Mao did. It's what's going on in China. You cannot have some, because how do these things get enforced? Well, you have to use violence to enforce them. That's the only way people are going to listen. If you really want to distribute wealth, you know what you have to do? You have to take wealth from people. So how do you do that? You have to use violence because it's the only way it works. Yeah. Power comes from the barrel of a gun.

And if you say that to people, they go, wait a minute. No, people are just going to give up their wealth. No, they're not. No, they're not. No, they're not. They're not. They're not going to do that. It's so crazy. It's one of the weird things about taxes. Somebody can just jack up your taxes. What are they doing? They're deciding they're going to take more from you. This is what's going on in California. This is what's going on in New York. We've got to get our way out of this problem. What are we going to do? Well, we're just going to take all those people that have been working extra hard and making more money,

and we're going to decide that they did something wrong, and we're going to punish them. And look what's happening. Look at Austin. Yeah. Look at Park City, where I am. I mean, it's crazy. People are mass exodus.

Mass exodus. Totally changing the landscape with new houses and real estate prices through the roof. It's just, it's insane. There's a great article about all the reasons why, this compounding of reasons why people are deciding to move out of California. It's in the National Review. Oh, nice. The Great California Exodus.

Yeah. It's everything from, and it's like these, all the different aspects of it, the foundation was set before COVID. It was the over-regulation. There's so many problems with California already. And what a great state. What a great state that was. That's the problem. Oh, my gosh.

It's so great that people move there. And then jack it all up and then move to other beautiful places. Like Bozeman in Park City and Austin. I mean, it's crazy. There are fleets of new Range Rovers and G-Wagons in Park City right now. Yeah. And here too. Yeah. Same thing. Same thing. And you see the temporary plates and you're like, oh, yep. That's New York or that's California. That's what it is. It's finance or it's Silicon Valley. And here they are. Wonderful. I can't find a place to buy. Exactly what's happening right here. And I understand that people are mad, but I think what we, I mean, I don't know how you fix it. I just don't at this point, I almost think California, I hate to say this, but I feel like it's beyond

help. I don't know. I don't know how you get rid of a hundred thousand homeless people. Like how you fix those people? How do you help them? How do you get them into housing? How do you feed them? How do you get them gainful employment? What do you do? How do you fix that? That's one of the toughest ones. Yep. Yep. That's the entire population of Boulder, Colorado, homeless in LA, just in LA. Yeah. Yeah. So inside of LA, you have a small city of homeless people. Yeah. That's one of the tougher ones to tackle because it's so heartbreaking. And then, of course, you have a lot of mental issues and you have all sorts of things in there. And it's just so tough. A lot of drug addiction stuff going on.

And then for everybody else, you have the fact that they camp out. And so they're just tense. Yeah. Have you ever seen what's going on in Venice now? Yeah. I drove not through Venice, but I drove through some other areas when all the tents are out on the sides of the streets and all that stuff. It's fucking bizarre, man. Yeah, I mean, your heart breaks for all of them.

I mean, it's tough to—it makes you ask, like, hey, what can I do here? What can we do? Well, one thing that we can do is continue to fight for these freedoms that allow us to make decisions that, whether they're good or bad, they're on us as individuals rather than restrict them. So, I mean, I don't know what else you can do. That's absolutely true. But my problem with it is that I feel like this is the beginning. I don't think this is where it's going to end. I'm legitimately worried about an apocalyptic movie scene.

Yeah. Like a Mad Max style scene that is L.A. Because L.A. is so fucked now. My friend was explaining this to me, that people just go into stores and steal things because if it's less than X amount of dollars, I think it's like, what is it, like 900 bucks? I think it's more than that. Like they won't prosecute misdemeanors or something like that they want to seek after them yeah but he was explaining to me about stores

that they have a real problem with stores because people are just stealing things yeah and as long as it's below a certain amount they won't do anything about it yeah so and then they have this crazy new district attorney yeah in los angeles who's georgeos funded, which freaks people out because they go, wait a minute, is that real? Are those fucking conspiracy theories real? Should I get a tinfoil hat and put it on right now? They make everybody seem like they're crazy when some of these things are absolutely

provable. Because this guy doesn't want he's defunding the gang unit. He's taking out their gang units. So the police are not going to have a gang unit anymore. So what are you going to do? You're not going to arrest the gangs? And so people are getting out of jail for murder, and they're getting out of jail way earlier than they would normally have gotten out. Society is a fragile thing. That's what people don't realize. And I think we even

forget, even if we went through this pandemic, we went through a summer of civil unrest. We had some craziness happen around the election. People don't realize how fragile society is unless they've been to some of these countries where they've actually witnessed it, or they've been in those riots, or they've been in a natural disaster when a hurricane hits and there's no law and order anywhere and it's just chaos and you don't have water, you don't have food, you have a medical emergency, there's no one to call. Society is a very fragile thing. It's only been stable, quote unquote, for the very slim portion of human history. Yeah. For most of human history, you had to go out and hunt for your food. You had to defend your family, defend your tribe, defend your community.

Now we outsource that call 9-1-1 or we think we can call 9-1-1 because we've been told that the police are there to protect. Really, they're coming after the fact, unless you're a politician and you have them to your right and left, taxpayer funded with the same weapons that they want to take from the rest of us. And same thing with food. We're so used to going to that grocery store and always having food there. And that's so fragile. That can just change in an instant. And we got a taste of it with COVID, taste of it with some of these things that happened over the summer. But in reality, that can really happen. And you put all three of those things together at a natural disaster to some civil unrest to the pandemic. I mean,

it's, that's why, what can you do as an individual? Well, you can be prepared as prepared as you can be. And that's, that's a tough thing to grapple with. It really is.

And then you add onto that a disrespect of police and incompetent cops like that lady who shot that kid. Did you see the video of that? I didn't see the video yet. She thought she had a fucking taser in her hand. She had her gun and she shoots him and she goes, shit, I just shot him. Yeah. Like she goes, I'm taser.

I'm going to tase you. I'm going to tase you. She has a fucking pistol in her hand and she doesn't know it's not a taser. So what that means to me is someone who's panicking. She's in a full blown panic. She doesn't know what to do. She's holding her fucking pistol and she shoots him in the chest and goes, shit. Yeah.

I mean, it's the most stressful situation you can possibly be in, when you're about to take human life or yours is about to be taken. Yeah, but the kid is just trying to get away. He's not trying to fight them. He's just trying to get away. That's what I mean. So you have this taser. So when tasers first came out, I don't know the exact date, but they had this issue back

then and people can fact check or look it up somewhere. I haven't thought about this in about 25 years, so I'm a little off. But the taser was so similar to a pistol, there was an incident, and I forget where it was, where somebody turned around in their seat, someone's being crazy in the back of the police car, and they tased them, but guess what? They shot him. They shot him. Well, this has happened multiple times.

It happened in San Francisco on the BART. Do you remember that? They tried to make... I do i do remember that yep not too long ago but there's a video of that as well the guy was so different he was tasing yeah it should be it should look like a flashlight yeah or something way different yeah it shouldn't be shaped like a fucking pistol yeah and they've changed it over time like they after that incident that i talked about that i studied 25 years ago um they changed them, but not enough. I mean, not enough. Make it like a goddamn flashlight. Yeah, something.

Yeah, there's no way it should be shaped like a pistol. And there's no way whoever that person was should be a cop. Because if you can't figure out that your gun is on this side and your taser's on that side, so if you go like that and you pull this out and you hope it's a taser you're fucking looking

at a black gun it's a gun it should be a different color it should be a lot of things different yep and what do you need what would help that situation well training what would we be calling for defunding so what gets hit usually first in these things that training exactly so it seems like

the opposite of what certain people are calling for would be more beneficial it's more training so she should have so much time on that taser so much time on that pistol so she is competent and knows hey this one is for the taser this is the escalation of force but you can't just do it once you just can't have somebody come in and give you a half hour class and here's your taser now you're on the on the street and now you're in this situation that's the most stressful of your life. And so training, training, training. Training and a higher caliber of human being

for a police officer. But she's going to go now. That's the problem. This is where every one of these things that happens makes it more and more difficult to rebound from this. Yep. Because every time there's some new cop that does something fucked up,

like that asshole that pulled the lieutenant over, the army lieutenant. Oh, I didn't read the whole article. I saw it. Maced him. The guy was nothing but polite. It's horrific. You listen to it. You get so angry that this piece of shit is a cop.

These situations are so goddamn aggravating, not just because you see a person who's victimized, but also because you realize now it's going to be harder. Now it's going to be harder for the good cops. It's going to be harder for people to get law enforcement to help them. Yep. And then with less applicants or as you get a pool of applicants that isn't as qualified, well, you only have certain people to choose from. They have to fill certain roles here. So now you don't have the caliber of person that you may have had had these things not happen.

So it's so tough. But I know that taking away time training is definitely not the way to go. No, and defunding the police is not the way to go either. It's like, what do you guys expect is going to happen when you defund the police? Do you think crime is going to quit? Do you think they're going to go, oh, there's no cops anymore? All right, we're going to stop being criminals. Since there's no jobs, what do you think people is going to quit? Do you think they're going to go, oh, there's no cops anymore? All right, we're going to stop being criminals. Since there's no jobs, what do you think people are going to do?

Well, they're going to turn to crime. And if there's no way that they're going to go to jail now, if they just steal $900 worth of shit, they're just going to steal $900 worth of shit all day long. It's so crazy. And that's why we're having part of this mass exodus. That's why they're coming to all these other places that aren't necessarily, have less of these problems, I guess.

But California, I mean, is bringing a lot of its problems to Texas. And that's also part of the issue. There's a lot of people that move out here that they're not pro-Second Amendment. They don't understand the value of being able to protect yourself. There's some people that are. The thing that's interesting is the people that moved earlier get it less. The people that stayed longer get it more. I have friends that were super liberal.

I have a friend who just came out here to visit, and she's like, I think I'm a Republican now. And I'm like, that's crazy. Really? She feels just as freedom? It's not just that. It's just that she realizes you really need the law and order, and you really need rules. You really do.

It doesn't mean you need to restrict people's freedom. That's not what it is. It's just you need people to stay within the lines of polite society and obey rules. Because if they don't, then they just keep pushing that and pushing it. Next thing you know, they're camping on your just keep pushing that and pushing it next thing you know they're camping on your fucking front lawn and you can't do anything about it because you're infringing on their right to have shelter and you're like oh my god is this real and if you kick them out then they arrest you you're like what the fuck and then they sue you and then they

take your house like what is this real it's crazy we're living in twilight zone it can definitely happen nuts yeah it's nuts it can definitely happen. It's nuts. It's nuts. It can definitely happen. Hey, just be respectful. Be kind. Never miss an opportunity to make somebody's day. These things are just normal good people type of thing. But be prepared. But be prepared. If you go outside and there's people camped out on your sidewalk in front of your house, I don't think they can actually camp on your front lawn, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah. No, it's insane. It's crazy. And then we also have, you add to this, there's just so much more tension because of social media and when we have the military we talk about uh online or l like ambush online or l and right now we seem to have this ambush happening with big tech over here online or l so coming up online boom so you have let's say bad guys walking along the trail you're online right here you light them up or an l so you're not shooting each other so they're coming into this ambush and they're getting hit here and they're getting hit sideways. So you're set up to not shoot each other, but to just pour down a massive amount of fire on the enemy force. And so we're walking right into this L ambush. We're letting our

freedoms be taken away in the name of things being dangerous, these restrictions to keep everybody safe. And we have big tech over here and we have politicians and the government over here and walking right into this L ambush and it's I don't know how to get out of it because we all rely now on a lot of these platforms for our businesses so it's a it's a tough position to be in there's also this weird feeling that no one is competent that's in charge when you see Biden on on tv talking about the aft and giving some guy appointing someone to the head of the aft you're like hey man why don't you redo this because that's not what it is well you can't you can't say it's atf and you should know what that fucking stands for

you should know what it means it's not as simple as like he just jumbled it up it's like he's doing this all the time i know i know and you jumbled it up. It's like he's doing this all the time. I know. I know. And, you know, obviously it's very noticeable. But there's other things in there. That's a huge one. And, you know, I'm probably forgiving, you know, everybody makes mistakes, especially when you're out there and there's people and all that stuff.

And this is your profession. You've been doing it for 50 years now, maybe a little too long. But then we get people in those positions of power that have these platforms and that say, hey, no right is absolute. No amendment to the Constitution is absolute. Okay, there are some discussions about certain things. There's advocacy versus incitement when we're talking about the First Amendment, which is a very clear thing that the Supreme Court has ruled on when it was a very liberal court, by the way. So what about the 19th Amendment, which I think is women's right to vote? Is that not absolute? And we have the leader of our government saying that. How about right to a fair trial and due process? Is that not absolute anymore? Like which ones? Right.

