The Tucker Carlson Show - Shawn Ryan: Biden’s Cancer, Kash & Bongino on Epstein, & CIA Attempts to Infiltrate Podcasts

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Shawn Ryan on the Biden cancer lie, his years working for the CIA, and why suddenly everything seems fake. 0:00 Joe Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis 33:27 Everything Is a Lie 1:32:29 Shawn’s Career in the CIA 2:31:49 The Spiritual Revival Happening in the US Paid partnerships with: Beam: Get 30% off for a limited time using the code TUCKER at https://ShopBeam.com/Tucker Identity Guard: Get a 30-day free trial and over 60% off when you sign up at https://IdentityGuard.com/Tucker Hallow prayer app: Get 3 months free at https://Hallow.com/Tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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us about it and everyone's mad at Joe Biden. But then the other way to look at it is like, who kept that secret from the rest of us and who was actually running the government for those four years I think that's a big question, right? But, I mean, do you know Lindy Lee? No. Have you heard of Lindy Lee? No. She was on the staff, and she came on the show to talk about who was running the country.

She said it was all the staffers. It was all the millennial staffers that were pretty much running the country and nobody was talking to each other everybody had their own agendas and yeah i mean pretty much like all the stuff that we already knew but she just came on to confirm it and then switch sides but i mean that's like the opposite of democracy right i mean yeah i guess i vastly between not being shocked at all i mean of course i mean he was visibly demented so why should we be surprised that he also hey by the way he has terminal bone cancer. But on the other hand, it's like that is so not the system that we signed up for and that we participate in. Yeah, I mean, we didn't sign up for it, but we did.

I mean, look, I remember at the beginning of the election cycle when Fox News was going on and on about Joe Biden's cognitive ability. And I was like, I mean, this is probably just over embellished, you know. And then I saw the first. Wait, were you watching Fox News again? This was a long time ago. But yeah, I was, I thought, because I mean, I think all media, you know, obviously over embellishes and just flat out lies. And I was, I just thought, I was like, there's no way that this guy's that bad. And then the first presidential debate, I quit watching it because I was like, holy shit, this guy legitimately cannot put a sentence together.

I was like, they're actually not over embellishing this. And it was on display for millions, the entire country, but still won the vote, supposedly. I feel like an idiot for being shocked because of course it's not a democracy. Of course the system is rigged. It's fake because no matter who gets elected, no matter who gets elected, you get the same foreign policy, you get the same economic policy, and the Epstein videos remain secret. So, like, that just shows you that our system has no effect on the actual system. Wait, what are you talking about? I thought we could all sleep well at night now knowing that Epstein legitimately killed himself, right? What was that?

Did that just come out? It's just two guys that I really like. I mean, I love Bongino, but he's a friend of mine. But you weren't convinced by that? No. Why? I mean, just, I've dug into that and it's just so spooky what's going on with that and how nobody nobody i mean how do you charge a guy with sex trafficking when there are no

there's no end users that have been charged who to do traffic to well that's a great question. I don't know. You got me on that one. I mean, right? How do you charge him with that if there's no... I mean, if that's where the trail starts, where does it end? So, I think there's just a lot more going on than the majority of people know about. What do you think that was? What do I think it was? What do I think it was?

I think it was a blackmail operation. What do you think it was? I think it was a blackmail operation run by the CIA and the Israeli intel services and probably others. You know, French intelligence always has a hand in everything I've noticed. So probably them too, you know, but the too. But the usual darkest forces in the world colluding to make rich and powerful people obey their agenda.

I mean, look though, I don't understand why nobody has come out on it. Nobody has come out on it, right? I mean, because if you paint the scenario, I mean, you get on a jet maybe maybe you're totally innocent you don't know what's going on two hot women come out of the whatever stewardess place come out and one thing leads to another yes i mean and then and then what happens they go oh we got you you're on camera and by the way these girls are 15 or 16 or whatever the hell they were, right?

But I mean, it's, yes, I mean, yes. If you're a married guy, it's pretty fucked up that you're doing that. But I mean, it's nothing new under the sun. So why wouldn't you just scream blackmail at the top of your lungs like, I didn't know this is what happened, and just come clean on it? Why do you think? Because they're repeat customers. Yeah. Because they're so deeply implicated that they can't actually get out of it.

Yeah, maybe not. I don't know. I mean, there's also, at least in me, the growing sense that it's not just blackmail that makes people obey. It's not just bribery. It's also the threat of violence. Do you know anybody that's been threatened with violence? I think every U.S. president has been threatened with violence implicitly because of the murder of John F. Kennedy. I've known a bunch of presidents, and I think every one of them understands that,

you know, it's pretty obvious what happened there. Or the outlines, you know, maybe not the details. And no one has, to this day released all the files and like why is that because the message is really clear you know if you get too far outside the boundaries like you could wind up like jfk who places the boundaries probably the same forces that murdered the sitting president in 1963. You know what I mean? Like, if you listen to the tape of Richard Nixon talking to the CIA director in the Oval Office,

no one else around, of course, is being taped. And Nixon knows that because it's his taping system, but it's still his. Like, he has no expectation anyone's going to hear this. When he brings up Kennedy's murder, he's the president. In fact, not only is he the president, he's won by the biggest landslide in American history. He has a real mandate, and he is afraid. He's afraid even to talk in private to the CIA director about what that was. And he indicates, like, I know what happened to Jack Kennedy.

And the CIA director doesn't even respond. And the president doesn't have the balls to say, hey, son, I'm talking to you. You work for me. Like, I want the files on this. Like, I knew Jack Kennedy. He was murdered. He was shot in the head next to his wife in public. Like, the man died. I want to know what happened here. He does not have the balls to say that to his own CIA director. Man. That's the level of fear that a murder like that that's officially unsolved, but, you know,

who's outlawing everyone really, a lot of people understand, like, that's the fear that that inculcates. Do you think it runs that deep with everybody? I think if you're president, you're very aware

of the physical risk of the job. Wouldn't you be? I mean, yeah, but I think that goes without saying, but I mean, some of these guys on the,. Wouldn't you be? I mean, yeah, but I think that goes without saying, but I mean, some of these guys on the, you know, lower levels, I mean, I don't know. It's just so sophisticated. I mean, when you dive into it, it seems so sophisticated and having been a, you know, a small part in some of the intel agencies,

it's just not that. I think people give them a lot more credit than they deserve. Oh, I believe that. You know? So I think there's a thing also where it's just addiction to power. Yes. And they're so fucking scared that they're going to lose their power. And, I mean, you see in every administration, to include this one, people that are, you know, it's everybody wants to help the country, right?

But everybody wants to help the country right but everybody wants to help the country that they have their their thing that they could do to help the country and then they get placed in something they have no fucking business being in at all they know there are better people to run that sector of the government but hey i'll i'll take it because i'm the best no the fuck you're not you're not the best you know and that's i saw that in this one and it really fucking pissed me off in which one in the epstein in in in in this administration there are people in there that i despise that i know don't know what the fuck they're doing and like who like sebastian gorka it's hard to believe he works there what no so why don't

why haven't you caught seb gorka fever why don't you love sebastian gorka well i'll tell you why i mean he blast we were talking about the the sam shoemade interview with the tesla bomber yes last night right and everybody called me oh he's showing us a fucking cia shill and he's an operative still and all this other shit one i was just a contractor over there but anyways that's not the point he came on he posted this thing on twitter saying with this guy ryan mcbeth who did this whole debunking my episode, right? And for whatever reason, he got pissed at me for doing that interview, Gorka, and posts the Ryan McBeth little, I don't know, 10-minute clip that's debunking my interview. And Sebastian Gorka posts this thing on Twitter.

I'll send you the thing. Maybe you can overlay it on the screen. And he said something like, oh, he debunks another one. Well, then later on, Ryan McBeth does an apology video because the FBI actually came out and said, oh, shit, the email on the podcast, they didn't want to name the podcast, of course, but the email on the podcast we have didn't want to name the podcast, of course, but they email on the podcast

we have confirmed as being legit. As soon as they did that, Macbeth actually came out and did an apology video and I was like, hey, cool. Thank you. Thank you for the apology.