He said, there's no amendment that is not absolute. Well, there's two right there. That's a crazy thing to say. It's really crazy. And that one's in the speech. Like that wasn't just a mess up. Like that one was thought out ahead of time and in the speech and on the teleprompter. And if you are a law-abiding citizen, the idea that in this country where we have had the Second Amendment for the entire time, for you to come along and say now there's no reason for you to have a gun. And there's a lot of people that have said that. I know Biden hasn't said that, but there's a lot of people that say we need to take guns away. I've had that discussion with liberals. I'm like, okay,

take crime away first, please. Did you take crime away? You didn't. Okay, so how are you going to take guns away? If you ever had someone try to do something, break into your home, why don't you go talk to someone who's defended their family, who used a lawfully acquired firearm to defend their family? And if you haven't, you probably should shut the fuck up because you're just talking nonsense. You're talking like you're on Twitter. Yep, no, exactly. We are citizens, not subjects,

and we must stay as ever vigilant that we remain so. And that's a responsibility of a free citizenry to stand up. But once again, with social media, we all get manipulated like this. We can all say, oh, that sounds good. No, it does not sound good. The First and Second Amendments, all of them are there for a reason.

But we need to look into that history. Like you need to study it. How much time are our kids spending in school studying the Constitution? Probably not much. So when I got out of the military, I gave my kids a gift. I gave them each a copy of the Constitution, a leather-bound one. So it's not just something that they look up online, like if they want to look up, you know, some, you know, Kardashian type thing. No, it's different. It's tangible. It's right's right there it's in leather so the Constitution right there I gave him a Bible with their name on it I gave an

old compass to help guide their way and then I gave him a tomahawk gave him this Winkler Tom Hawkins and here's the means to defend it and as a citizenry that is our responsibility to ensure that our kids and grandkids can have those same freedoms and options and opportunities that we have. We owe the people that gave their lives from the inception of this country up to today. That's what we owe them. And all it takes is studying history. Not just studying history, but having history taught to you by someone who has a real understanding of the consequences of each individual action and what happened and how this led to an erosion of rights,

how this led to chaos, what happened, what went wrong. Oh, yeah. You know, how Stalin's action led to thousands of people starving to death. What is going on with all these steps that turned into the horrors of these historical stories that you could tell. No, absolutely. And what we used to do in school, we used to teach kids how to think. And that's been passed down from ancient Greeks up through today.

You taught people how to think in school. We do the opposite today. And I think that's why this has the power it does, because you're thinking about these things logically. You're talking about it. And people haven't, people, even if they think they went to school and they took math and science and they took these things, most you're talking about it, and people haven't, people, even if they think they went to school, and they took math and science, and they took these things, most people were not taught how to think, unless they actually took the time to say,

what is the history of education? What is that? What is this philosophy about? What is it? And they actually do it themselves. They're not learning how to think. And somewhere along the way, like you learned how to think and how to think logically and how to be a critical thinker and how to ask questions and how these conversations. And we don't do that in school anymore. You're just on receive mode for the most part, unless you go to maybe a law school where maybe you have a professor who maybe wants to use the Socratic method to teach you and teach you to think logically through his questioning and through his class. But you're going to have 10 others that aren't doing that.

So I think that's why this resonates with people, because there's something about us that wanted to think logically, because that gives us control. That gives us control of our own destiny, being able to do that. And it's lost on most people in this country today, most people in the world today, I'd say. Well, it's just too easy to follow a predetermined pattern of behavior. It's too easy. to align yourself with either the left or the right and just adopt a conglomeration of ideas that these people have already set out for you,

and then this is how I feel about this, and we need to do that. And I see that so often in Hollywood, and when you would talk to people about it and question them, you realize, like, this is a veneer. There's nothing below this. Like, you haven't given this any deep thought, but you're talking about really important subjects. That affect not just you and your kids, but their kids and their

grandkids. That affect the future of this country. And you're putting more thought into, I don't know, what you're going to have for dinner than you're putting into these decisions that will affect future generations. There's people out there just flippantly saying that the freedom of speech is not that important. It's true. And there's a lot of people saying that. It's crazy. Yeah. And those guardians, like we talked about, those people are not standing up. And as an author, I see other authors.

I see people that 30 years ago would have stepped forward and say, hey, no, this is not right. Well, they're scared of being canceled. It's a real thing. Yeah. Yeah. If it's depending upon whatever subject it is, it's being debated and discussed. If you say the freedom of speech is not an absolute right,

there's some people that are going to agree with you because you're talking in reference about something that they support. Yeah, but most people don't have done the research into that. Like, yeah, it is true that that one is not absolute and that there's incitement and there's advocacy. Right. And the Supreme Court in Brandenburg, actually, that was their decision, that the liberal court standing on the side of people that disagree with you vehemently.

And that was the whole point of the Brandenburg decision. And like, I agree with you. I don't agree with you, but I'm going to die for your right to say it. As long as you're not inciting violence. And nobody really understands the difference between inciting violence and advocating violence. Advocating violence is actually legal as per the Supreme Court decision. Inciting violence is different. a very narrow set of parameters. But that takes study. It takes more than two seconds to figure that out or to put in the requisite time to read about that.

It takes weeks and weeks of discussion to figure out what you think. Yeah, exactly. You have to figure out what you think, especially if you've just been told a bunch of stuff your whole life. And you've been following these people on Twitter and Instagram who also have not put in the requisite time into studying these things. So your opinions are being formed by people who are not informed themselves. So take a breath. And what's your responsibility as a citizen? To go study that past. Absolutely. And then also take it a next step. Once you do that, realize, oh, the police might not be here to defend me. What is my responsibility as a citizen to myself, this gift of life and to my family? Well, I better get some training here on this. I can get a firearm and get some training

because it might come down to me. This society thing is fragile. I thought that we were nice and safe in this country. But you know what? Yeah. Civil unrest, pandemic, hurricane, earthquake, whatever it might be. Maybe I need to take a little personal responsibility here. Yeah. Well, that was one of the more fascinating things about the pandemic was watching my more liberal friends start to ask questions about guns. Oh, yeah. And ask me how to get a gun and what do I do. They're all looking for that loophole.

Everybody was calling me asking for the loophole. I had friends asking if they could get a gun from me. I'm like, that's a lot of steps you got to take. Yeah, thanks for that. But also, a lot of them didn't take that next step to then realize, oh, I voted people into power that put all these restrictions in place that do nothing but make it harder for me to defend myself and my family. It doesn't do anything for the person that's not paying attention to these laws, but it's hurting me right now. Well, you've got to be prepared. I mean, I think background checks are important. I mean, I think you really should know if someone's a criminal before you sell them a gun.

I think that makes sense. But I also think you, as a person, should have already done that so that you can have something. Best case scenario, you never have to use it. That's best case scenario. Worst case scenario is you don't have a gun and you need one. That's worst case scenario. Oh, yeah. And then you make the change, but by then it's too late. It's too late. And we talk about background checks. They throw that around

so easily, which it sounds really good, but then you realize, oh, what is a universal background check? We already have background checks in place. Okay. I go in, I fill out this paperwork, they call the ATF, they get an approval that I'm not a felon and all these things. That's already there. Then this registry. Now we're talking about a register of guns. We're talking about those lists again. Yeah, that's why it gets tricky. Because they could look upon your registry if they're going to hire you.

It seems, Mr. Carr, you have an AR-15. Like, what are you doing with that? That's an assault rifle. I'd be like, does it just say one on there? I got one in my office. I got one in the car. I got one in the office. Yeah, yeah, I might have more than one. But yeah, we're coming back to those lists again. And when we talk about putting people on lists, it's something that does not, if you study your history and put the time into it, you'll realize that that does not end up in a good place for anyone.

No. Lists and these vaccine passports. And a lot of it is the same kind of, and I understand that you're saying, no, vaccine passports are important to keep everybody safe. And, like, how come it's okay to be fat? How come it's okay to be super unhealthy? Joe, don't shame anyone, Joe. You're going to get canceled. How come it's okay? But how come that's okay?

How come we're not talking about that? Because that takes work. Because it's difficult. So we're not putting requirements on people to be healthy. Because there's a lot of people that got COVID, like yourself or like Jamie, that it really wasn't that big of a deal. We're not talking about old people. We're not talking about people with preexisting conditions. We're talking about people that through their direct actions have caused their immune system to be very weak, but we don't discuss that at all. But yet we're willing to discuss putting a fucking thing on your phone that allows you to go

somewhere or not go somewhere based on whether or not you've allowed them to vaccinate you. Yep. No personal responsibility. That's what it all comes down to. We have that option in this country right now anyway, but in the future, will we? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, we're going down these paths.

Joe, you're bumming me out, dude. What are we talking about all this crazy? I know. Getting me all freaked out your your character reese in these books is this guy who i mean he's it's very idealistic right he's just like this soldier who does the right thing and can handle these horrible situations and he's the guy you know he's the break glass in case of war guy you know when you created this guy and you're putting him in these scenarios you're you're you're you're creating this like ideal version of what a soldier is and should be and and there's a lot of

horrific aspects to this guy. But that's also, you also realize like, he's a good person, but if you're a piece of shit, that's the wrong guy to be looking at. He's the last guy you want to face if you are worthy of his rage. Yeah, actually it goes back to a lot of the stuff we were just talking about, about this due process, about the right to a fair trial, things that he raised his hand to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, just like we all did. And in that first book, I needed a free... That's what I wanted to explore in that first book. It was all about

revenge without constraint. So somebody that has come up in this way in that he has stepped up to defend his country. He's gone down range. He has the training. He's very good at his job. He's gone down range in Iraq and Afghanistan. So he has a real life experience. And then he comes home and his family's killed, his troops killed as part of this government conspiracy. And now he has to question all those things that we just talked about, all those things that he swore to uphold and defend. Well, now he thinks he's dying, which frees him up to then become that terrorist, become that insurgent that he's been fighting in the book for the first 16 years of war. Now we're at 20 years now. So that's really what I wanted to explore in there, which was fascinating for me to explore because I thought about it for a long time.

It was very therapeutic to write the novel, by the way. And if it's at a deeper level, it's really also about someone who is bringing the wars from Iraq and Afghanistan home to the front doors of people who have been sending young men and women to their death now for what was 20 years. Yeah. So, yes, he's an ideal soldier in that he is very good at his job. He has a background similar to mine, but he's much better at everything than I am. He's better shot. He's stronger. He's faster.

He's better at jujitsu. He's better at boxing. All these things he's better at. But he's not perfect. He doesn't understand the surveillance side of things because in the SEAL teams, we didn't do that. Now we have guys that do that or are very good at it. But when I came up, we didn't do that. So I try to humanize him in that respect, try to humanize him through his relationships, through the way he likes his coffee. He likes his Black Rifle coffee with some honey and some cream in there, which people made fun of me for in the military.

So he's a character that people can relate to. He's a person you want to have a beer with and want to sit down and have a coffee with. He believes in this Second Amendment, in this First Amendment. He's an American guy. But all of a sudden, now his family's gone, his troop's gone. He has to question those things because he just wants to put everybody involved in the ground. And he does so in a very violent way, a very primal way, which also resonates with people because sometimes, yeah, the law doesn't work. The justice does not prevail. And in this case, he's freed up to make sure that it does. Well, people do enjoy revenge.

Yes. But there's also people in your books that are supposedly on the right side, whether they're politicians, whether they're people in the military, that they're corrupt and they're evil and they're doing terrible things. And when you're writing these things, is it difficult for you to write about those kind of people? Are you doing it based on your understanding of the realities of some of these people that are either senators or military people? I mean, is it based on your actual knowledge,

or are you just using your imagination, creativity, and creating worst-case scenario for a politician? Yeah, so it's a little of both. It's a lot of the creative process, of course. It's a fictional narrative, but they're inspired by feelings and emotions behind things I was involved with. And then Eisenhower had a speech about the military industrial complex. He didn't just make that up because it sounded good, because he wanted to sell a book later or something like that. He's trying to get likes and tweets and be incendiary or something like that, clickbait.

There's a reason we all know that phrase. And if you read the whole speech or if you watch that whole speech, it's fascinating. People should do both. And, I mean, he was warning about those generals, those admirals that get up to these senior levels of power that all of a sudden get that contract across their desk and they're going to be out of the military in two years and all of a sudden they have this contract from Boeing or Raytheon or General Dynamics or whatever it is, and they see their buddy that got out a couple years ahead of time at the three-star mark or the four-star mark that's now sitting on a board for $500,000 a year for showing up for one meeting or two meetings, maybe I should approve this one right here, regardless of what it does to the guy downrange, no matter what it means to the budget

or whatever. So there's these incentives for them to become politicians, to get that rank, to be able to make those decisions, to make that board. Like it is a path for these guys. And some people probably come in thinking about that. Maybe some people get jaded along the way and turn into politicians in uniform. And maybe some, the outliers, maybe some never feel that way. That's possible too. But for me, when you're making an antagonist, when you're designing a character who's supposed to be a bad guy that you want the reader to cheer for when James Reese takes him out,

bad guy that you want the reader to cheer for when he gets when James Reese takes him out. Well, some of those senior level policymakers, both in uniform and out, are essentially politicians in uniform. So so we see that in the military, it's a real thing. And and I use that to create some of these characters in the novels. And you're when you're a ground level combat guy, tactical level leader, tactical level operator. and you're seeing decisions made at higher levels that aren't necessarily made in the best interest of you at that ground level who's going out each and every night to go prosecute targets downrange, you start asking questions, and you notice it. It doesn't escape notice.

So in some of these novels, I get to create characters where I then get to dispatch with them in a way that feels quite good. Well, you can tell. And it's funny. So the Navy, in the Pratt series, Amazon reached out to the Navy for support and heard nothing back. They support movies now and again, Top Gun or whatever else. Back to the Kane Mutiny, actually, which is a book by Herman Woke

that had Humphrey Bogart in it back in the day. And so they reached out, didn't hear anything back, reached out to the Marine Corps, heard back right away. Marine Corps is all in. Use Camp Pendleton. We've got all these assets for you. We have planes and helicopters. It's going to be awesome. And then the Navy came back and said, no, we're not supporting. And then the Marine Corps came back the next day and said, no, we're not supporting, which is great, which is fine. Because now there's nothing, there's no politics attached to it, and it's what I expect. So you don't have to get their consent to... Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So what do you think happened? Well, somebody probably read the book and was like, wait, he blows up this admiral in his office with an S-vest? Like, no, we're not going to support this. You have all these bad guys that are senior level politicians and senior level officers that this guy is going around and gutting and making them walk around trees and blowing them up in their offices. Yeah, we're not supporting this, which is fine. You know, I love it. It works for me. Right. They don't want to support that kind of. Yeah, that's fine. I totally get it. Vigilante behavior. Exactly. So do you when you're writing a bad guy like that and you're making him like a senior level officer or a politician, do you hesitate? Like how do you when you're when you're constructing your books and you're putting in these things that these guys have done?

And, you know, in every book, there's a piece of shit. There's not one multiple. You know, all of them. Yeah. There's not one, multiple, you know, all of them. Yeah. So it's possible they're inspired by multiple people, certain traits that you see in one person here, one person there. Maybe you know them.

Maybe it's somebody that you see in the news. But you can take those things and create a single character and you can add the fiction side to it to make them even worse. Or maybe in some cases better. There's probably some horrible people up there that need killing. But it doesn't mean we need to be the ones to do it. Don't get in trouble. But, yeah, it's fun to do that. It's so fun to do that.

And like I said, very therapeutic because there were some senior level people, as I was in the military, that you looked up to and said, how did this guy? Not looked up to. I mean, like saw them at senior levels and were like, how on earth is this person in this position of power? How does it happen? They don't get too many DUIs. They don't pop positive on a drug test and they don't get arrested for beating a wife or girlfriend. And then you can rise to the top in government service. Of that, I am fairly confident. Really? Because you see these people, you just kind of, you know, you're in this huge bureaucracy. So all you have to do is just not fuck up. That's it. That's it. And I think it's in most gigantic bureaucracies, I would guess. Probably a little harder to do today. I can only imagine the political games that are going on at senior level in the military right now when

we're talking about all sorts of different social experiments and whatever else going on. I'm glad I'm watching that stuff from the outside. But then we have just people that get up to these levels and they're just inept. And an example of that would be, you know, people all know who I'm talking about, but when we disbanded the Iraqi army, when we have this policy of de-bathification in Iraq. So what does that mean? It means that we essentially made an insurgency because now everyone in the military is out of a job. And we also guaranteed it that people aren't there to pick up the trash, to keep the power grid going, because everyone was a bathist. So these two decisions, like if any of us made that a tactical level decision, as horrible as that, we probably would have gotten our platoons and troops killed. We would have been court

marshaled, sent home, kicked out of the military. But yet we have senior level policymakers who don't study the nature of the conflict in which they're engaged. That is our only job is to understand the nature of the conflict in which we're engaged and make strategic level decisions based on that knowledge. And some of these seem like they did not do that, particularly with those two. We fueled an insurgency. We created that insurgency. And we made it so we had to start a society from essentially zero and build up everyone in every single job. Imagine Austin not having power tomorrow, not having water tomorrow, no garbage coming, no stores open, because everyone was a certain political party. And they can't be in a position like that anymore because a force came in and said so.

So did they just hope that they would figure it out amongst themselves? Like, what was the logic behind it? Nope, we're going to build it up again. We're going to build up a new army. We're going to build up a new government and all the services that go along with supporting modern society. And they're going to embrace this Jeffersonian democracy. And that was not what happened. At all? Instead, we created an insurgency and put a lot of young men and women into the ground that

stepped up to serve their country and trusted our senior level leaders to make those good strategic level decisions, which did not happen. Was it a bad trial and error? Was it just not understanding what the consequences of your decisions are? Was it being poorly informed? What caused it? I think it's a combination of all those things. I mean, it's not necessarily new.

I mean, we have been involved in different insurgencies for a while, particularly from the end of World War II up to today. So there is some history to look back on. But it's also about understanding the society in which you're moving into. And if you're going in at one of these senior levels where you are making these decisions, where the politicians are then trusting you, that's the other side of this. your levels, where you are making these decisions, where the politicians are then trusting you. That's the other side of this. So in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln fired a ton of generals until he got to Grant. In World War II, George Marshall, he's best known for the Marshall Plan after World War II. But really what he did during World War II and in the lead up was fire people that did not perform. And after World War II, we saw a shift in that dynamic. We saw it in Korean War

a little bit. But by the time we get to Vietnam and through today, we don't punish people, we don't fire people for performance at those higher levels. People fail up from Vietnam up to today, unless there's some scandal, like with McChrystal talking with his reporter. You talked about it the other day with Glenn Greenwald. Yes. Who was fantastic, by the way. Michael Hastings.

Yeah, Michael Hastings, yeah, Who I met right before he died. That was crazy. What do you think happened with that guy? I don't know. I mean, I met him. I think they whacked that dude. I mean, it seems suspicious, doesn't it? It's suspicious as fuck.

Like, how could it get more suspicious? It's suspicious as fuck. But then again, you know, coincidence and weird things do happen. But, you know, it's... People don't know what we're talking about. This guy was embedded in Iraq. It was Iraq, right? I think it was Afghanistan with General McChrystal.

McChrystal, yep. And he... It was Afghanistan. I'm sorry. He was stuck because there was a volcano erupted. The Iceland volcano? Yeah, Iceland. Yeah, a volcano in Iceland.

So this is 2000... I don't know the exact date right now. Probably 2000, what, 1911, somewhere in there. Somewhere around there. Somewhere. So what happened was the Iceland volcano erupted. It ceased travel. So he couldn't...

Hastings couldn't fly home, and he's writing for the Rolling Stone, right? Yep. Rolling Stone article. He's embedded. Embedded. He's been with these guys for a while. These guys start getting comfortable because he's around. And they act the way they always act.

They start talking a little shit. And where do they go? They go to a bar. That's the other part. You add some alcohol to this. You add some alcohol fuel to this. Digital courage. And so you just kind of open up.

You've been with this guy for a while. Totally natural thing to do because you're building up trust with this person. And you think, you know, he's a buddy. But really, he's there getting information. It's not his job to be your buddy. He's a reporter. And the juicier and more fucked up the story, the better it is for him. Exactly.

And so I guess, what did McChrystal say? Something about, it wasn't even that bad, but I don't even know if it was McChrystal. I think it might have been one of the guys that was with him. We'll have to go back and look. But regardless, someone in the circle said something critical of either policy or Obama. Yeah, personally, one or the other. I don't remember. Was he fired or was he forced to resign?

I think he resigned, but he was going to be fired. I think it was one of those things. But once again, a great innovator. A great general who was loved by people, and then the death threats come in, and this guy was freaking the fuck out. And apparently he was worried for his own life. Whether or not he took his own life or they took his own life,

what happened was he goes like 120 miles an hour into a tree. Yeah, a Mercedes, like fairly new Mercedes. Yeah, so this is the video of it. Oh, shit. So here it is. Oh, man. Boom, it explodes. Jeez.

You know, I've never seen this before. I didn't know there was actual footage of it. So here it goes. Jeez. Jeez. You know, I've never seen this before. I didn't know there was actual footage of it. So here it goes. Jeez. Boom. And they also suspect that there was something about the way the engine flew from the car that there might have been explosives involved. But they don't know.

No one knows. It's so crazy. But, so, yeah, suspicious. I mean, look at that car. So the car's going, you know, 100 plus miles an hour, slams a new tree, explodes, engine goes flying, he's dead. Suspicious. Suspicious as fuck. This is the thing that no one had ever seen before.

Like, the engine flew off the car. The engine and the, I think the transmission as well. Like, look where it was. Jeez. And they think, look, the conspiracy theory is that it was a bomb and that, you know, on impact it detonated and that this guy going 100 and whatever miles an hour is because they had taken control of his vehicle.

I mean, if I was to write that in a story, it would sound like it was possible. If I wrote that into the story, hey, high-level general in charge of this J, some secretive commands in the military, all of a sudden gets fired because of this guy, whether it's him, supporters, whatever it might be, in this shadowy world between intelligence

and military special operations, where there's a lot of overlap, especially at that time, it does look suspicious. They certainly can do that. I would think that you could do that. 100%. They've said they could do that. They've asked people, is it possible to take control of someone's car?

And they were like, what year is it? If you're talking about like a 1970 Volkswagen, no. You're talking about a 2011 Mercedes, yes. Interesting. There's a computer in it. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of computers in these cars today. Yeah.

There's a lot of... And I know you love your Tesla, right? You love that. That motherfucker drives itself. See? That thing freaks me out. I love that personal responsibility. I don't think I can do it.

Well, don't worry about it with your Land Cruiser. Exactly. 1988 Land Cruiser. That's it. You're an 88? 88, and then the FJ40 is a 78. Yeah, that's even less likely. Exactly.

And then you get the EMP thing, of course, you know, electromagnetic pulse. You don't have to worry as much about that. That's true, too. One other thing, but you do have a computer in your FJ. I think with that engine, yeah. Yeah, because it's GM, one of those crate engines. Yeah, I'm going to get something else that's like carbureted from way back in the day. Wait, yeah, but those things stink.

The thing about Hastings was they did a toxicology examination on him, and they found out that there was amphetamines in his system. But the problem with that analysis is he's a writer, and most journalists, I don't want to say most, a lot of journalists are on amphetamines. Oh, really? A lot. Yeah, they're on Adderall. I'm going to have to check this out.

Yeah. Interesting. What does that do to you? It makes you be able to write for hours and hours and hours. I'm going to look into this. I'm going to get a prescription because I'm exhausted all the time. A buddy of mine who's a pretty straight-laced guy who's a journalist was snorting Adderall until his wife got mad at him for it.

Wow. Yeah. Wow, I won't tell my wife that. I'm going to keep that one on the down low. Well, he's not a journalist. I shouldn't say he's a journalist. He's an author. But he said it really helped him. He said he didn't like taking the pills and he wanted to get it right away. So he just snort Adderall. You know, I get it. I've thought about this a lot over the last couple of years. Not necessarily with the first book or the second, because there wasn't any of

these other things going on yet. I wasn't building a business at the same time. I was just writing. But now when the third one hits and now there's the series and the fourth book and there's just thinking about you sound like you're on that or all do I all the time you have a lot of energy I got a lot going on I got but if you were like a low-key guy I was really boring and then you came in here you're talking like the way you talk right now yeah I'd be like oh Jack Carr got on Adderall hey next time you'll be like I see what happened here I recommend it again I definitely have how people in here on Adderall yeah I've had people in here admit they're on Adderall. Next time you'll be like, I see what happened here. I recommend it to get on Adderall. I definitely have had people in here on Adderall. I've had people in here admit they were on Adderall.

Really? Yeah, and it's obvious. There's a thing. There's a tension. There's a weirdness to them. It's like, grrr. Because sometimes people are wound up when they come here anyway just because whenever you're doing something that you know millions of people are going to see, you get weird. Well, thanks for bringing that up.

Just tension. You're fine. But this Hastings guy, they did do a toxicology examination of him, right? And they were suspecting that it might have played a factor in his decision to drive 120 miles an hour into a tree. Yeah. No, it's interesting. I'm part of this group called Gen Next, which is really about figuring out how to make decisions and put people in positions of authority that are making decisions based on the best interests of the country and for future generations in academics and border security, national security, that sort of thing. But I met Michael Hastings through them right before he died.

So I talked to him. very interesting guy very interesting guy and I asked him a question the story had broke maybe a year before or six months before, it was fairly recent and I asked him is there anything as a journalist that if you found out and it was not just a Snowden

type thing, not just something like that which actually informs the public but if you found out and it was not just a Snowden type thing, you know, not just something like that, which actually get informs the public, but if you found out something that would be beneficial for you to publish, but would have drastic consequences for the United States, for the citizenry, for the military, would you ever not publish something? Is there anything out there?

Is there any line you wouldn't cross? He said, no. So, no, interesting. They killed that dude. Maybe. They definitely killed that dude right after you talked said no. So, you know, interesting. They killed that dude.

Maybe. They definitely killed that dude right after you talked to him. Right after, yeah, they were listening on my phone. They were listening in my phone. That's a wrap. Kill him. He was done. He was done. But interesting guy.

You know, interesting perspective. Investigator believed he was taking cocaine and the psychedelic drug DMT. What the fuck? At the same time? That's so dumb. So the family members told investigators that, but they didn't find it in the toxicology report. Okay, but here's the thing about them even saying that.

First of all, DMT is an exogenous in the human body. Your brain produces it no matter what. Second of all, it's one of the most transient drugs ever observed in the body. Your body brings it back to baseline in 15 minutes. So the idea that that had anything to do with him driving 125 miles an hour into a fucking tree is so ridiculous. The cocaine thing, though- The only thing they did find is marijuana and a trace amphetamine.