So I blasted Gorka on X and said, because what is he in charge of now? I can't remember. He's at the National Security Council. I think he's in charge of scrolling Twitter. I think that was his official. Supposedly he's counterterrorist, the counterterrorism guy, right? And I'm like, oh, this is great. We got a guy that's running counterterrorism for the entire fucking country when when when the borders have been wide open for four years we know there's at least a thousand terrorists within the country setting up cells and this guy gets his information from an internet troll ryan mcbeth who's already come out and and apologized to me and i'm like oh this is perfect this is where intel is going to come from from counterterrorism a guy that gets his information

from if it makes you feel better i mean gorka is not taken seriously by anyone who knows him i think including his wife and um he's a very he's a nice person for whatever it's worth. And I think his job literally is just to sit on the Internet and like send, you know, fiery replies to people on X. I mean, I don't think he actually has a job. Oh, well, then I guess he's the perfect guy for the job. It really is. I assume there's someone else working on counterterrorism. The people in charge want you to be weak. It's obvious.

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And then he goes into, this was right about the time that the new jersey drone situation was going on that nobody you know could tell us what that was and he he had mentioned that we have some type of anti-gravitic propulsion systems uh that had been that had not been declassified and that china has something similar and this would cause World War III. And then there's another paragraph that talks about there was a major offensive in Afghanistan several years ago They basically wiped out a heroin plant and used a lot of air power to do it. It sounds like there was a JTAC and a small team of special ops, and they had bombed all of these different little facilities going on and probably killed a lot of innocent people. And that's actually because when we looked into it, I was like, I don't know, this anti-gravitic shit,

this kind of weird, you know, I mean, there's a lot of chatter about it on the internet like we had talked about last night. But, you know, I don't know. I kind of think now that that's all just a big distraction. But when we looked into the, whatever you want to call them, but for lack of a better term, war crimes. I don't know about the operation, right? I mean, I'm not saying we should have or should not have

bombed that facility. I mean, obviously it's bad and it's a major moneymaker for terrorist organizations. But when we dug into it, there was a UN report that talked about that specific night and that the UN had, I believe, did they open an investigation? I think they opened an investigation on it because it was against, I don't know if it was Geneva Convention or what it was, but you could not bomb drug factories with civilians in it. And so it had talked about how many targets and people in innocence were killed. And I was like, oh, so this actually lines up with what this guy's saying on the email, which maybe, maybe not gives the previous thing that we were talking about a little more validity. So anyway, so yeah, I i got what was the question what was that so you it sounds like you take the manifesto seriously you think it's real the guy actually wrote it well then you know then the other weird thing that gave it a lot of validity is because we so when that interview came up popped up on my radar walked in

uh to the studio getting ready to interview somebody jeremy my producer comes to me and says hey we got a guy on this tesla bomber thing and i'm like i don't know man we get thousands and thousands and thousands of emails of of people that want to come clean on something or expose something. And, you know, probably 99% of it is bullshit. And, you know, it's just somebody looking for- There is a mental health crisis. Yeah, definitely. But so I was really apprehensive to do it. And Jeremy was new at the time and I didn't 100% trust him yet. And I was like, ah. He's like, I think this guy right over here.

But he was hell bent on it. And so we did a call with Sam and he didn't want to come on. And when he didn't want to come on, I was like, I like that. Okay. It's playing hard to get. All right. So he wanted to go visit his family member of his and he's like, look, I just want to go hang out with this family member. I don't want to be there.

And I said, hey, okay, look, we'll book you a flight here and book your flight to where you're going. And this should only take a couple hours. And he was like, all right, well, let me think about it. And then got back when I right, well, let me think about it. And then got back when I was doing the interview and wanted to come on. So Jeremy tells me on a break, hey, we've got him. He's going to be here first thing in the morning. Well, I get done with the interview. And I look at my phone and all these people are texting me about the interview I'm about to do. And they're like, hey, there's this DEA agent that was on the op,

and his name was actually listed in the email. And they were like, he doesn't want his name to come out because he's still active. And I'm like, I'm not going to burn somebody that's still active in undercover operations. I mean, that could get him killed and his family killed. So I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to dabble in stuff that we're working on.

But at the same time, it made me extremely paranoid. I'm like, how the hell does everybody know that I'm getting ready to do this? So then I'm thinking all the people that are texting me are controlled assets or something. And then we had another friend of mine send me a text. And he says, hey, the Army's public affair officer wants to talk to you about tomorrow's interview. And I called him up and reamed his ass and I'm like,

why the fuck are you texting me this shit? If the Army PAO wants to get a hold of me, I've got a website, I've got social, I've got all these things that he can get a hold of me at. And why is he using you to get to me? And why have you inserted your

yourself into into my business and because you know i mean i'm sure you get it i mean that this when you're uncovering some of this stuff it it can cause some extreme paranoia um on who your friends are and what their motivations are and who's flipped. And, and, um, so I wouldn't talk to him. I said, I'm not talking to him, but I'll pass the number to my attorney and Jeremy and they can talk to him. And then when they talked to him, uh, they, they wanted to kind of place it on PTSD, which wound up being the ultimate narrative from the mainstream media, right?

PTSD. It being the motive for killing himself. Yeah, I mean, I think that they used PTSD to basically insinuate that he is a crazy person. But, I mean, pretty much everybody I know and have worked with, all my former colleagues, I mean, we all have that. And I'm not going to say we're not crazy,

but not crazy like that. I mean, it's just a condition, and you can get over it. And he wasn't crazy. I mean, he obviously wanted to send some type of a message. I mean, you got a, a Green Beret with a full career, of a bulletproof truck to take out Trump Tower, kill a bunch of people. I mean, it was obviously, he just wanted to get some attention and get whatever the message that he was trying to get out. And so that's what I think. We could have just tweeted about it. You know, he didn't have to kill himself.

So that's a pretty extreme, pretty extreme thing. Most extreme thing possible. What do you think his motive really was? Like I said, I think he wanted to bring attention to the topics that he had. The anti-gravity technology. The anti-gravitic propulsion system. And we looked into that and all we could find is sci-fi shit. Do you think any of it's real?

I mean, you've interviewed people. In fact, the first show I ever saw of yours was with a building contractor who said he ran across anti-gravity technology in a military facility. Do I think anti-gravitic propulsion systems are real? I don't know. I mean... Do you think there are significant technologies, next-generation energy, anti-gravity that the U.S. government has?

Oh, 100%. I mean, we just... Yes, I do. I think that all this alien extraterrestrial shit, I mean, it's fun to dig down there, but I mean, I think it's a big distraction. I don't know if it's meant to be some type of a controlled op, but I think it is. I think all this stuff is spiritual. That's what I think. Of course it is. I think all this stuff is spiritual. All these things that people are saying and stuff, I think there's a spirituality component to it. Now— That these are angels and demons, or what? Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah. And where was I going with this? And anti-gravitic propulsion systems. I mean, yeah, I think we, I mean, I would hope that we have shit that is next generation stuff that's not, you know, the same shit we've been using since World War II. Yeah. So the only real technological advances in 80 years are like the iPhone. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Well, I mean, we have advances. Like we just interviewed this guy, Steve Quast. And do you know Steve Quast? No. Holy shit. Fascinating guy. But he talks about how, he talks about next generation energy

and the fight that the utilities companies don't want us to have new energy. But anyways, what this guy does is he, he has a company called space built i believe and so he is he's basically created a logistics company where instead of launching one satellite up he can which which he's he says that's extremely expensive and sometimes they break and they're fragile and they have to make the satellites bulletproof, which is a ton of weight because they have to be able to withstand going through the atmosphere. And so what he's done is he is building a logistics company where they

don't have to make the satellites bulletproof. You can make them 10 times bigger than the satellites that we have, and you launch them up in sections and pack them safely so that they can make the trip without having all that extra weight to be bulletproof. And then his company would actually assemble those through laser robotics in space. And so what he says is possible is, and I believe him, I mean, he's got the right background to be talking about this stuff. And so what he says we can do, and we already have the technology, is basically they would put these ginormous satellites up into orbit,

and they would be solar so you wouldn't but they would it would actually be a reliable renewable energy source because there's no clouds there's no atmosphere there's no air particles getting in the way to collect that radiation from the sun it would convert it from solar into some type of a radio wave, and you could beam it down onto the Earth to a, I can't remember what we called it, but it sounded like an antenna. So you basically put this antenna that receives energy. It's an energy collector. Energy. And then it would pump it back into the grid.