Yeah. Trace of amphetamine. He's on fucking Adderall. I guarantee you he's taking Adderall. Dude, I know so many journalists that are on it. I don't know. I don't even know so many journalists. That's kind of a lie.

How many journalists? I know journalists. I know less than a dozen, and a lot of them are on Adderall. And the ones that I've talked to about Adderall say you wouldn't believe. One guy in specific, he works for a major newspaper. He's like, listen to me, man. He goes, the fucking news is fueled by Adderall. No way. I'm going to ask the people I know. You've got to ask

Glenn. It was so great hearing you because Glenn Greenwald is one of my favorite people to hear speak. Whether he has three minutes on the news or three hours with you. He is so fascinating. He's fantastic. I wish we could do it in person. But he lives in Brazil. I know. I heard that. He's one of the few guys

that I would have on again with zoom yeah i'm kind of done with doing these right these uh skype type calls yeah yeah it's tough yeah it's not as good no but that one was great because i listened to it um and you know it it sounded fantastic but he's i mean he's on that front line um he's an actual journalist on the front line taking risks asking questions um and on the front line. A real journalist. Taking risks, asking questions. He's fantastic. He's always so good. I wish he'd write.

I think he has a book that just came out, right? I believe so, yes. He doesn't care if it's a story that supports the left wing or the right. He's honest about both sides. He's straight down the middle about things. No, he's an actual journalist, and there are very few left. It's like Katie Pavlich at Fox. She has a book called Fast and Furious when we're talking about gun control

type thing. So Fast and Furious was the nickname of a program where the government let weapons go into Mexico just to prove wound up killing Brian Terry. Yeah, wound up killing a Border Patrol agent. And then it was all, of course, tried to be covered up and we weren't really

trying. But that seems like something right out of your book. It does, it does. Because it seems like the idea that you're going to sell guns to the cartel. Do you know there's a, Mariana Van Zeller,

she has this show called Trafficked. Yeah, I've heard of that. It's on, what is it on again? Discovery? Nat Geo. Nat Geo? It's a great show. It's fucking fantastic and I watched the one on cocaine. It's on, what is it on again? Discovery? Nat Geo. Nat Geo? It's a great show. It's fucking fantastic.

And I watched the one on cocaine. It's heavy. But there was one on guns and guns in the cartels. And this is coming out of her show. She was getting these guys who were trafficking these guns down into Mexico, explaining how they get them. They got them from the LAPD. She was like, we're buying them from the LAPD.

They put them in their trunk and they drive them to Mexico because there's no border patrol that lets you into Mexico. You can just drive into Mexico. If you're in the United States, driving into Mexico is a breeze. So this guy would fill his trunk up on a regular basis with guns that he got from the LAPD. Some bad person in the LAPD is getting him these guns, and he's selling them to Mexico to the cartels. Yeah, well, this is even worse in that it was a program by the federal government. Actually, I believe it started under, they can check out that book, Fast and Furious Details, all of it.

But there was one in the Bush administration, and it wasn't working out. They're like, okay, let's put a hold on this. Let's stop. This is not working out. We're not able to track these guns. And then Obama administration opens it back up. And they they put tracking devices on like two of thousands of firearms. So they tracked two and they're trying to prove a narrative that, hey, all these gun sales in the United States are ending up in Mexico. Well, yeah, because you're talking to these gun store owners, you're putting pressure on them, making them do things they would not ordinarily do otherwise, and letting all, letting 50 AK-47s go out the door and then sift their way

into Mexico so you can track them to, you know, get into these cartels and take down those cartels. No. And prove this narrative that it's our, the violence in Mexico is our fault. So now we need to over-regulate these firearms. And what ends up happening, they lose control of everything because they only put two tracking devices, I think, on all of those thousands of firearms and one ends up killing a Border Patrol agent. One of the ones they put a tracking device on? Nope, they have the serial numbers of all of them.

Oh. So they tracked them all in one of those ones, and then of course it tries to get shut down. It's crazy. Fucking harebrained idea. That would have been a book. That would have been a total conspiracy and people would think it was fiction unless the story was broken and unless Katie wrote this book and unless people talked about it. But people hardly talk about it at all anymore.

It's just the federal government going in and creating some crazy scheme to prove a narrative that's not even real so that they can infringe on our rights as Americans in this country. It's insane. It's so bizarre. It's so bizarre that it's true. That was Eric Holder, right?

Eric Holder, yeah. Exactly. But it seems like a thing in your book. It does. And it seems like there's some nefarious intent. Yes. It seems like there'd be some other pieces in play. But how much money is involved in selling 50 guns or whatever?

How many guns was it? Well, it's thousands. Thousands of guns. Yeah, but they'd walk into a gun store and buy like 50, buy like 40, buy 30. So Fast and the Furious was thousands of guns? Thousands of guns. Yeah. And the book tells you exactly how many.

Well, thousands of guns is millions of dollars. I guess, but it's when you're doing it when one person's going in, buying, let's say, 30, or even going selling in Mexico. Right, but I mean all in all. Oh, yeah. We're talking a lot of money. We're probably talking a lot of money depending on 30. They're even going selling in Mexico. Right, but I mean all in all. Oh, yeah. We're talking a lot of money. We're probably talking a lot of money depending on how much they're selling in foreign Mexico. I'm not sure what that exactly works out to.

How many guns overall? We'll find out. We can look it up. Yeah, we can look it up right here. James got it. 2,000? Under the sale of 2,000. Which only 710 were recovered.

Wow. Yeah, well, good job, federal government. That is crazy. They monitored the sale of about 2,000 firearms. Then they disappeared. You might have done a little more than monitoring. Well, they got the serial numbers as they left the store, because the store has them, obviously. But then there's only tracking devices on it, I think, too.

That is fucking crazy. Yeah, but no one even talks about this. 2,000 guns. Yeah, I think there's some more research that it's actually more than that. But yeah, insane. So does the federal government always have our best interest, the interest of the citizenry at heart? Well, I think not. So going back to your book, this is like this guy, James Reese, is essentially a vehicle for you to, in some ways, tell your version like what you understand to be possible in terms of incompetence

and corruption and just straight up evil people that really do exist so you've made these kind of fictional narratives that sort of highlight it's not all the things you highlight they're not impossible they could happen that way even though it is fiction and you have created these characters and created these corrupt senators and all these evil folks behind the scenes this is all inside the realm of possibility i think so it's uh and it's i mean we have our politicians give us a lot of material to work with as authors um and uh they're making my job a lot harder now because now you've got to think – because you can suspend disbelief for like once in your story. So that's what makes it a good one, especially if it's not science fiction or something like that.

Where did you – I don't think you suspended disbelief. Readers – well, you can do something like, ah, readers will go with you for one thing. Like, ah, okay, but I'm going to go with it. But if you do three, four, five of those in a row, they're not going with you. I don't think you did that, Paul. Oh, thank you. Thank you. There was not – A lot of – especially three, four, five of those in a row, they're not going with you. I don't think you did that, Paul. Oh, thank you. Thank you. There was not a lot of it, especially in this one, a ton of research into this book right here, Into the Devil's Hand.

Usually, well, for the other ones, I'd been to Iraq and Afghanistan for the first book. For the second, I went to Mozambique, put boots on the ground. For the third one, I went to South Africa, helped train up an anti-poaching unit out there, protecting some of the last rhino on Earth so I could talk to these guys in those units and talk to them about man tracking and that sort of thing, getting their heads about that tactic and the tactics they used in the bush wars and in urban centers and now out there protecting some of these rhino. And then I went to Siberia, south of Siberia, to Kamchatka Peninsula for this one. COVID hit. You went to Siberia for when Reese goes through Siberia? Yeah, I went to Kamchatka, which is just south of Siberia. But that was the bear hunt. The bear hunt.

Yeah. We're still going to get to that. But this one, all the, so all of these. A lot of research in here. But all of these laws that are in place or orders that the president can give in case of some sort of an outbreak, those are real? So I, well, I talked to a lot of people. I did a lot of research, and I filled in the blanks. So kind of like what I think a journalist would do, wouldn't just talk to one person and be like, oh, that's it. I'm going to write my story. That was my investigation, talking to one person. Now I talk to multiple people that have been involved in all sorts of different aspects of bioweapons, bioweapon containment, bioweapon research, that sort of thing. Even the horrific, I mean, I don't want to give away too much of the book, but there's moments where things are being contemplated that would have horrific consequences if they're

incorrect. Yeah. I would be shocked if that is not true. Out of all my research that I did, whether it was reading articles, whether it was reading books, whether it was talking to people involved, connecting certain dots, putting overlapping some of these conversations with the research that I've done. Because when you talk to people that have backgrounds in bioweapons research, they're not really that open to talking all about it. So they'll leave things out. They'll give you some hints. But you know what? When you talk to five, six, seven, eight different people that are involved in it, every one of them leaves something out, but you can start weaving it together. And then when you do your research, that baseline foundation, then you can start connecting the dots. So

I would be shocked if there is not something in place similar to what I describe in the novel. Well, during horrific moments where terrible decisions have to be made for the greater good, those are decisions like when people hear about like when, like Flight 93 is a good example. The conspiracy theory about Flight 93 that it was shot out of the sky, right? Interesting. You ever heard that? No, no, I haven't heard that. Yeah, that's the one where people were saying they said, let's roll.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, the wreckage was spread over miles. And I mean, what is... I would imagine that if they really did know that a jet was coming into the Pentagon like and they had to stop that jet those people are dead already and if they scrambled a jet a fighter jet to meet that plane that hijacked plane in the air there was no other way well I talked about that

that as a contingency in in the novel here and the only thing that keeps me from believing a lot of these conspiracies is that or just ideas not talk about that as a contingency in the novel here. And the only thing that keeps me from believing a lot of these conspiracies is that, or just ideas, not even conspiracies necessarily, is that I've worked just 20 years in the government, and I know how hard it is to keep a secret, especially today. So Ben Franklin had that thing where he said, hey, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. That was what he would say about that. And so just knowing how incompetent the federal government is anyway, just keeping a lid on some of these things and actually swearing everyone to secrecy. And so many people would know about something like that.

So that makes me in my head think just knowing these people, you know, that makes me skeptical. If I was on the outside and didn't have that experience, I'd probably be like, oh, that could be. Yeah, but I think people keep secrets. I think they can. Look at Operation Northwood. They didn't know about that until the Freedom of Information Act. That was from the 1960s where they were going to blow up a drone jetliner and blame it on Cuba. They were going to arm Cuban friendlies and attack Guantanamo Bay and use that to have motivation to go to war with Cuba.

There were some great ones in the 60s. Like when you look back, like Legacy of Ashes and those books. But they kept that secret. Amazing. They kept that secret. That was signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. How did you find out about it? It was vetoed by Kennedy and the Freedom of Information Act.

Yeah. Because it was so long after the fact. Yeah. But I don't think they found out about that until the 2000s. Okay. And it was released. And when it was released, people were like, what the fuck? Like, this is real?

You guys were going to do this? Yeah, there's a lot of crazy ideas like that. The Castro beard thing that people know about. There's all sorts of things, especially back during that time frame.

Before you get to the church hearings in the 70s when Frank Church of Idaho holds this, and that's where I got inspiration for the terminal list for this testing of drugs on our nation's most elite soldiers

who end up with these tumors. That's where I got the inspiration is from Frank Church holding these hearings and really bringing to light some abuses by certain elements of the federal government. And then there was a change. What do they do? Well, in the case that I was looking in, they're testing drugs on people in mental institutions, on people in the military, people in prisons, universities, without really the knowledge of what's going to, particularly people in mental institutions because they couldn't make those decisions for themselves if they're going to actually allow themselves to be tested with certain things, spying on Americans.

Some of the things that we got back into after September 11th. So a lot of that surveillance state type things were brought to light. Those kind of evil tests on people, you just go, what the fuck, man? Tuskegee Airmen, syphilis. Yes. There's another one that just got reported recently, and this one was about mosquitoes, that they had released an enormous amount of mosquitoes in a predominantly black community in the 1950s, I believe it was.

community in the 1950s I believe it was and some of them were infected with diseases and they were they were Running some sort of an active experiment. See if you can find that that's crazy. Yeah, I've read it Savannah Savannah, Georgia like two 1950s pull that up so we can see that because I read that a couple of days ago Yeah, black savannas haunted by memories of mosquito experiment. How fucking gross is this? Wow. Black Americans are more hesitant than whites to take the COVID vaccine.

Reasons for that hit close to home in Savannah and include a classified military operation from the 1950s that dropped hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes, mosquitoes that many believe were infected with disease on Carver Village. They didn't tell anybody, and it happened. The Chatham County Commission Chairman, Chester Ellis. And so it leaves some apprehension, especially when you have residents of that area who've been there since the 1950s. Wow.

Yeah. That is so crazy. There you go. Right there. Once again, it's out though. So I'm hanging. Who knows? Maybe in 50 years we'll learn a lot more about things that were going on on September 11th or after just like this.