Yeah. And, you know, I was just, but. So like a solar farm in space yes yes and i mean he had talked about that and it's just like man like what wow this this could be the answer i mean we could make earth i mean i think elon said right we could make earth into a park was that him and but mean, you could take out all the eyesores, all the huge solar farms that you see all over the country, the wind, the oil and gas, it could all be gone and you could do it this way. And would you get green energy tax credits for it?

I don't know. I think that that's kind of the goal here. I don't think it's actually to power civilization or keep the earth clean. I think it's the tax credits drive all this stuff. It's just greed. It's the ugliest kind of greed. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, so anyways, you know, that's next generation power right there. And they said that China's building a nuclear power plant in space and they're mining helium-3 off the backside of the moon. And sounds like, I'm not terribly familiar with helium-3,

but it sounds like that is, that's also next generation power that can cool data centers, AI stuff, and it would really take us to the next level of energy. But then he goes on to talk about how we're falling behind from China with energy production. Well, sure. Everyone's a marketing major.

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Go to AmmoSquared.com to learn more. So this, Al, Al, come here. Sorry about that. So this story and the weird way that it happened, you know, you get the manifesto from the guy who kills himself in the cyber truck. All these other people know that you're about to do an interview on it. Were you worried you were going to get hurt in that moment? I don't know if it's hurt. I don't really care about me, but I worry about my family.

Of course. And so it's always an afterthought. The only one that I've done that I'm like, I don't know if I should be doing this before was the Romania one that I was telling you about the other day. What was the Romania interview? The George Eskew interview where they yanked him out of the election. But it's always an afterthought. After the interview, I'm like, oh, shit.

I don't know if we should throw this one out. Because the FBI would have never come out and given any validity to the email, to the manifesto. And I don't think I know the interview because it got five million views and I don't know how many listens in just, you know, a couple of days. And so, you know, when I see that kind of traction on something, I'm like, oh, shit, I really kicked over a big rock here. I wonder what the repercussions of this are going to be. If you're traveling to Romania to interview a candidate who's been knocked out of the race by NATO, you know, all of a sudden, you're no longer really a podcaster. You're like a player in global politics. I just want to be a podcaster.

But I mean, that kind of... I'm only feeding my own curiosity. For sure. But the second you start, you know, tampering with the way things are, then you become a problem, and therefore a fair game, no? Yeah, I mean, we had this discussion last night.

I didn't sleep a fucking wink. I was like, I was like, Jeremy, I think Tucker's trying to tell me maybe I need to simmer down or something. I don't think so at all. I just think you said last night, I'm just a podcaster. I was like, I'm familiar with that way of thinking, but if you just take three steps back and if you're exposing things that are important things, big things, like who gets to run the world and who's getting the money, I think you're still a podcaster, but you're also something else. Right? Yeah, I guess somewhat of a disruptor. But, you know, I just, when I do do it, I lean into, I mean, I lean into God.

And I really just consider myself kind of a conduit. Not kind of a conduit. I consider myself a conduit. And whatever comes to me is supposed to happen. Yes. And with the, like, for example, you know, I'm pretty new at this. I haven't completed the Bible or anything. But the more that I dig into just everything in the world, I think that, I just think that everything, everything is a lie.

Everything. I think it's all a lie and um and um and that it's partially my job to expose you know what i know and to bring some type of truth and uh can you give me an example what i mean clearly, clearly Joe Biden's health turned out to be a lie. Epstein killed himself. Clearly a lie. I grieve that they said something like that in public because I like those guys, particularly Dan, but that's a lie. I bet my house on it. But what else, when you say everything's a lie, what are you referring to? I think everything is a lie. Wow. I think...

Why do you think that? How could you not? I mean, you're way deeper in this stuff than I am. I think it's all a show. I think everybody is out for themselves. Yeah. And it sucks. It sucks to see that and to know it.

And I mean, you know, COVID just got a lot of people thinking, to include me. And then when you start diving into, it just leads to all these different rabbit holes, right? The Epstein stuff stuff the covid stuff the the just legitimately everything the ufo all of it should we be i've reached a similar conclusion by that i'm not making fun of you i of course i agree with you but should we be shocked by that or does it say that really explicitly in the New Testament?

And like, we're just dumb and naive if we thought anything other than that. Well, I mean, it says, right? I am the only truth. I am the truth. Yeah, and Satan runs the world, by the way. It says that. And so, I think everything is a deception. Everything.

Maybe even our whole reality is a deception. Everything. Maybe even our whole reality is a deception. Like Neuralink, for example. Yeah. You know, I was interviewing. What's, can you, for people who don't know, what's Neuralink? Neuralink, it's that chip that, you know, they're going to put in everybody's brain. That sounds wholesome. Pretty safe for that.

You getting one? Am I getting one? I don't even like electricity. If you don't't then you'll fall behind and i can't wait you know so um but i had uh you know i've been fascinated with that subject i would love to interview somebody on it but that's that that is on the inside over there but you know and and i think yeah you know right like the the over there. But, you know, and I think, yeah, you know, right? Like the premise right now is to, you know, get paralyzed people moving again and help the blind see. And that's all great. But, you know, I mean, when I found out that it was going to help the blind see, I was like, wait a second. So if you put this fucking chip in your head and they can help the blind see, then wouldn't they also be able to project an entire false reality in your mind?

And I had interviewed a couple of doctors about it. I interviewed Andrew Huberman about it. We just got brought up and then talked to Ben Carson about it, pretty much came to the same conclusion. And not only would they be able to manipulate vision, there would also be emotion, touch, smell, taste, everything into your head. So there you go right there. I mean, we're on the cusp of a total false reality. Your entire life could be a false reality. People are upset about Real ID at the airport,

facial recognition, giving others control over your brain neurologically. That seems like a step farther. You know what I mean? Like just biometrics. Do you know why they're pushing it no i do why this is my understanding based on conversations with people who are involved in it um because of ai and the blind seed lame walk it all great. But the real concern is that AI is already at this point beyond human control. It's already at the point where it's lying to the people who created it, which suggests consciousness.

And Neuralink and efforts like Neuralink are, the people who are running it believe, the only way for people to keep up with AI? Otherwise, we will be its slaves. I don't think that, now that I understand it a little bit better, I don't think AI is going to develop its own consciousness and make decisions for us. I think that the major fear would be if, for example, China hacked our databases and started feeding our AIs false information that would be detrimental in a conflict or or um propaganda or whatever you know but but i mean we've we are the ones humans are the ones that build and feed the information into the data centers and and and it just processes all that information so i raised this question with one of the people who um one of the big, biggest, you know, forces behind AI. And I said, well, just turn it off. You know, human beings run power plants. And this person said, even now, we can't be sure that the machine is telling us the truth about where its power is coming from. Interesting. So, look, I was a Russian history major. I know nothing. I'm not pretending to have some special insight,

but I did hear that directly from someone who's deeply involved. And even right now, I mean, well, you know a lot of people that are deeply involved. No, not really, but I mean, you know, I travel. You know, with stuff like ai i mean it's still it still goes to a human at the end you know to make that decision and so until you get a chip in your brain yeah good point but um you know so for example um you know for for for military use you know, the AI system would tell you what it is. So let's say it's a plane, you know, that pops up on a radar or something. The AI system will immediately identify it, tell you the capabilities, tell you your courses of action, tell you your different

courses of action, tell you the outcomes of those different courses of action. And so you have all these options, you know, that would be some type of an analyst or strategist that would, you know, take hours, days, weeks, maybe months, you know, to come up with the information to present to whoever the decision maker is to make that actual decision. But with the power of AI, you know, and these new chips that are processing so fast, I mean, you get that information in seconds, minutes, hours versus hours, days, weeks, months. And so you can act on that, you know, a lot faster because all the information's been processed, every possible outcome, the percentage of coming out on top. I mean, it's like a complete war game within seconds. It sounds amazing,

but the advantage is also the vulnerability. Now, I mean, if it's subverted because someone hacks your system and gives you the wrong coordinates or misidentifies, you know, allies as enemies, or you could see that going, you could see that being like the way you lose. Definitely. Definitely.

So maybe the guy with the bolt action 308 with iron sights wins. Yeah. Maybe the lowest technology force wins. I'm with you. But, you know, I mean, you know, I mean, how do you know that a human source is not a double agent? I mean, there's always going to be checks and balances, right? That's why we need a better energy grid. We need to be able to power our fucking AI data center so that we can build more AIs.