And what other experiments do you think have been done on U.S. military? There's some – what do they do? A lot of stuff with acid in the 60s. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even when I was in, we had anthrax. People were like, oh, I really don't want to get had anthrax you know people were like oh i really don't get that anthrax vaccination we have i think it was a series of six shots maybe someone will

give it to you so they gave me a couple and then i was like you know i'm done with this can we just sign and say that i did this and uh you know that's kind of how most people did it from then on you know so you're brand new you don't know you're just kind of like yeah so you walk in you don't know you're like uh and then you realize man is it, it didn't seem like it. No, no, no. It was, it was, if it was voluntary, they didn't make it seem like that to a brand new guy that's walking in and getting all these shots. Um, so I think that happened maybe my first year or two in SEAL teams. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. But you had to get all of them for it to work. So it was kind of like, or that's what they said anyway. I don't know. It's does it even work? I don't know. I don't know. I think it only works against a certain strain or something like that because there's multiple strains of anthrax or something like that. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah. For this book, I was looking at it. I didn't look into anthrax.

I was looking into this Marburg variant U, which is a crazy infectious disease. And that's real? It's real. Yep. So this is the first time in the back of the novel I have an author's note that talks about what people just read and what's real and what's not. I have a preface that kind of sets the tone for the books in all of them. But there was so much research involved in this novel that I put an author's note in the back so people wouldn't be wondering, hey, what's real? What's not? I don't really know. And just to make it kind of easier for them to be like, oh, no way that's real. Or, okay, this is not real. Or this

is an assumption. So I spell all that out in the author's note. But Dr. Ustinov, and I'm probably messing up, butchering his name because I've only read it, haven't said it out loud, but he injected himself with Marburg, which was a... Accidentally. Accidentally. That's all true. Exactly. They're researching this disease in the Soviet Union, and he accidentally injected it into his thumb. So he's sealed off in this containment facility as he slowly liquefies from the inside out. So he's bleeding through his pores, he's breathing, like he would sweat, blood coming out of there, blood coming out of nose, blood

coming out of eyes, mouth, ears, every orifice, and he's brain slowly liquefying. And that happens over slowly over a period of three weeks. And because he's a scientist, he takes notes about what he's feeling during this timeframe. And so he eventually dies. He's sealed in this stainless casket and he's buried. But they have this data. And now they have what happens when you get a virus that takes over a host. Oftentimes it becomes more virulent. So they take a sample from his either his bone marrow, his blood, his organs, and they weaponize it. So they have this strain of Marburg variant U after his last name that they then weaponize. And that's what I researched in the novel. And it's out there. It's a real thing.

And do we have it in this country? I would suspect that we do because as part of the bioweapons conventions we signed in the 70s, along with Soviet Union, along with Iran, we say we can develop these defensive bioweapons. So that means in order to build the defense, you actually have to have the weapon. So it's kind of a way around not weaponizing things, which is the intent of the conventions or what you would think the intent of the conventions are if you're looking at it from the outside. So it's fascinating. Is it defense in that you have to understand the capabilities of the virus?

Yeah, you have to understand what is the enemy? What might the enemy have? Okay, they have this Marburg variant U. Okay, well, either we have to develop this on our own, or we have to get a sample here. And that's the intelligence side of the house trying to figure out how to get turn people and get this thing out so we can then study it and develop a weapon so that we can then build up these defenses to it. So it's a crazy world to work in for these people that get into it. But it was fascinating to me because I didn't know anything other than the military, other than putting on my little biohazard suit thing we had to put on and take off if we ever went into an environment like that.

But I didn't really spend much time learning about the specific bioweapons and going deep on it. And here I could. Jesus. Yeah. It has to be really disconcerting to find out. Well, especially when COVID hits. So I'm doing this in August of 2019. I start doing this research.

And I'm researching all through the fall, getting into January. In December, I heard a little something because I was so deep into this research. And I'm talking to these people that that's their whole life is studying these things. So I hear about it in December. I'm kind of like, you know, I've heard a bunch of things coming out of, you know, swine flu and avian flu and kind of I've heard of these things, you know, over the years. And then we get into late January. I hear a little more, still hypersensitive to it because I'm in the midst of this study. Then into February.

And it's like, OK, interesting. So then it became well I'm looking at this stuff from the enemy's perspective and here we start responding we're shutting everything down I mean when I came out here to see you last time you know at the gas station I'm getting out putting on the rubber gloves and putting my mask on outside because we didn't know you know I still don't know who to trust at that point in early May of 2020 uh when I drove out but uh the enemy's looking at that look what we we can do. Look what we can manipulate here. And this is for a 0.03 mortality rate. Well, what if we have something with a 90% or an 80% or 70 or 60 or 50?

Imagine what the United States will do to itself if we get this in there. And we don't even have to be successful. We just have to introduce the fear. So it's a, yeah. It's a horrific precedent to set. Yeah, they're learning. They're always watching, just like on the battlefield. They're always looking, always adapting.

That's the whole point of warfare is adapting faster than your enemy. So they're looking, they're learning, they're adapting. That's also a really disturbing thing when you see how much easier it is to contain if the people don't have any freedom. Yeah. You know? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And that's what scares me about some unscrupulous members of our society, the people that do wish that this country was a dictatorship. Because there are some politicians that would be very happy if they could run this country the same way other countries are run,

with an iron fist, and punish people for any deviation outside of the right way of thinking. Yeah, that's the path we're on. And it's, you know, slowly built up over time in that, you know, growing up for us, we thought, oh, it'll never happen. Oh, here's a little bit more. They're encroaching here. But, you know, this is the United States. We're free. We have these options, opportunities. Here's a little more. Here's a little more than all of a sudden, a very pivotal year in 2020, where people see that they can take control because of this fear. And then you don't know who to trust with special social media. Like, what do you what do you do? And then you have this powerful government taking more. They're not going to get back.

They're not going to give that control back. They never do. Once they get it, they've got it. And wait for the next one and grab a little more. And pretty much then next thing you know, you're in this dictatorship. Well, it just happens also in ways where you're like, is this really happening? Like this guy who got visited by the Capitol Hill police for saying that something was underwhelming. Yeah. Where's the outrage? There is no outrage. Yeah.

And it's also the media, the news cycle is so overwhelming. There's so much going on that there's no way to keep in touch with all of it. So if people are upset about this, they'll find some new thing to be more upset about, and they'll stop being upset about that. Yeah, no, exactly. It's a squirrel, you know, the other thing, next thing. But also we go back to talking about George Marshall, and we talk about these generals who weren't fired. Well, same thing here.

Like who is that person that said whatever they said in order to send the highway patrol to this guy's house? Like where is that person they They should be fired immediately. Gone. Yeah. Maybe it's just someone online that did it or a group of people online that did it. But how does the Capitol Hill police not research that before they go to this fucking guy's house? You should have to have some real clear evidence, A, that it was him, B, that what he said was inciting violence or was threatening.

But just reading that? Yeah. People that showed up probably never knew. They probably got something that said, hey, there's this person that might be violent. They're making threats against a person in Congress. Oh, let's go check this out. But they didn't even research it. No.

But they're at the tactical level. They probably, they're just like, okay, yes, we'll be there in 15 minutes. But imagine the fact that it takes how much time to research it? Like, shouldn't you have at least a link where you can go to the link and go, oh, yes, we'll be there in 15 minutes. But imagine the fact that it takes how much time to research it. Like, shouldn't you have, like, at least a link where you can go to the link and go, oh, yeah, here's the guy saying some terrible things. Let's go visit him. Yeah, it's that trust thing.

I mean, you're trusting your chain of command. How much time does it take to go to someone's house? It takes a long time. Doesn't it take less time to just read what the fucking guy said and go, he didn't say shit? Yeah, it's one of those things, like, who knows what protocols and processes are in place. And obviously, there's a control missing.

There's a control level missing right there. My fear is the same protocols are in place that hired that lady who shot that kid who doesn't know the difference between a fucking taser and a pistol. Yeah. That's what my fear is. My fear is it's all in the same line. Yeah. That it's just incompetence more than anything. And that's one of the things that we really do have to fear.

We have to fear incompetence more than anything. And that's one of the things that we really do have to fear. We have to fear incompetence. Yeah, but unfortunately we keep electing people that are incompetent or at least that exhibit these incompetent tendencies. And we have track records. We can go back and look. We can go back and look at the highest levels of government. You can go back 50 years. You can look at voting records. You can look at statements.

You can go look at, hey, why didn't that first election, why didn't that not work out? Oh, what, plagiarism? And, like, lying about your college record? Oh, interesting. Oh, him? Biden? Yeah, that guy? That's kind of crazy. But enough time has passed. You know, people have forgotten about that. I guess it's okay now to do that. We used to do Joe

Biden night at Stitch's Comedy Club in Boston. Back in the day? In 1988. No way. Yeah, say if you and I were comics, I would do your act and you would do my act. How long did you have before you jumped on stage where you got that person's act? Or did you know them well enough? Well, we knew each other. We were friends.

We all worked together. So they had Joe Biden night where we'd go on and we would do each other's acts. And they would call it Joe Biden night. That's crazy. That's how much in the news. But this is back in the news where there was like four channels on television and people actually read the newspaper. So it was a big deal. It got Biden kicked out of the presidential race.

And when it got him kicked out of the race, that was when we all did this on television or on stage rather. Amazing. It was all over television. It was a big deal that this guy was a plagiarist. rather amazing it was all over television it was a big deal that this guy was a plagiarist and then they also caught him you know the lying about his college record was so egregious yeah he just he just lied about what he was bragging about what this amazing student he was and then he had to say oh well i was miss i was misinformed about my own record yeah i mean it's a little odd i mean people i think people are very forgiving especially then, more so back then than today.

Not really, because he just sort of, you know, became a senator, right? Well, that's what I mean. Like, people forgave that. And then, you know, but then it just stacks up over time. But I tend to be a fairly forgiving person. I think it's important to forgive and move on. Yeah, it is. It's very important. And you can get people out, you know, you don't have to talk to people anymore. But you can, you know, hey, I'm moving on, I forgive you and I'm moving forward. Like that's a powerful thing to be able to forgive rather than keep that all inside. But I think that that's – Those kind of lies though are weird lies. That's a weird one. I mean – Because they're indicative of a real character flaw.

Yeah. That would seem like it didn't just mess up like to say that I went to school in 1988, but I met in 1989. Right, right, right. Or, you know, I got an A in history when I really got a B+. Right. Well, I remember that differently because the memory is an interesting thing. Malcolm Gladwell has a really cool – have you had him on, by the way? Yes.

Yeah. I've got to listen to that one. I love his stuff. He's great. He's an amazing guy. I love that guy. I love his books. I love his podcast.

But he has a book on that or a podcast on that where he talks about memory. And he talks about how – and he uses the Brian Williams example, like saying that he was in a helicopter in Iraq and it was you know shot down and all these things and it didn't really happen right and he talks about the psychology behind that and it's it's fascinating and you end up getting having much more empathy for for people that end up going down these paths that actually start believing their lies what is the name of the episode you're I forget which season it is because he has like seven seasons now he has a lot it's revision Revisionist History, right?

Revisionist History, yep. Yep. Fascinating guy who actually loves reading thrillers and such a smart guy. Really interesting guy. He's on the opposite side of like, you know, political spectrum, but one of those guys that I can sit down and have a drink with. I want to sit down and have a beer with, have a coffee with and talk because he's so smart and so thoughtful. Most importantly, we're thoughtful about his positions. So I can't say enough good things about him and his work. I couldn't agree more. But he has a thing on memory.

But when you have multiple, he's talking about one instance here, one instance there, one instance there, not this pattern of essentially, well, eventually you get to this point, hey, tipping point, where there's so many lies that it's like, is this person, is there something wrong with this person? Should we be electing them to anything? Well, there's a difference between making mistakes and not remembering things correctly and clearly exaggerating your own accomplishments to make yourself look more competent or qualified or more. You just make it look like you're a better person than you are.

But how do you not think you're going to get caught on that one? I mean, there are cameras everywhere. That old footage of him talking about that, there's cameras everywhere. And it's not the day where – it's not phones. I mean, it's like actual cameras there. Oh, yeah. He just thought no one was going to research it. That's wild.

Yeah. Well, I think before the internet, people did not have a good understanding of research. Yeah. Of whether or not someone – and I think did not have a good understanding of research. Yeah. Of whether or not someone, and I think there was a lot of people that lied back then. Interesting. I think it was way more people lied back then. Really? Yeah.

Because they weren't worried about an instant check or somebody jumping online and saying. Yeah. But sometimes now it's like. For sure. But now if you say the truth, here's the difference now. Well, now you can say the truth and try to get canceled because it's not, it doesn't align. Yeah, well, that's a different. With the powers that's a different kind of canceling yeah but I ran into a guy when I was in Park City that was had this guy working for him that was telling these stories about being a SEAL and they were these heavy-duty, detailed stories about operations and courageous moments and gunfights and all this crazy, detailed shit.

And somehow or another, he got wind that this guy might be full of shit. And Goggins somehow became a part of it as well. and Goggins somehow became a part of it as well. And Goggins found out that this guy was full of shit and informed him that he was not a SEAL. The guy was never a SEAL. And apparently he was a nurse. Well, there's a... Really?

The story was just total concocted heroics. That is crazy. You hear about that a lot in Vietnam. You hear about a lot of guys saying they came back from Vietnam being special forces guys or SEALs or whatever. They didn't think you could really check on these things. They're from a small town.

Some politicians, like some mayor somewhere, said they were a SEAL, had the uniform, like the trident on there. And this is, I think, his pre-internet days. And, yeah, sure enough, eventually busted. But after years, and everybody believed it. Because, you know, when you're talking about a top-secret operation from, know Vietnam or something how are you gonna check that in 1978 1985 86 92 whatever but today you can check on that have you ever met a guy that's like a full-on liar no but there's some guys that were out at a bar in in Tennessee and somebody walked in with a in their blues with a with like a wife girlfriend type

person with a trident with this stack medals, and he walks into this bar. And we used to train down there. We used to do close-quarter battle stuff down there at a really cool place called Mid-South Institute of Self-Defense. And guys would just go out, and, you know, it was a great, great place to train, great place to bond, awesome. But this guy walks in, and they're looking at him. They're like, hmm, that's odd. And they walk up and ask him, hey, so what team are you with?

And, you know, they're dressed in like I am right now. And he's like, oh, SEAL Team 2. team two yeah they're like oh really what do you do there he's like i'm the commanding officer and he's there with this with a lady and they're like hey we are from seal team two and uh you should probably leave right now and he turned around walked out oh my crazy like wearing a uniform at a bar in the middle of tennessee like somewhere like crazy or mississippi wherever that was you know somewhere down there it was like insane but Like wearing a uniform at a bar in the middle of Tennessee, like somewhere crazy, or Mississippi, wherever that was. You know, somewhere down there.

It was like insane. But that's what happened. That's so nuts. Yeah. But people do it. People take, especially with that one. That's a weird one. The Stolen Valor thing is odd.

Like that's, I don't even, yeah. It's a mentally ill person. Yeah. It's got to be. It has to be. I don't know how you would. And then we have people elected to Congress that say they what someone said they served in vietnam or something that didn't even go yeah we can look that up oh that's right who was that it's uh and it's probably happened more than once i'm sure you know i'm sure it happened before people were doing research on stuff like

that that's a big one though especially if you're a politician because you're gonna fall hard that's right he and he he said what he say? But he didn't fall hard. He's still there. I forget. It's so unbelievable that people keep electing him. He was in the army, but he didn't serve, but he didn't get sent overseas. Isn't that what it was? I don't know.

I think he said he went to Nam, but he actually didn't deploy. That's not when you forget. I forgot. I forgot I did a year in Vietnam. No, I did not do a year in Vietnam. Yeah. I told this story before, but there was a guy that we knew that was a fake Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt,

and he tricked a bunch of people and was actually writing for Abu Dhabi Combat News. Did you ever hear me tell a story? I have. That is crazy because they just think that you're not going to. He killed this woman's husband and he was fucking her and he was banging this guy's wife and he wound up killing him and driving his car around and he's in jail right now. Dang. He had a whole fake name and everything.

That's crazy. That's a tough one too. Like you're saying you're a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt. Like that's, you know, I mean, and you could check that, especially back when there was like a couple, like you'd count them on one hand, like let's say 92 or something. Yeah. This was in the 2000s, like early, early 2000s. I want to say like 2001-ish, something like that.

Someone, well, I was on Fear Factor at the time. And I know this because my friend who knew the guy was talking to me about it and his phone was tapped. And then the cops wound up calling me while I'm in my trailer. And they go, hey, is this Joe Rogan? Yeah, this is Sheriff blah, blah, blah. And I go, hell, what's up? And he goes, how much do you know about this thing?

And so I go, okay, this is exactly what I know. I go, I know the guy's a liar. I don't know if the guy really killed somebody, but I know that he lied about being a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, and we had heard that he'd killed somebody. So we went through the whole thing. I go, but in my understanding of it, this guy's completely full of shit. So I didn't know him that well,

but he was a student of this other guy that I know who told us about this whole situation. Dude, that's crazy. It was crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but the cops luckily believed me. Luckily, I was telling the truth because I wasn't close with the guy, but one of my best friends, Eddie Bravo, knew him because Eddie had done some stuff for Abu Dhabi as well, and he was telling Eddie that he was a black belt.

And Eddie rolled with him. They sparred. And Eddie was like, man, something's wrong. This guy's terrible. This guy should be a lot better. But there were some guys back then that had these janky black belts. They would be a black belt in some fake jiu-jitsu. Before Brazilian jiu-jitsu came around, there was a lot of fake karate.

A lot. I mean a lot. There was a lot of fake martial artists. Because I could show you how to throw a kick or two. And if you're reasonably athletic, you could throw some kicks. And I could show you how to throw a punch or two. And then you could go and tell people you're a black belt. It's not that hard.

Like kicking in particular and punching, you could pretend you're doing some karate. Judo chop. If I teach you how to do this, you could do that in a few seconds. If I could teach a little kid, like when I used to teach taekwondo, I would get someone doing this in just a few seconds. That's right. So all you would have to do is get some reasonably athletic person.

You teach them how to throw a couple of kicks, and they could say they're a grand champion. Well, this guy was so crazy. He had his friends drop him off in the woods with a bag. He brought a bag. And inside the bag, he had a trophy. But he didn't tell anybody. So he has this fucking big bag. He said, I'm going to compete in this no rules kumite karate tournament.

This is fantastic. The guy, he goes, come back and get me tomorrow. So the guy goes off into the woods. And then his friend comes back the next day and he's got no bag. But now he's got a trophy in his hand. And it's exactly the same size as a bag. That's so great. And he tells him, yeah, I won the karate tournament.

And he's like, this is how full of shit this guy was. He created this sort of persona and this is where he got tripped up not even just that my friend rolled with him but that he said that he was going to thailand to fight in a uh a mixed martial arts fight okay so he goes to thailand maybe he did maybe he didn't there was a lot of like really shitty martial artists back then right a lot of like weird fucking people that were fighting in these tournaments that had no business fighting anybody. So he comes back and he says he caught the guy in a twister.

A twister is a really complicated submission. It's very complicated. It's hard to set up because it's very specific. You have to be in side control or have someone's back. And if you're in side control, this is like, say if a guy's laid out like this and his head is here, his feet are here. If I'm in side control, I have to grab his left leg. I have to pull it.

I have to hook it with my left leg. And then I have to triangle it with my right. So I have his leg isolated. Then I have to dive forward on my left shoulder and roll so I'm behind him. So I turn his whole body and flip him over. Then I have to take his arm and I have to pull it behind my neck. There's a series of complicated control moves. And then we can find it online.

Eddie Bravo is the master of it. And then he was my instructor. And then you have to grab the guy's head and pull him like this. So it's like a very terrible spinal lock. It hurts like hell. It hurts just thinking about it. And if you don't tap, then they go to DEFCON 4, which is instead of holding it like this, you do this. And you do like a rear naked choke.

And you can snap someone's neck. You could really fuck them up hard. That sounds awesome. That's it. The Korean zombie is one of only a couple people that ever got it and pulled it off in the UFC. Nice. So look at the position. See how he's got his left leg isolated underneath him, and then he's got – he had to wrap his arm around his head,

and then he's got this horrible spinal lock on, I think that's Leonard Garcia that he pulled it off on. I think. Wow. I don't remember who it was. Yeah. That's next level right there. Super next level.

Is that Leonard Garcia? That's a black belt move. Does it say? Super next level technique. There's only a few guys that have ever pulled it off. Let me see the face of the guy. I don't know who that is. That's hard to tell.

Korean zombie. Yeah, there you go. Leonardo Garcia. Nice. Nice. Yeah, so he said that, and Eddie hung up the phone. He's like, there's no fucking way. He goes, I'm telling you, dude, I roll with that guy.

He's terrible. He tells me he got a fucking twister, and he actually had a fake fight in King of the Cage. Oh, he got one in? Yeah. He had a guy that he knew that was his friend, and he paid the guy to take a dive so he could have a real legit mixed martial arts fight.

No way. I think you can watch it online. That's crazy. Haven't we played it before? Have we played it before? Rafael Torre is his name. That's not his name, though. It's a fake name. He made up a Brazilian

Jiu-Jitsu sounding name. I mean, that's a ballsy to me. His real name is Ralph. Get in the ring with somebody? Some fight pass. Oh, you can see it on fight pass? That's hilarious. But like to roll with somebody? But it's a fake fight. Yeah, but I mean before, to roll, you know, to get in and say that you're his black belt and then actually get on the mat with someone who is? Like, what? Yeah, it's nuts.

But that's happened before. That is crazy. There's been a few guys that have been called out. Like there's another video. I don't know who the black belt is. The actual black belt is a black belt screaming at a guy, take that fucking belt off. You know you're not a – because they rolled with the guy and they had the guy roll with people. Right.

And he just doesn't know what he's doing. He's just a crazy person. That is nuts. But this guy's not just a crazy person. He's a murderer. That's crazier. Well, what was it in the Tough Man, before UFC, remember the Tough Man contest?

Yeah. Like, how did they vet people for those? You just like, in there. I remember some of those guys. I was watching back then and I was, you know, doing- They didn't do background checks. They didn't check your medical records. Like, a lady died at one of them.

Really? Pregnant one, or not pregnant, a mother. No way. Yeah, she was just broke. And, you know, if you win, you get 500 bucks. She's like, I'll fuck that bitch up. And she goes and she winds up getting pounded and has brain bleeding and dies. That was like late 80s, early 90s, like right before UFC.

I saw the last one. And they were wild to watch, though. Yeah. They were crazy. Yeah, they were pretty crazy. And a lot of guys who wound up fighting in the UFC started out in tough man competitions. Because they would do anything. A lot of guys like Jorge Masvidal

who's fighting for the title not this weekend but next weekend in Jacksonville. He's fighting Kamaru Usman for the fucking title. That guy started off in backyard fighting. You can watch his backyard bare knuckle fights on YouTube.

Wow. So a lot of these guys they're just tough, tough people that have an opportunity in front of them, whatever, a karate tournament, a fucking tough man contest, bare knuckle fight in the woods. Yeah. Go tilts. With your trophy. It's so fantastic.

It's so crazy. I've got to write that into a book. That's going to end up in the next novel. Can you watch the fight? Oh, here it is. You can't. I don't have my fight pass thing connected apparently right now, but this is the same fight where it rained in the cage. Oh, yeah, yeah it is. I don't have my Fight Pass thing connected apparently right now, but this is the same fight where it rained in the cage.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. King of the Cage, Slippery When Wet. So Slippery When Wet. Wow. See, let me pause for a second. King of the Cage was a pretty wild organization. My friend Bud was actually the owner of King of the Cage. Okay.

One of my best friends who actually sold him his house. He lives in my old house. So this is pouring rain. So this is not the fight though. This is an article about the event and then at the bottom it talks about the fight. Okay. That's the dude. That's the dude.

That's the fake black belt. So they had it outside in an Indian reservation. Because this was back when MMA was illegal in California. So the only way to get it sanctioned was go to Indian reservations. So Eddie and I, we would, Eddie was one of the commentators for King of the Cage back then. And we would go to these Indian reservations to watch these fights. This is like the early days of the tap out crew and all these martial artists, whether jiu-jitsu people or a lot of like Uriah Faber, a lot of these top shelf guys started off in King of the Cage fighting in

these Indian reservations. And so we would go travel out to the middle of nowhere to these places to watch these events because that was the only way you could see live events in California. And so this dude talked one of his students into taking a dive. He had like a fake student, you know, like me, he was teaching fake martial arts.

I think he knew like a little karate, but he called himself a black belt and then he would say, listen, I'm going to pay you off and we give you 500 bucks

to pretend I'm knee bar. I think he got him in a knee bar. It's not going to, I'm not going to hurt you, you know, enough to worry. It's not like a knockout.

And so I'm pretty sure he got him in a knee bar if I remember correctly, but it looked fake as fuck. How could it not? Like, of course it's going to look fake. There was some fake shit in Pride. Oh, really?

Very high levels in Pride. Really? Yeah, there was some pro wrestling. See, the thing about Pride is that they had a lot of pro wrestling stars. Okay. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but there was one where there was a prominent mixed martial artist from the United States who got tapped by a heel hook.

And it's so obviously fake. It looks like pro wrestling. Like he's hesitant, hesitant, and decides to tap. It's like, get the fuck out of here. It looks so fake. Yeah. But it's just, you know, they give you money. Yeah.

No, those tough man ones were legit because I was training for the SEAL at the time you know my whole life i've been training for the seal teams but uh you know it was something cool because it was like real okay i was boxing over here over here but now there's this tough man contest that anybody can enter how do they do this oh this is cool so you're studying it and looking and then of course ufc hits a couple years later and man just changed well they used to do real shit back in the day at carnivals whether you get like a guy who's like a real wrestler who would take on all comers. Yeah. You used to pay.

I'm going to get in there. Yeah. For the purse. Yeah. You know, like 50 bucks. Yeah. You did get some local fucking farmer, some strong guy and you get in there and he would grapple with some, you know, some guy who was a ringer.

Yeah. I mean, I can imagine how, I wonder how horrific some of those people got just destroyed. I can imagine. They got their arms broken. Yeah. Their necks fucked up. Yeah. No medic people there. Referee.

Who's the referee for that? Is there one? I don't even know. People are just cheering. It's like the beginning of Rambo 3 when he's in there, has the sticks. Yeah.