Because when AI wars happen, it'll be who has more AIs. And it'll be AIs going against AIs. So we need more AIs to combat somebody with, we need more AIs than our enemies, than our adversaries. So we're only 40 minutes in and you've already said, you have said so far, you don't believe in anything. Technology is moving at such a pace that it's hard for people even to like think about. It's moving so quickly, going places we can't yet

imagine. And just to restate once more, nothing is real anyway. Can you be very specific day to day about how you stay sane while thinking about stuff like that? I live in the woods, and I don't talk to anybody but my team and my family, and I don't go out much, you know, and just, I don't. Is that a happy life? Yeah. I would rather spend time with my kids and my wife than anybody on the planet. So, you know, in fact, even when we go out to dinners with people and I say, oh yeah, let's do a dinner.

The day the dinner comes up, I'm like, why the fuck are we going to dinner? I should be spending time with the kids, right? You speak for every American husband. There's not one husband who's like, what? Them? How do we do? Well, you said we could.

But I mean, even the energy thing that we just discussed. I mean, it's a lie. Like here we have this stupid debate going on about fucking renewables and fossil fuels. And it's like, I just told you the answer. It's right here. It's been here for years. Nobody's acting on it. Right?

This is all a fucking lie. No we it's right here it's right here you know and but nobody wants to talk about it so keep the same debate going just to go back because you're not the only person anyone who's made it this far in the conversation probably in a similar place to where you are right now. Like, oh my gosh, this is just bewildering. Like, what's real? This all does, it does seem like the acid trip that never ended. A lot of the news you read doesn't really have a lot of inherent meaning, but this does. Starting May 19th, the Halo app is leading a consecration to Jesus through St. Joseph.

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So you get three months right now at hallow.com slash Tucker for free. You'll be glad you did. Hallow.com slash Tucker. What is your daily regimen, if you don't mind, if it's not too personal? Like, what do you, you wake up and then you do what? Like, what are the steps that you take every day to remain grounded and sane and happy i pray a lot um when i wake up i pray all the time you know and i don't mean down on my knees i just i'm always i'm always looking for signs i'm always

trying to make sure that you know i'm doing the right thing and that i'm not doing interviews just for numbers and shit like that i mean um i look for good people you know with a good heart especially when i do something like a life story you know i'm i'm looking for that guy that's grinding that is not getting any traction with his business who served the country and put him up but i mean i, I don't know. I mean, and then I also keep in the daily routine. I mean, I wake up, I got a one-year-old and a three-year-old and I wake up and I have about three cups of tea and I play around with my kids and spend a lot of time on the phone, unfortunately, because everything, you know,

I'm getting all the incoming in, um, that's coming in that morning. Then I go into the office and I meet with everybody and do an interview or I don't do an interview. And then I just go back home to my kids. But, um, you know, as far as staying grounded, I mean, I just keep in mind like, Hey, this, this all could go away in two seconds. I mean, who knows? Somebody could do a headpiece on me like they are right now. I told you about it. And it could all go away. When maybe a previous mistake that I made in life comes to light and they cancel me.

And if they do, fuck it. I don't care. I'll hang out with my kids and my wife and live the rest of my life. Maybe I'll move up here here get a spot in the woods and never see anybody again but i just don't take myself too seriously and i don't buy my own bullshit and that's it man when you say you don't put people on just for numbers everyone who you know has a public facing job understands what you saying, but for people who don't, will you describe that a little more fully?

What do you mean? You pass on stories, you said, or pass on interviews, if the only upside is just that it gets huge numbers. Yeah, yeah. I'm just not interested in it. You know what I mean? If I see, I'll give you an example.

I mean, I had, if I see somebody go on the circuit, that's like, I'm just not interested because then I'm just doing the same stuff that everybody else is doing. And I've canceled interviews. I've had people that I've been one to have on for a long time and then I'll pull up YouTube and there they are on the Tucker Carlson show and I'm like

hey cancel that interview I don't want to I take your sloppy seconds with gratitude I'm like really Sean Ryan interviewed him fuck him no I think it's cool but I just I don't want to I don't want to I mean you're a phenomenal interviewer and it's and so it's

it's well what am I going to get out of this guy that Tucker didn't or Megan didn't or Logan didn't? You know what I mean? You don't want to be part of someone's publicity campaign either. Exactly. And so I really pride myself on being different. And I've set my whole business up to be different. And as different as I can be. And so I just feed my own curiosity and I look for people that I believe to be a positive influence on the world and a good role model for kids. I

mean, I think the role model thing has gotten, it's just, it's horrible. I mean, who the hell do kids have to look up to now? And so that's what I look for, just good human beings with good values that are pumping some type of good in the world, whether that's fighting evil or spreading the word or whatever, and going against the grain. And I was brought up to always root for the underdog. Amen. And I do that. It's the most American impulse you can have. We were the underdog. This country was the underdog. Yes I do that. It's the most American impulse you can have. We were the underdog.

This country was the underdog. Yes, it was. You don't ever want to be the overdog? No, no. You don't want to be part of the machine. So how have you set your business up to be different? How have I? Well, I mean, so when I got into podcasting, I mean, I didn't even know if I wanted to do it.

I just. That was only five and a half years ago. Yeah. It was five and a half years ago in my attic. And, uh, and, uh, I got tired of teaching tactics and shooting and stuff like that. And so I tried a bunch of different things and, and, uh, I looked at podcast as a whole and, and I saw,, and I saw back then everybody had the purple curtain behind them and all their little stuff in the middle of the table that means nothing to them other than Joe. He's got his stuff on the middle of the table. Now everybody's got their shit on the middle of the table,

and so I set it up to be different. I wanted a relaxed environment. I didn't want any equipment in the shots. I wanted to, I mean, you've been there. You melt into that room and it's very disarming. And there's a lot of history there from people that share similar values and on display for everybody to see you you like it

that's what i noticed about your studio you made it a space that you're comfortable in and it reflects what you think and it reflects the life that you've lived and the people that you love it's not it's the opposite of generic thank you well no it's i really it's very noticeable but uh but i you know and nobody really back then had good camera aesthetics and so i'd saw uh david letterman's my next guest on netflix and i really liked the way it looked and um with the camera movements and the the shots that they had and i said i want to make that but in my own way and on a $2,000 budget. And so I taught myself how to film, taught myself how to edit, taught my wife how to film, taught myself how to run sound. And so I wanted an environment that looked really good on camera, that disarmed people.

I noticed, especially where I come from in in the seal team is a very egocentric community and nobody can just make the interview about the guests they have to make it about themselves and insert their own experiences and it's oh i killed bin laden oh cool i killed this person and it's like it's not about you man's about them. And so, so I would totally keep my own experiences out of the interview and I would compliment people instead of challenging them all the time. I would compliment them like, wow, that's well, like you just made it into Delta. That's like the premier special ops group in the entire world. I mean, how did that feel? That's amazing. You know, and when you compliment somebody in a world that is extremely competitive,

you know, it's like, oh, shit, like this guy's different. Thank you for letting me talk and actually complimenting me on my service. And then on top of that, we started from episode one. Where did that insight come from? Therapy. I did a lot of therapy when I quit contracting for CIA. I always think of therapy as making people more self-involved, but that sounds like whoever you had in therapy sounds like it was encouraging you to become less about yourself. They don't talk.

They don't talk. They don't talk. I mean, with my therapist, it was, I did all the talking and I would wind up working my own problems out in my head and she would just guide me, you know? And so I took that model and brought it to my show and it just worked. But it sounds like you concluded that humility, focusing on other people, that was the key. Mm-hmm. I would say you're exactly right. I don't know that that's an obvious conclusion. Most people don't seem to reach that conclusion.

Really? Judging from, I was in the airport, I don't go to the airport very much, but I was there yesterday and listening to two people have a, air quotes, conversation where each one was just waiting for the other one to stop talking before talking at the person. It was like not one person ever said, really? Really? How interesting. And I feel like that's the experience that people have, not just watching podcasts, but like on, you know, day to day.

Yeah. People don't listen. Yeah. I mean, you know, I guess there is one other thing that I just, I'm not, I'm not afraid to say that I don't know what we're talking about. And so you get a lot of people, you know, you get a lot of people, they, they, they fucking trap themselves. Yes. you get a lot of people they they they fucking trap themselves you know and it's like i told you about what i know about ai and that's the extent of it if we're gonna go deeper i don't know what the fuck i'm talking about so i'm not gonna pretend like i know i'm talking about to make

it look like i'm the resident expert because the resident experts are gonna call you completely full of shit you don't know what you're talking about. And so I don't let my- You always get caught. Like pretending you don't have prostate cancer. Like in the end, people find out. But I mean, it's okay to not know everything. Of course. And with so many people fall into the trap that are like, oh yeah, I have shit. They just asked me a question I'm not an expert on.

I have to come up with something. And I have like no shame and just going yeah i don't i don't even know what the fuck that word means that you just said could you please explain that and and i think there's a lot of people like me that that they don't understand maybe the vocabulary there aren't a lot of people who will admit it actually there aren't that many people everybody's everybody's a genius. Everybody's a tough guy. But playing a role that they know is fake.

Yeah. It's sad. It's sad to watch it. Well, it's a kind of slavery, too. I mean, you're not free when you're pretending to be something you're not. Yeah. So you showed me something last night, speaking of how you run your business differently than I thought was like the coolest thing I've ever seen. You're building a new studio.

You totally lost control and just totally lost control, I will say, as someone who has a studio. It's like the craziest thing. It's the coolest thing. Big piece property, bass pond shooting range, like beautifully designed. It's just super cool but at the construction phase on the well you you you explain how you how you built it that's different oh so i mean like i was saying last night i'm really i'm really big on company culture and by i had mentioned earlier you know my my people that work for me and with me are are like a second family to me and I take on their burdens and I help them through life and

I want to give them the best experience that I can too I mean they work their asses off yes and and so I want them to be proud of where they work. And I want them to enjoy being at work. And so there's a wellness center. There's everybody. I mean, you got to see it, man. When it's done, it's all like super top of the line. Very, very nice. And they'll be able to hunt out there.

They'll be able to fish out there. They'll be able to shoot out there. They'll be able to work out out there. They'll be able to fish out there. They'll be able to shoot out there. They'll be able to work out out there. They'll be able to, I want them to bring their families in for lunch. Like I want that environment so that, you know, one, that they're proud of where they work. They want to work there. And they're the best paid people in the business. I don't have a big team, but I have a fucking amazing team.

You want them to bring their families for lunch? Hell yeah, man. That's the coolest. Absolutely. And if they want to, you know, and, you know, on top of just giving, you know, and creating like that environment, you know, it, I mean,

this is a cutthroat business, unfortunately. And I see people jumping from camp to camp. I've never lost somebody. You know, I've never lost somebody that said, hey, fuck it, I'm going to Tucker's. Hey, I'm going to the Daily Wire. Hey, I'm going here. I'm going there. They don't want to be anywhere but here.

You haven't lost anyone to the Daily Wire? I haven't lost anybody to anything. I'm such a... We get a lot of people from the Daily Wire wanting to work here, though. You put Bibles under the foundation? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, on top of that, my whole team is really into Scripture, and we're all very like-minded. And, you know, I'd mentioned before, I feel like I'm just a conduit. And so, and I do, I live a lot of my life in paranoia at times.

And so he is the only protection. So yeah, we put a Bible in every corner of the foundation. We wrote scripture on every single exterior stud in that building for protection. I saw Jeremy, your producer, had a picture he showed me last night. It's a shot down the wall, and the studs are still visible. And each one has a i read three from ephesians but like long quotes from the new testament yeah everybody on the team had a had a part in that who thought of that me why i went to uh a party once and uh the people at the party who hosted the party

showed me their house and told me that they had done that and I was like that they had written scripture on every stud and I was like oh man that is awesome I'm doing that everything that we build from now on will have that that is

the coolest so you say you feel like a conduit. How do you receive instructions? Gut. I think God speaks to you through gut. And I think the signs are always there, but a lot of us are too busy and wrapped up in our own shit to see them. And so, for example, like the George Eskew interview was, I was nervous about that one, you know, because I dug into it, and I was like, like, I don't, you know, if this guy is a Russian asset,

I don't know if this is a good idea. I don't want to be on the wrong team here. I don't want to fall victim to propagandizing my show, not even realizing it. And the whole journey there, I was worried about it. And without going into it, I mean, my journey to Christ was through signs that slapped me right in the face. And 444 is a big number to me. 444? 444 is a huge number to me.

Why? Well, so I had this experience in Sedona where I came to Christ. And three things happened to me, all within very profound things in about 15 minutes the last day I was there. And when I got home, I had called somewhat of a spiritual mentor to me. His name's Eddie Penny. And he had started talking about, I called him at midnight when I got back and I was like, hey, this happened to me. I don't know what this means, but I think I need to lean into Jesus a little bit here, and that's not something I've done in probably the past 20 years. so he started going on about this stuff with, with demonic attacks. Now that I've shown a side and I'm, and he goes, he goes, man, a lot of people have been praying for this to happen. And I'm like, well, what do you mean? Like what, why, who is, what, what,

what the hell is happening? And, um, then he started talking about guardian angels and all this other stuff. And I had a meeting scheduled at noon with my IT guy, who is a devout Catholic. And I call him up and I think we're going to be talking about, I don't know, website stuff and IT crap. And he has the exact same conversation with me, not even knowing that I'd had this experience yet. Doesn't know Eddie. I mean, he is a IT guy and Eddie is a former development group guy. There's no connection. Has the exact same conversation, starts talking about- For those, can you just define a former what group guy uh team six yeah and um and um and ever since i had eddie on and he shared his testimony was my i released an episode every christmas that's when i kicked

the show off was christmas and i was like man this testimony is like so awesome i think this should be the christmas episode so every single person that came on the show for probably the next year and a half at least had brought up God or the Bible or Christ. And it was like a turning point in my podcast that just – and I didn't like push Christianity on people. I don't – it would just organically come up in the conversation. And, um, and so I always thought like, maybe God's like working through my show or something. I don't know. But anyway, so after this, after all this stuff happened in Sedona, which was mind blowing to me, I have this conversation with Adam and, uh, yes. And he. And he's talking about Guardian Angels. And I go home for a late lunch that day with my wife and kids.

And I'm driving back to the studio. And I look at the clock, and it's 444. I look at the gas thing, and it says 444 miles left to empty and this is and and uh it's four hours and 44 minutes after my conversation with my t guy so i'm i'm driving and i call up uh my social media manager i'm like hey look up 444 i want to know what it means something just happened and get this shit i love how open you are to this. He looks it up. And do you know what it is? No.

It means your guardian angels want to know that they're watching over you. Right after we just had a discussion, four hours and 44 minutes prior, about guardian angels. That's wild. And so then I was like, okay like that's that's a sign and uh because i told you too i live in them at that time i had released the brian montgomery interview about sex trafficking which is a whole nother debacle that the fbi started getting involved in and um and i had interviewed tyler andrew vargas, which was the young Marine who survived the Abagate bombing.

He lost his leg and his arm. And nobody would talk to him because it made the Biden administration look so bad. We were fighting YouTube about it. And he had all this real footage from his camera about the guy that blew up the gate that they should have killed. Anyways, told me that Good Morning America had interviewed him for seven hours

and only released five seconds of the interview. Here's another God thing, man. So having breakfast, my team really wanted to get Tyler on and I was like, every media outlet in the world is probably trying to talk to this guy right now because he's the only living eyewitness and i'm like we're never gonna get him i'll probably wind up on tucker or rogan or you know

and and um i was like fine i'll shoot him a message on instagram so I shoot him a message immediately. He's like, yep, I'm in, let's do it. I had breakfast with him before the interview and at breakfast, he's sitting there with his fiance and he goes, man, he started tearing up and he goes, man, I have interviewed with so many mainstream media outlets and they're all full of shit and nobody will tell the truth and nobody will release like what I tell them. Congress didn't pay attention when I testified in front of them. And he goes, I literally looked at my fiance and he's like, man, I just wish the Sean Ryan guy would just reach out. And he goes, I pulled my phone up and you had just messaged me it was the first thing i saw and he goes there was like it was like god answered me like right there in that moment and i was like holy like that's not a coincidence there are no coincidences i

don't believe in coincidences anymore but but so I get these like signs like all the time where if I feel like I should be if I'm questioning something he'll throw out a sign and like like like the George Eskew interview me and Jeremy are sitting at the airport and I'm telling him like I don't know about this it's the first time I had ever brought somebody to do an overwatch for me because I was nervous you know I was like oh I don't know about this. It's the first time I had ever brought somebody to do an Overwatch for me because I was nervous. You know, I was like, oh, I don't know if we should be doing this. We're fucking with NATO. We should probably bring a security guy.