You know? Yeah, no refs. Well, they still, I think they kind of stopped this in California, but for a long time they had smokers. And what a smoker is, it's like a way where an up-and-coming fighter would get experience in a gym fight and so what it would be like say if you know you were a student

and you're learning muay thai or something like that they would bring you to a gym and then you would fight one of their local guys in these unsanctioned there's no medical there's no nothing yeah and you know you wear headgear sometimes sometimes not wear shin pads sometimes sometimes not and guys would just duke it out in local gyms and they would bring folding seats and they'd get like a couple hundred people and sell tickets okay but i think i'm pretty sure they made it illegal you know but not too recently really like real because it was one of those things where I think people didn't know that it was happening. And someone has got a big fucking mouth.

Yeah, and ruined it for everybody. Yeah. Yeah, there's always those people that ruin it for everybody. But, yeah, that seems like one – hey, want to have a little fight in the backyard, you know? Who's the government to regulate that? Well, the thing is, it's a good way to get experience. Because if you're a young fighter and you want to be – say if you want to be a proay thai fighter you know it's hard to find fights yeah you can get a lot of amateur fights okay because there's a lot of other students that are like i want to try a fight i'll try a fight

and then you know you get guys that are of similar experience and you try to be honest about that you put them together yep yeah we have guys would go over to thailand to train on their leave like they go back to thailand and go back to over train yes we had some some beasts back in especially in the 90s before you were actually deploying and going to war uh we would go over there and you go on deployment and you go to get to go to thailand or you're in guam or wherever you're going and uh then the guys would go back they'd get home and take their 30 days of leave or something like that that they built up to go train yeah to go fight and then when they came back it was like mysterious you know they came back like dude that guy went down to thailand to train on leave you. Instead of like hanging out with his family, they went to –

It's divorce now, but, you know, yeah. But he went out there and just, you know, got that experience. And it was a cool place, a good place to go to do that sort of thing. Oh, yeah. I mean, Thailand is the motherland for that stuff. I knew a dude who went to Thailand in the 80s. I remember thinking, wow, this guy's crazy. Yeah, it's good stuff.

He had fights in Thailand. He had these big-ass scars where he got cut up with elbows. Yeah. So he was going over there. And that was when I first learned about leg kicks. Because I remember nobody did leg kicks back in my taekwondo days. Yeah, you were kicking for the head. Yeah.

And then the moment I got kicked in the leg the first time, I was like, oh, no. Right. I was like, shit. Yeah. I've been wasting all this time. Kick someone in the legs is so fucking painful, and it numbs your leg. Your leg becomes half useless almost immediately. Especially if you don't know how to move or to check it or your legs aren't conditioned.

Yeah, no, it's so beneficial. I need to get our kids back in. In San Diego, I don't think they realized what they had in San Diego when we were there because they're learning to shoot from Navy SEAL snipers. They're doing jujitsu with Navy SEAL black belt jujitsu people. They're learning all this stuff, but it's normal. Is there good martial arts in Park City? There is, but the kids kind of went into skiing and snowboarding

and all these other things. Well, you can only do that for four months out of the year. Yeah, and then lacrosse takes. So we're in that stage where they're doing these other things, unfortunately. But, yeah, it's such a great lesson because when I'm on the sand in Hell Week or whatever and I have that boat over my head, I thought back. So I was in the early days of jujitsu,

but I plateaued like early, so like very early. But I think back to those, like being on the mat and having them take those people that are fresh and just cycle through, just cycle through for an hour, hour and a half, whatever it was. But that was some of the toughest stuff that I ever did. Or same thing in the ring, boxers come in and you're just going, you're just so tired and you keep pushing through it. And in my head, I'm always thinking ahead about going to the SEAL teams. And I thought about that quite a bit during Hell

Week and during other times when I was like, Hey, this is pretty hard. And then I think, Oh, you know what? But it's not as hard as what I did on that mat or in that ring. Is it really not as hard? I guess I put it in perspective. You know, I'd be like, okay, it's not that. And then I also, at the same time, I'd take that next leap and be like,

you know what? I am not storming the beaches at Normandy. I am not going across this beach with no cover, no concealment, running into enemy machine gun fire who are in an elevated position

or Iwo Jima. I'm like, you know what? I can do a couple more pushups here in the sand in sunny Southern California because those guys died so that I could pursue this dream that I wanted to do for my entire life.

So that really put it in perspective for me. Everything's relative. But I thought about that. These guys died so that I could be here and I could take my turn, get standing in the breach and just stepping up to put on the uniform of this country. So I thought about jujitsu. I thought about boxing. And I thought about those guys that sacrificed everything so I could be there doing that

job. I thought about jiu-jitsu, I thought about boxing, and I thought about those guys that sacrificed everything so I could be there doing that job. Yeah, Andy told me that the thing is to keep your world small and to think in terms of I could just get to the next meal and just keep doing that. Don't think in terms of like, oh, my God, I have all these days left. Exactly.

That's when people quit right there. They're thinking about Friday on Sunday night. You're thinking about the next Friday. And so Andy went meal to meal. I went evolution to evolution. So I'm like, I can get through this obstacle course. What are we doing next? The swim. Okay. I can swim. Okay. What are we doing next? The soft sand run. You know, I can do that. So I just took it evolution by evolution, but other people go meal by meal. But if you start thinking more than one meal ahead, yeah, it's a little dicey.

It's a little dicey because they make it very easy to quit and ring that bell and all of a sudden be warm and not get yelled at anymore and self-select out of the program. Do they let you – I mean, does anybody sort of give you a guideline like, hey, I'm going to give you some advice. This is the way to get through this. Yeah, you have people that roll back, like did a couple days a hell week, and then they got hurt and they're back in your class now going through it again. So you have all these people with all sorts of advice for

you, uh, as you start. And usually those are the people that, uh, they quit right away again. Oh really? Again? Yeah. It's a typical, that's like the fastest person, the strongest person, the most, uh, outgoing person that's trying to motivate the class. They quit like that first couple hours. Isn't that always the truth? What is that about? I don't know, but people told me that ahead of time. And I was like, wow, this guy looks pretty strong. He's like climbing these ropes and he's so fast and he's like motivating everybody.

I'm like, geez. And then he quits the first hour. It's those silent motherfuckers that just keep going. And I remember the class we're in, you know, Andy and I are in the surf zone and we're watching these people get up to quit. And some people would be like, come back. Don't quit. You can do it. Don't quit.

And I was like, because that's the program working. That is the program working. You want that guy to quit, right? I want that guy to quit. If he's thinking about it, then get up there, ring that bell, self-select out. That kept me warm. Like, you know, that might sound terrible to say. Kept you warm.

But that's the truth. It doesn't sound terrible at all. Yeah. I mean, that's because that's the program. That's why you go there. Because you know 80% of these people are not making it through. I'm here to test myself, serve my country. And this person's quitting. this is working. Now, what do you

think when they're talking about lowering protocols, they're lowering, lowering standards to allow more women to go through and. Yeah. So I'm glad I'm looking at that from the outside. So for me, and Andy tells, you know, something different, he says that, hey, no matter what, the standards are the same, you know same. Don't care who you are. And for me, as a kid growing up, what do they teach you? They teach you, hey, you never hit a girl. You stand up when a woman enters the room. You pull a chair out for the woman.

You open the door for them. You're taught to do these things. So as a combat leader, and this is just how I am, so going into battle, I am 100% going to be more concerned about her than I am the other guys, just because that's how we're taught growing up. You're taught to, you know, stand up to be the protector, to stand up, to open that door for, it's just, it's just a part of me. Maybe now we're not doing that anymore. So maybe going forward, it's just fine. But for me, it would, I would definitely care about the female more than the male, just because that's how I am. But when there's all guys in there and you're going forward and you're doing the job, like that variable isn't there.

And maybe that's all, maybe that's on me, but going forward, maybe they're not going to teach, you know, kids growing up that, you know, you, you, you respect females and you open the door for them and you pull up the chair for them. And when they sit down and do all these things, maybe they're not going to teach that anymore. And everybody's going to be the same and you won't care more about a female than you would a male if you're, and vice versa. I don't know how it works vice versa. You know, I've never really put much thought into that, but I'm glad I'm looking at it from the outside.

I'm glad I did that 20 years. I'm glad that I was there in 9-11 and could do those combat deployments. And then now I'm glad to be out taking care of my family and writing these novels. And so you don't have to think about how it would impact your life. That's why you're saying you're glad that you're out. Because it's a tough thing to grapple with. To think about. Because all of a sudden you have someone there, and now I'm going down range,

and we're going to take down this target, and I just can't not care more about this one person that's in my platoon. The concept that men and women are the same thing is just so stupid. It's so irrational and illogical. And it doesn't mean that a woman can't do what a man can do because there are outliers. But when we're looking at the average woman versus the average man, you know, if you're selecting for the elite of the elite, if there is a woman that can appeal to those standards, like how many women have gone through SEAL training? I don't think anybody yet, but I'm dated now.

I think someone tried to do the pre-BUDS and didn't make it. But I don't think anybody yet, but I might be. I think if you get one of those crazy CrossFit ladies. Oh, yeah, physically. Physically, you could make it through this program. And any average high school athlete can make it through this program. You're going to get in shape while you're there. And it's all mental. It's that team ability we're looking for. It's that moral courage, that physical courage. You're looking

for these certain things that you can, you're looking for grit. So it's not insurmountable for a woman. No, no, no, not at all. No, that's that. Yeah. My point wasn't that at all. My point was that, hey, the problem's with me going into combat. I'm going to look at a woman differently. It's just how I was brought up. I was brought up to respect women and protect women. And that's just how it was. So if any average high school athlete can get through it, then a woman can get through it, but no woman has gotten through it. Yeah, I think so. I think that's probably the case. But we'll see it. It'll happen. And maybe it won't be a big deal. Maybe it'll be just like anything else, glass ceilings, and maybe it'll be fine.

But why are they talking about lowering standards then if it's possible? Yeah, well, because you've got to make one thing, and that's that politics involved. So what is the difference? The difference is the way, well, only one woman has tried? I mean, how many women have tried? Well, there's different stages that you go through. So there's like one before you even show up at Bud's, you have to do your push-ups, your sit-ups,

your pull-ups, your run, your swim. So that's before you even show up. So I'm not sure how many people have tried that. What do you have to do? It's a number of sit-ups, and I forget how many. It's two minutes or three minutes. I forget. It's all online now.

It's been a little while. But push-ups in a certain amount of time, sit-ups in a certain amount of time, pull-ups in a certain amount of time, pull-ups. I think it's only like 10 or 12 maybe. What? Yeah, just to get through the door. You only have to do 10 or 12 chin-ups? Just to get there.

Yeah, just to get there. But there's other things involved too. So you're doing your ASVAB test. So they just want to make sure you're not fat and weak. Yeah. I mean, you're going to get in shape. It's not ridiculous. It's not crazy.

Right. It's not crazy. But I'm saying you can't be a ridiculous person. You can't be like- You still got to be in shape. You got to be in some kind in shape. It's not ridiculous. It's not crazy. Right. But I'm saying you can't be a ridiculous person. You still got to be in shape. You got to be in some kind of shape. So they check you and they go, okay, let's see how tough you are. Yeah. And you should pass this. They did these things. They were comfortable enough in the water to do this

swim in whatever time that was. They were a good enough runner to make it around the track however many times that was. A mile, two miles. I forget what it was. And to do some pull-ups and sit-ups and that sort of thing. But it's timed and it's regulated, and there's only a certain amount of time between those different events. So, you know, you have a base.

And then you go to the next stage where you go to BUDS, and then you have another test when you get there that is the same. So maybe you got out of shape between these two or maybe you made this one just barely and now you didn't make it here. So then there's another gate. And then you start your training. And then you have tests every single week. So there's different gates that you have to get through.

So I'm not sure how many have started here, gotten to here, and then gone forward. But the last time that I checked was probably a few months ago where somebody told me it was one person that had gotten to this last stage as an officer, I think she was, and didn't make it through this pre-BUDS training they do for officers just to make sure, like, hey, you want to get a little more options as far as preparing for SEAL training. So one of them is called mini-BUDS, and you show up in this mini-BUDS thing. You go through a week just to make sure that you've made the right choice and you didn't really want to be an aviator or somebody on a ship or in Intel or whatever else. And so she was in that, from what I understand, and then didn't make it through. Now, when you when you're writing about someone like James Reese and you're writing this story,

do you feel like you have an obligation to represent the SEALs through this character? I mean, do you are there other things like you would never have this guy do? When you think about it, do you think of it as not just, he's not just a fictional character, but he's also a representative of something that you hold sacred? I do.

And the same thing, just the way I interact with anybody, either social media or in real life in person, he's that kind of a guy. So I do think about that, but I want to explore certain paths that you wouldn't do. Like that first book, yeah, you're going to jail forever if you do what he does in the first book. You're going to the gas chamber if you do that in real life. But this is fiction. I get to explore some of these things and I get to give that person that reads it or

that watches the show, they get to root for him because he's doing things that they can't do in real life because they have these inhibitors. They have these laws. They have a justice system. They have a family they don't want to lose. Whatever it is, we have that revenge. We love those stories of revenge, and we have since the beginning of time because it's an outlet. You can't do that in real life, but you can do it.

You can read about it. You can watch that movie. I mean, Death Wish movies. That's why there's like 10 of them. So for him... And Dirty Harry. And Dirty Harry, yeah, yeah. All these things like that.