NATO, they're just peacekeepers. Yeah. Right. That's why they're building the biggest ever. Come on. Relax, relax, Sean. They're on our side. NATO base in Europe.

The training army. But anyways, sometimes I just tweet out something that pops in my head, right? So I tweeted out, the truth is like a lion. You don't have to defend it. Set it free and it'll defend itself. And I tweeted that out. I like that. And I had this debacle going on in my

head. Like, should I be doing this? Like, am I doing this for the right reason? Is this guy, does he need to be heard? Or is he just some type of a Russian shill? Walk out of the lounge. This is all, I don't know, five minutes. And this woman comes around the corner and she has this huge lion head on her shirt, like this big sequence glittery lion head. And that's what was in my head and what I had just tweeted out. And to me, I mean, probably everybody will call me crazy, but to me, I'm like, that's the sign that I needed to see.

Like I just articulated this. And you don't see too many people running around the airport with a big lion head on their shirt. Like a massive lion head. My reaction is not that you're crazy. My reaction is I need to get off my phone sufficient to see signs that are all around me. They're everywhere. Because I agree with you completely. And I feel like the phone is an instrument of distraction and evil really, though I couldn't live without it. I need it for my job. It allows me to live where I want and talk to my wife and children

and all that. There are upsides, but in general, I feel like I miss everything. If a sign happened, it would really have to come by text message or I wouldn't see it. Yeah. Well, I hope you do that. Yeah. I've been thinking about it a lot. Are you self-consciously not on your phone sometimes? Yeah.

What's your phone regimen? 6 p.m. it goes on airplane mode. 6 p.m.? Yeah. You're not on your phone after 6 p.m. it goes on airplane mode. 6 p.m.? Yep. You're not on your phone after 6 p.m.? Other than, other than if somebody on my team texts me that's, and they would text for an emergency. I just, it's not airplane mode. It's like, I don't know, whatever.

Like this, whatever. I don't know what it is either, but it screens out. Nothing comes to me. So, except, except my assistant, Jeremy, I don't know what it is either, but it screens out. Nothing comes to me. So, except my assistant, Jeremy, and family. And so, I don't mess around on the phone. After 6 p.m.? 6 p.m., man. It's like 1985 life.

I mean, you know, sometimes, yeah, there are, you know, sometimes it happens, you know, if I'm working late or something. And I'm always working. But I mean, I don't like, I don't mess around on social media or, you know, half the texts I get are just people asking for favors anyways. Only half? Probably more. Yeah, more. All my friends I haven't talked to in... Five and a half years is a very short period of time to become as successful as you have.

Thank you. Well, I'm not complimenting you. I'm saying I'm surprised you're not crazier because that's a big change. That's a big, big change in a short period of time. Don't you think? Well, I think yeah it's it's been a huge change but um but you know i mean it's just we're all just humans and some people have a i I said, man, I just don't take myself too seriously. And none of this shit really gets to me. It could all be taken away at a moment's notice and I'm ready to give it back. And I'm just, all I'm doing is trying, when I meet people like you or some of the other people that have been on the

show, I mean, it, it, there is an aspect like, I can't believe I'm like having fucking dinner with Tucker right now. This is so weird. Like people would kill to do this.

But in the end, I mean, you're just a, you're just like me, man. You eat, sleep, shit.

That's it. And I, I take that approach with everybody I meet. There's nothing, sorry, Tucker, I love you, but. No, trust me. But there is. You couldn't be, yeah, I've always thought it's very easy to get perspective on your life if you can see yourself kind of clearly.

It's very hard to mistake yourself for Jesus, if you're like honest. Do you know what I mean? Yes. And I really look down on people who have delusions. We're just people, man. Oh, that's for sure. It's sad to watch power get to people's heads. It's really a shame.

So what steps do you take to keep yourself pure of heart? I notice you haven't been in D.C. like every week. I hate D.C. That's where all the power is. Yeah, well, I'm not interested in power. Don't you want to rush toward it like a bug light? No.

I've been asked to run for something, but I just have no interest in it. What are your goals at this point? My goals are to, whenever I exit this, I want my family to be set for generations. I want my team to be set for generations. I want to continue to help them. And I just want to show that there's a lot of us out there that think on the same page,

regardless of what the media says. And I think I am a, this sounds weird talking about myself like this, but I think I am, for whatever reason, I think I am just the average, uneducated, no college degree guy in the country that can talk to people. Wait, you don't have a college degree? No. Oh, I wish I'd known that before I set up this interview. But I don't wow wow i'm just a

i'm just a average guy that that has a hard time understanding stuff and i don't let my ego get in the way i don't pretend like i know shit that i don't know and if i don't understand then i fucking ask questions and it helps everybody that watches my show understand something because it's dumbed down to a level that the majority of America can digest and comprehend. You listen carefully. I haven't gone on your show.

I think that's the key. You listen very carefully. Most people do not do that. So you don't go to DC because you think it's disgusting. You think power corrupts. It doesn't just enhance. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, you know, it's also like. None of these people will be talking to me if I didn't have a show. Obviously. Obviously. So it's like, I don't know, man. I just, I don't like it. I was amazed, amazed to find out, I don't know if it's public, but you came very close to booking Kamala Harris. How'd that come about?

Well, I mean, I, who was the first candidate i think it was either desantis i think now desantis wasn't in studio and um it's the only zoom interview i've ever done what'd you think of him uh i mean as far as like a person i didn't it was very it was like 15 minutes man so i don So I don't have a gauge. I like a lot of the stuff that he's done down in Florida, pretty much all of it, that I know of. I don't know everything. But I had said at the beginning, I'll interview any presidential candidate. I don't care what side they're on. I'm not going to blast you.

But I think it's important that people know who that person is, whether we talk about politics or not. Like the RFK we talked about his heroin addiction and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, it gives you a little more background on what, how they grew up, what their values are as a person, not just some soundbite bullshit, you know, that's fed to them. And so I wanted to interview people on the other side of the fence too. And I really wanted Kamala to come on. And so... I think it's Kamala. Whatever. I think that's racist. It's irrelevant at this point. As it gets racist, you just call it kamala but um

but so we got in touch with her camp we didn't hear anything we did a couple of uh press releases and to maybe pressure her into it a little bit. And she took it seriously. And she watched. I was told she watched. She spent a night going through particular interviews and liked the way that I interviewed and liked my style. And she wanted to do it. And they asked, you know, what do I want to talk about?

And I said, well, I think we should definitely talk about the Afghan withdrawal and the taliban funding i'm pretty much initiated that entire conversation that developed into what it is and me and my guests and um they didn't want to talk about that i said well it's it's going to look bad on me if i don't talk about that because I've been hammering this damn thing for a year now over a year I think and but I was like all right well what do you want to talk about do you want to talk about national security they're like what do you think you disagree on her the most on told them and what was it the the gender stuff with kids. That was my biggest thing. I don't really care about adults that do it,

but you can't give a kid the keys to do that at that age. And eight years old. I mean, eight years old. Was it Washington? That's like the state will come in and take your kid from you if you if you don't do it if they want to I mean what is why even have parents at that point I'm sure they don't want us to have parents but exactly but um anyways I said that and and you know they were like it got to the point where I I just said look I don't even care. I was like, how about you just give me the outline and we'll do it that way.

I don't care. Like, I know how to do an interview and I'll make it work. And I'll find my groove and whatever you give me. I'm confident in my abilities and, and they were going to do it. And then, and then the bread bear interview came out with her and it just fell off the map. We just quit talking to us. So I don't know,

you know, is bread asked her like a single question and she didn't feel like answering. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what it was. How do you think it would have gone? I think it would have gone I think it would have gone

no matter what they handed me for the outline or if I created my own outline, that the questions would have been blaming Trump for everything. Even if it has even if it was nothing to do with the question. I think it would have just been,

Trump did this, Trump did that. What about Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump? And I don't think I would have gotten any of her views or solutions or initiatives or anything. I think it would all been just flipped around and pointed back at Trump one way or another. Do you think it's possible there would have been like a spark of warmth between the two of you?

Yeah. I do. Really? Yeah, because, I mean, no matter who it is, I'm going to treat the guests with respect. Good. And I think that's, I just, you know, and on top of that, I mean, do I like her?

Do I agree with anything that she did? No. But I also know that there's an aspect of media that I'm probably not getting the full picture. And so I want to hear them out. Good for you. But it was never going to be like a gotcha or a combative interview. You know, I wouldn't have done that. I've never done that.

I'll challenge people on stuff, but I'm not going to get into some type of a bickering contest. And, you know. Why? Because I just, that's just not who I am. You had a pretty ferocious job before. You had enough of that? Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. Is there anyone you wouldn't interview? Yeah, there's people I wouldn't interview. I don't interview people that, I mean, I kind of said it earlier. I don't interview people that are on the circuit. I don't really give a shit about your new book that's coming out. I don't care. There's plenty of other podcasts that can do that.

What I look for, other than that, because that's different. Those aren't my values. We obviously differ on probably just about everything. But I just look for good people that are doing something in the world that aren't getting recognition or aren't getting traction and I think would be a good role model. And that's who I bring on the show. And that's one of the things I'm good at is being able to take somebody who nobody's ever heard of, ever, and people tune in.

People will tune in because it's fresh material. It's good people doing good things. And they finally get the exposure that they needed to actually get some type of traction. You interviewed Trump for hours, I think. How long was that interview? Well, one hour. One hour. Yeah, a little over.

He was like, I don't know, 70 minutes or something. What did you think of him? I really liked him. I really liked him. I wasn't expecting him to be as personal as he was. And he met everybody on my team and made it a point to it wasn't like shaking somebody's hand and talking to his assistant or or you know it was direct eye contact wanted to meet the entire team there was three NFL

stars in there that came in to meet him and uh as soon as i walked in the room he like didn't care about him came right over introduced himself i mean it was very personable and then after the interview sat down in a room and talked with us and it was really i was happy and i was more happy that he treated my team with respect and uh because see a lot of people that are like, oh, you're just the fucking help. And it's like, no, that's like who makes the whole thing. So I really appreciated that. You never really know what you're going to get. How do you think the administration's going so far?

How about this? I think there's some really... Look. What do you like? What don't you like? I like that they got rid of the DEI stuff. Yeah. I think that was low-hanging fruit. I think that, you know, they fixed it really quick.

I don't think we need to harp on it anymore and let's move on. And I just interviewed Tom Holman. What he's done with the border seems really impressive to me. So I'm really happy about those things. I'm not happy that the Epstein files have not come to fruition yet. I'm sure they're coming out any day now, wouldn't you think? Yeah. I won't hold my breath. But I think that we still need a lot of work. A lot of work. A lot of work. And I am

losing hope. Why? What specifically makes you feel hopeless? Oh, man. I mean, who's controlling our country and the influences and why haven't we seen these things?

And it makes me skeptical, you know, and, and I don't hear, you know, some of this is, I may just not know, you know, cause I don't, like I mentioned, I don't pretend to know everything that's going on. And I don't put the time in that I would need to to figure it all out. But there's things like the energy grid. And it's like, man, we really need to fucking do something with our grid like yesterday. But is that more important than bombing Iran? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And yeah, you know, that stuff, you know, I get, I mean, I don't know. I want to know like what the real motivations are. And I love everything he says and uh the majority of everything that he says but i i you know i'd like to see the ukraine russia thing finally come to an end and and i like what they've done with doge i think that maybe they maybe they've cut a little bit more than they need to um but, you know, there's always human error with everything. But, you know, and look, I'm just, fuck it.

I'm going to get blasted for this. But, you know, I mean, I see all these negotiations going on in the Middle East. And then I don't know when these buildings were approved or when these deals got done. But then I also see like, oh, there's a brand new hotel going up in dubai or abu dhabi and another one going up in in um um doha i think and and i'm like did these like just get done also with the deals that just happened over there or was this earlier i don't you would probably know no i don't know't know. You don't? I've not made $1 in the Middle East, not one. Well, I mean, you're allowing me more on the inside than I am. No, no, no.

I'm just a visitor and a traveler and a watcher. But, you know, there's... That stuff kind of worries me. You know, it's... Well, it seems like corruption, yeah. But, you know, what bothers me more than any of this shit is that people have just lost the ability to critical think. And if you do say something about the tariffs or is it Greenland or Iceland? I can't even remember or whatever.

The big one. If you do, if you throw any criticism towards any, and not just Trump, but anybody that is in a position of power. I mean, the U.S. has just become so tribal now. or give any constructive criticism to what's happening without getting blasted. It's sad. It's like, man, like you guys have 100% lost all critical thinking skills. Like you're not fucking thinking on your own. And you are given the values that you align with.

You're no longer going off the way you were raised or what's true to you as a person. I think a lot of people don't even fucking know what that is anymore. And they're just told. They're told, they align with the tribe, whatever that tribe says they're going to do, they're going to say, they're going to follow.

And that's sad. And I think that that could resemble the beginning of the end. I agree with every word. And I can't help but note, because I was there for it, at the beginning of the internet, we were told that all of this information would make us better informed and would increase our critical thinking abilities and that people wouldn't have to follow the propaganda because they would have all the information and the opposite has turned out to be true people seem much easier to control than ever before yeah and that makes me sad um

so back to the the heaviest thing i think you've, which is that you don't believe that anything's real. And again, I think most people can understand where you're coming from when you say that. One of the effects of that is to make everyone like really, really paranoid. When it turns out that, you know, most of the things derided as conspiracy theories are real. Like clearly the explanation for 9-11 is silly. Clearly, you know, and we're never going to find out any of this stuff and so that i think a reasonable person concludes like man there's a lot going on i don't get there's a lot of secret stuff there are a lot of actual conspiracies

it's everything though like i gave you know i'm not i take a minute to process and so when you're talking about oh you know what what's fake And I brought up like COVID and something else that everybody already knows. Right. But at least most people already know. But I mean, when you look at the elections, you know, in not just the US, you know, but let's look elsewhere. Let's look at Romania and what happened there. And they just they just yanked this guy just yep you're done marie le pen i mean we were close to interviewing her and in fact i think we were in paris at the same time but we were and um and i mean when you see that it's just like holy shit like this is spreading or maybe it's not spreading maybe it's just always been like this i don't know but you know so obviously those were obviously those elections are phony you know and and the eu's getting involved and france is getting involved and romania is getting involved and it's like holy shit man like everything seems to be engineered the guy in uh bolsonaro and in brazil another example you You know, and it's the ministry of truth.

I don't even know if that's still a thing, but it's like the what? The ministry of truth? Are you fucking kidding me? The 2020 election. I mean, I was kind of skeptical. I was there right in the middle of it. And I thought, well, you know, if there's evidence it was stolen, I'll believe it, of course. But I don't see any evidence or enough evidence to say that conclusively and then the

last five years traveling around seeing other elections watching our country more carefully it's like that was totally fake i can say that i think with confidence now but but here's my point um you who i do think are one of the rare people just like committed to saying what you think is true committed to remaining independent right or wrong like you don't want to be influenced you want to reach your own conclusions

and you want to be awake enough to see signs from God and I admire all of that but now you are supposedly part of the conspiracy yeah because you were a CIA contractor so But now you are supposedly part of the conspiracy. Yeah. Because you were a CIA contractor. So what does that mean to be a CIA contractor?

How did you get that gig? What did it entail? Are you still in touch with headquarters trying to subvert democracy? I wasn't involved in any of those operations. No, I mean, look, I mean, the road, I left the SEAL teams to start business and failed miserably. What kind of business? I wanted to do, funny, I actually read Donald Trump's book in Guantanamo Bay when we were doing some stuff in Haiti back in 2004. And it was his book, How to Get Rich. Wait, you read Donald Trump's book in Guantanamo Bay?

Yeah, in 2004. And I think, no, it was whatever, somewhere around there. And I read that book, and I had, I mean, I was on like a mini deployment. We were in Panama doing some stuff with the Panamanian special ops guys. Then the Haiti thing popped off when we yanked Aristide out of there. And then we were going on the real deployment. Before I even really deployed

in the SEAL teams, I decided this isn't all it's cracked up to be, at least for me. And so I'm just going to do my time here. What was disappointing about it? There wasn't enough combat. Really?