Vigilante Justice. John Wick. It was a very positive, yeahirty Harry and Dirty Harry. Yeah. All these things like that. Vigilante Justice, you know, is a very positive. Yeah. Very, very popular, popular thing. So so for him. And when you write a character that is going to have more than one novel or just even if it is just one, people are trusting you with their time for that. So whether it's three days, they're reading this one week, two weeks, or they're listening to 13 hours of Ray Porter do that narration. They've trusted you with the time and no one wants to spend time with someone they don't like. Like you get to choose all these books out there, all these movies out there, all these audio books out there, and you get to choose who you're going to spend 12 hours that you're not getting back with. So

I take that very seriously and I want to provide something of value. So whether I'm writing that book and James Reese, my protagonist, former Navy SEAL sniper, is the catalyst, is the protagonist, is the guy that moves the story forward. And we see the world through his eyes for the most part. So I do take that very seriously. And I put a lot of thought into everything that he does. I put a lot of thought into how I personally interact with people online and things that I post every day. Because, once again, people have trusted me. Whether they're going to read that post for 10 seconds, or they're going to look at that picture

for two seconds or whatever it is, I don't want to waste their time because you are not getting that time back. You only have a certain amount of time on this planet and you might not make it through tomorrow. You don't know. We might make five years, you might make 10 years, but you trusted me with that time. That's why it's so important who you follow, why you follow them. And so I take my posts on social media just as seriously as I do writing a paragraph in the novel. I like to put that thought into there, add value to people's lives because they're trusting me. And as a way to thank them for trusting me, that's what I owe them in return is putting that requisite time,

energy, effort, and thought into how I explain something in a post or how I write a paragraph in the novel. Is this surreal for you to be this successful with these books? So, I mean, it's not that quickly in that it's five years, but right away, you know? I mean, you knocked it out of the park with the first book, man. I mean, it's kind of crazy. And that book now is being made into an eight series Amazon Prime special. Crazy. So it's, I guess it sounds strange to say, but I thought about this for so long growing up, knowing that I wanted to be a SEAL since I was seven years old. Everything that

I did was focused on that goal, whether I was playing soccer or lacrosse or running cross country or whatever it was, I was thinking about it in terms of how does this prepare me to be a SEAL later in life at an early age. When did it start? What year did it start? So when I was seven years old, so let's say 1979, 1980. When you were seven? Yeah, yeah. So my grandfather was killed in World War II. He was a Corsair pilot, which was the planes

that had the gull wings that folded up like this. Oh, wow. And there was a show on at the time called Black Sheep Squadron with Robert Conrad, and he played Pappy Boynton, who was the commanding officer of this squadron in the Pacific, which was also the same plane that my grandfather flew. So I had this connection. I watched those with my dad.

We had this connection to his dad, to my grandfather. And I grew up with his pictures of him and his squadron, the maps. They used to give aviators back then, which were made out of silk, because if you hit the water with a paper one, they would disintegrate. So you had these silk maps, had his medals from the war, that sort of thing. So military service was a calling. I just felt it. It was innate. And very early on in life, I found out about Frogmen through a movie called The Frogmen. And I watched it with my dad. I didn't watch the whole thing because in our house, there were four channels back then, ABC, CBS, NBC, and this outlier that always had some war movie playing on Sunday, opposite Sunday football. And I didn't really care about the football, but I cared about

that war movie that was on. And when we hit a commercial break, my dad would look at his watch and say two minutes, and I'd run up because I was at remote control back then. And I'd turn it to that outlier channel, and I'd get to watch for a few, two minutes, and he'd be like, turn it back. So I'd turn it back, and then we'd wait till the next commercial. And so I saw this movie called The Frogmen. These guys, black and white, they're going up over the beach. They're placing explosives on obstacles in advance of a conventional forced landing. And I asked my dad, hey, who are these guys?

And he said, they're frogmen. And I'm like, what? Pestering with more questions. And he said, ask your mother, because she was a librarian at the time. And we went down to the local library, looked into frogmen, found out about underwater demolition teams, found out about seals. We went down to the local library, looked into frogmen, found out about underwater demolition teams, found out about SEALs. And my takeaway from that research was that, hey, these are some of the toughest, the training, some of the toughest ever devised by a modern military. And these are some of the most elite fighting forces on the planet.

And so I was like, age seven, OK, this is what I'm doing. And then when I got to about age 10, I started to read the things my parents were reading. So Hunt for Red October came out when I was in fifth grade, started reading that. Then I found David Murrell, who created Rambo. I found Stephen Hunter. I found A.J. Quinnell, J.C. Pollack, Mark Olden, all these guys in the 80s who had protagonists with Vietnam experience, typically in special operations.

So I find this world of reading in thrillers, and I just love it. There's this magic. And I know that these authors did some sort of research into their characters. So I'm learning at the same time. So I'm reading nonfiction on warfare, on terrorism, on insurgencies, on counterinsurgencies. And I'm reading this fiction. And I just love it. I know that, hey, after the military, I'm going to one day write books just like this.

And then today, David Morrell is a dear friend. Stephen Hunter is a dear friend. We talk every week or so on email. And these guys have been so fantastic. So these guys that I looked up to are now friends. And it's incredible. It's such an honor. It's crazy. But I thought back then, I'm like, of course, I'm going to be a SEAL, 80% attrition. Yes. And back then I thought there was like six guys on each SEAL team. I didn't realize there was a lot more than that. And I'm like,

okay, six guys. Okay. I read that there's three teams on each coast. I'm going to make it through. I'm going to be part of this 20% that makes it through. Of course, I never thought that failing that I would fail. And then I also knew once I get out, I'll write thrillers and then there'll be a option by an A-list star. I'll have an awesome director. It was just, I just thought that's how it worked. Cause that's how, when you're, when you have this dream, when you're seven years old and then 10 years old, that's what you think happens. And so I just never lost that. Of course, you have some other people, you know, tell you how hard it is along the way. And you have to discount that and stay focused because you only have so much bandwidth. You can't be worried about not making it. You got

to be focused on all your energies on producing the best product that you possibly can be the best combat leader or producing the best book. And so I never thought in a million years that that I wouldn't be a SEAL and that I wouldn't do at the time you thought it was always secret missions. And really, we only started doing real stuff after September 11th, most of us anyway. And then I would write these novels. So I just never thought that that wasn't how it went. And so I just focused on making the best book I possibly could, getting it to the exact publisher, the exact editor that I wanted to read it, Emily Bessler at Emily Bessler Books. Because I looked in the acknowledgements of other people's books and I kept seeing this name, Emily Bessler. And I'm like, ah, Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills, Brad

Thorne, this is who I want. This is who needs to read the book. And sure enough, ends up on her desk. She reads it. She loves it. And next thing you know, here we are. It's such a study and discipline and focus. It's crazy. And having a path and being sure of that path and going on it and not varying. It's crazy. Well, the other part of it also, you have to do that work. So I read all these books growing up. So I didn't just wake up one day and decide, hey, what should I be reading if I want to be an author? I'm going to go back.

No, I read those things at a very pivotal time, very impactful time in my life. And it would be different reading them today. And some of them I'm hesitant to reread because they were just so magical to me back then. But I did all that work reading those books and then doing all that academic study of warfare, then getting the SEAL teams, then that experience downrange in Iraq and Afghanistan, so that when that door got cracked for me by Brad Thor, who said, when I talked to him, he's like, hey, I'll let my publisher know it's coming because a friend of mine told me some things you did in the SEAL teams. And as a thank you for that, I'm going to let them know that a book's coming from you. I can't guarantee they'll open the

package. Can't guarantee that they'll read one word. Definitely can't guarantee that you'll like it. And he thought they would just maybe read one word and toss it, toss it out. But he cracked that door for me and then I kicked it in. So you have to be prepared to kick it in. You have to have done this work at this level because if you don't and someone cracks that door for you, guess what? It's not happening. So the constant is that you have to do this work at this foundational level. Because if somebody, you either make it happen on your own or someone puts their hand out or cracks the door a little bit, you have to be ready to crush that thing. with full passion. And I think that's, that's so important for people to see because there's so many people out there that are, they don't understand, they don't know what they want. They're confused. They, they don't have, they're, they're not focused. They don't have a real path and they're disenchanted by life. They don't know what to do, you know, and it's,

it's a mindset and it's, it's a matter of discipline and action. And you're just such a great example there. Well, I appreciate that. And there'll be plenty of people along the path for anybody that'll tell you how hard something is. And, uh, people, when I told people I wanted to be a SEAL, they thought I'd grow out of it. Uh, or, Oh, that's nice. You know, he'll, he'll, he'll get, it'll be a rude awakening once he gets to buds, if he even gets there, if he even enlists and takes, takes the risk. Those are the same kind of looks I got when I told people I wanted to be an author. Uh, they get those same looks like got when I told people I wanted to be an author. I get those same looks.

Like, oh, he'll grow out of it. Sure. Kind of like telling somebody you want to be an astronaut or whatever. They're like, oh, yeah, the world will knock you down soon enough, son. Which is true. You'll get knocked down. Yeah, but that's the case with everything that's difficult to do that very few people do. I hear that all the time about, well, I'm always telling people to chase their dreams.

And I've had people say you shouldn't tell people to chase their dreams because a lot of people are not going to accomplish those dreams. And I'm like, you can eat shit because I'm going to keep talking to the people that are going to listen, and the people that are going to listen are just human beings. And human beings decide who they are based on what they're willing to do to achieve their goals. You decide. You get to decide. You get to decide.

You know what? For sure they're not going to accomplish that dream if they don't try, if they don't devote themselves to it. Kind of like you say about surfing, when you're like, guess what the odds are of me going? I told my little guy, I didn't want to go in the water in Hawaii. So I told him that story about, I'm like, yeah, I get it. Because Joe says, what are the odds of me being eaten by a shark if I don't go in the water? Zero percent. I'm not going to eat by a shark if I don't go in the water. But same thing, if you don't put in that work or if you get discouraged along the way or you're worried too much about everybody that says that you can't do it or how hard it is, guess what? You're probably not going to make it. You're probably not going

to make it. You might not make it if you go after it too, but you for sure won't make it if you don't give it a shot and don't devote everything to that dream. You might not make it, but you also might not make it if you stop when you don't make it the first time. Oh, yeah. You might not make it, but you also might not make it if you stop when you don't make it the first time. You might make it if you keep going. You got to keep going. You might not make it the first time. You might have to reassess, reevaluate, and re-engage. Exactly. So John Grisham wrote A Time to Kill first. He could not give that book away. Then he writes The Firm. That takes off. So if he'd stopped at A Time to Kill, we would not have The Firm, The Client. We wouldn't have one John Grisham novel every year since, you know, 1991 or whatever it was. So I always

thought about that. So I always thought, okay, if the first one doesn't hit, I'm definitely writing a second. Maybe the second one doesn't hit, I'll do that reevaluation of life choices and take a breath here. But I thought about that John Grisham story. So I started writing and I went to Mozambique to do the research for the second novel before I'd even submitted the first one to Simon & Schuster. That's wild. That's awesome. I love that. And again, this is really important for people to hear that don't exactly know what to do with their life.

Maybe they have a goal, but people have tried to dissuade them from trying to achieve that goal. Just fucking go for it. You've got to go for it. You've got to figure that mission and that passion. You've got to have for it. You've got to figure that mission and that passion. You have to have those two coincide together. That's the key, I think, is identifying that mission and then finding that passion and putting those two together. Yeah. So for whatever reason, that's what I've done here is I've moved out of the military.

Taking care of my family is my mission. We have a middle child with some severe special needs. So taking care of him for a lifetime of full-time care, that is my mission. And then my passion is writing. And so I get to do both of those on this path. And I feel so fortunate that the book's resonating with people and that people took a risk on me as a new author, told a friend, and that's what allowed all this to happen. And what was really cool is that a lot of it was all grassroots. It was veterans. It was veteran-owned companies. It was tactical shooters. It was hunters. It was readers that all like took a

risk and read this book and then said, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to tell a friend about this. And that's why I get to do what I do. And then after I made the New York times list, you had me on Chris Pratt says something about her to go on Tucker and then just keeps building from there. So I feel extremely fortunate to everybody, especially in the beginning, before you've been vetted by multiple people and they take a risk on you with their time more important than how much the book costs. But that time, that's really what they take a risk on you with their time more important than how much the book costs but that time that's really what they took a risk on me with

and so I just want to do the best job I can for them always well I feel very fortunate that you're out there and I feel very fortunate

that you've been on the show and get to talk to people and and I'm very fortunate that you mentioned the podcast in your book ah you got that

yeah you like that it was cool. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks for noticing. So, it's out now. Devil's Hand. It's fucking awesome. Like all these books. There's four of them now. All the James Reese series and the

movie series. I hate calling it a TV series because it's more than that. It is. And Antoine and Chris talk about it as a movie. They talk about it as a film. It's like a long-ass movie. So that's how they talk about it. When does it start? So they're filming right now.

I think it goes into post-production in the fall and I think sometime in 2022. Beautiful. I hope it comes out the same day that the next book drops. That would be awesome. The second week in – to Amazon, if you're listening, yeah, the second week in – the second Tuesday in April would be ideal. You've already started the next book. Yep. Oh, shit.

Oh, I'm excited. Yeah, my brain's all on that one right now. Let's talk about that off air. Awesome, man. I want to hear. All right, thank you, brother. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me.

Bye, everybody.