You wind up on a SEAL team in the middle of two wars and there wasn't enough combat for you? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I didn't see near as much as a lot of guys. I saw a decent amount, you know, I went in to

like do that job and I wanted to do it all the time. And I was not doing it all the time. And, um, and so I left, but, um, you've quit a metabolism, but, uh, you wind up on the SEAL teams and you're like kind of bored, but, uh, it just, it wasn't, it just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. And then I had an opportunity to screen. Not saying I would have made it.

Not saying I wouldn't have, but I had an opportunity. I don't mean I had the opportunity. Everybody gets the opportunity to screen for six, if they want it. And I just, I was, I was like, well, that's, you know,

that's the next level, but it's another five year commitment. If I do it. And what if it's the same shit that I have here with just a bigger budget with more cool toys. And so I decided to, I, I,

I decided, no, I'm going to get out and be the next Donald Trump and businessman. And got out, started a small real estate thing, failed horribly. Where was it? St. Louis, Missouri. You went to do real estate in St. Louis? Well, my family's from there.

What, Southida wasn't available at the time or something no i just went home and um just in time for ferguson yeah it was too i actually got a Jimmy John's franchise. And I didn't grow up with money. And we needed some. So I said, hey, I said I would never do this. But overseas contracting is a big thing thing and it's paying pretty good. So how about if I just do that?

I'll get the money that we need to start it and then I'll quit and we'll start that venture. Wait, you went overseas as a contractor to pay for a Jimmy John's franchise? Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And then 2008 hit. Do you know Jimmy John, by the way?

Yeah. I met him recently. Great guy. I love talking to him. Good dude. Yes. At the Elk Party, I think you met him, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. And we've hung out a couple times. I really like that guy. Did you tell him that you became a military contractor so you could pay for one of his franchises? Yeah. But that didn't happen. Where did you go? What do you mean?

When you first left to do overseas contracting. So when I first went, I didn't understand exactly how contractors – I didn't know the game. Yeah. And so there are different tiers of contracting and they have, they take your background and there's all these different, you know, there's the DEA contract, there's the ATF contract or not ATF, excuse me. There's the agency, the NSA, the state department, all, there's just all, there's the agency the NSA the state department um all there's just all there's all kinds of contracts that you can jump on and I had no idea what I was doing I thought it was all like one tiered system and um so I threw my name in in this kind of recruiting thing and they came back

there was a company called armor group and uh out of uk and they picked me up first and i was like all right well whatever this seems pretty low level but they wanted to make me like a guy in charge because of my background and i was like all right fine i'll go do this so i went and did the tryout. It was a complete joke. And then got to Afghanistan. And they put me at the front gate of the embassy. And I was like, I lasted about a week. And I was like, hey, give me a flight home. I'm out of here. This is fucking bullshit.

Like, I'm not going to be. You thought you were boarding the SEALs. Yeah. And well, I mean, then that's where all the V-Bids go off to, the car bombs. So I was like, no, I'm not doing this. And went home and got into a fire academy. Didn't like it. And then a friend called.

A fire, you mean to be a fireman? Yeah, to be a firefighter. Because I really missed the camaraderie. And then a friend of mine that I served in Afghanistan with called me up and said, Hey, there's a contract that Blackwater has, and I think you should try out for it. And I was like, No, I'm not doing it. I just did a quick pump. I hated it. I was with a bunch of guys that don't know what the hell they're doing.

Some of these people were like Bank of America security guards. I was with a bunch of guys that don't know what the hell they're doing. Some of these people were like Bank of America security guards. I was like, this is crazy. He goes, no. He's like, hey. Everybody on this contract has to be from Special Ops. It's a black contract.

I can't tell you who it's for, but just give me your resume and I'm going to try to get you in. And so I was like, all right, fine, gave it to them. And then got a call from Blackwater and just told me where to be and what to bring. What did they want you to bring? It was just, you know, you need these type of clothes. You need this type of equipment.

And show up here, go all the way to the back to the black side and um it'll be a month-long course if you make it and um so i showed up and and did the did the vetting course at blackwater at blackwater carolina yep? Yep. And made it. What did you think of the vetting course? It was tough. Really? Yeah, it was tough. Having been through buds, you thought it was tough? It wasn't tough like that.

It wasn't like you have to prove, well, you do have to prove yourself. It wasn't like they're not yelling at you and screaming and kicking you around and all that kind of shit. It is a demonstration of your skills. And if you cannot demonstrate your skills to the highest level, then you go home. What kind of skills? Shooting skills, driving skills, close quarters combat that's entering a room and clearing buildings and rooms and stuff, working with the team, how do you integrate in with all these other special ops guys. And so there's a lot that goes into it. They put you in a lot of extremely stressful situations and you have to handle it flawlessly

or you'll be asked to leave. But the shooting qualifications were really tough. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the shooting qualifications were really tough. And so was the CQB, the close quarters combat. So one of the exercises, they had this thing called the hooded box drill and they basically put you in a room like this and they would tape a square and you have to you have

to stand in the square and they give you either a rifle or a pistol and they have um like fake flash bangs going off smoke yelling screaming yelling, screaming, role players, and they put a hood over your head on a string. So this hood goes over your head. You can't see anything. It's dark. There's strobes. There's all kinds of shit going on.

You can hear all these screams and all this stuff going on, and you are not allowed to leave the box. And so they set up the scenario, and they lift the hood over your head, and then you have to deal with the scenario. So I think the very first scenario, put the hood over my head, and there's all these people in there. I can hear them, So I think the very first scenario, put the hood over my head.

There's all these people in there. I can hear them. And they lift the hood up on the string. And there's a guy closer than from me to you right now with a gun, with a rifle. As soon as the hood goes up, he snaps my head. You're wearing a helmet. But he snaps my head with the muzzle of his rifle. We call it a muzzle snap or a muzzle strike, and it knocks me back.

And then there's all these people in there that this guy's armed, this guy's unarmed. There's a female over there with a burk on, and you don't know what's underneath. And you got another guy with a person with a gun in their head. People are shooting at you, and you have to deal with a person with a gun in their head people are shooting at you and you have to deal and process all that information not killing innocent not killing unknown and and deal with the situation and then and then they call you back to your box back to the box and it's very unemotional they're they're they're not like hey you could have done this better or why didn't you do that it's either get the fuck out of here or we're gonna run a scenario and then you come back to the box and they put the hood back over your head and then lift the hood and you're in a

totally different scenario and it might be it might be the next scenario they lift up, nobody's shooting at you, everybody's calm, or people are yelling and shit and shooting their guns up in the air. And you have to figure out who's a threat, who's an unknown, who's an innocent, who's a blue helmet, which would be an asset of ours. He obviously can't kill the asset. And so they run you through a number of scenarios there doing that. And a lot of people, you know, fail that. But you did not fail? No. Did you enjoy it?

Yeah, it was challenging. I like to be challenged. And it really like, it's really hard to put you in an environment that can be as stressful as what combat is. And, you know, when you're in combat, I mean, the decision making has to be on point and very precise. And they did a great job of simulating that kind of stress that you're going to deal with when it's actually for real. And so I thought it was a great drill. What kind of guys were at the training facility? All former SOF.

So it was all SEALs, SF, Delta, DEV Group, a couple of Rangers, MARSOC, which is Marine Special Ops, Air Force, CCT, Air Force PJs. I think that covers it. So highest level that the U.S. military produces. Yeah. And you had to have that background just to be able to try out for this specific contract. What was the contract? They called it the oga contract which was the cia contract what's oga stand for other government agency so then what so you get it so are you still thinking about

jimmy john's at this point or has the box drill just wiped out from your memory no no i was still thinking about it um but so yeah so then at the end you find out that it is for cia and um you'd already had your your new clearance is done, and they give you dates, kick you out the door. How long was the commitment, and where did you go? There's no commitment. At least, not that I remember. Afghanistan. And you can do kind of, I mean, Blackwater, I think had a 60 day minimum deployments. So you could do up to maybe a hundred something days. And so some guys go and they do a hundred something days, they come home for a week and then they're right back out and there's guys that do 60 on 60 off and um so you just kind of come up with your cadence and

and go what were you doing for cia in kabul so when i started this uh it was a protective unit and so um like the guys that uh fought in magazi, that's the program that I was in. And so it kind of started off as a protective type detail for actual operatives because there is no, I mean, there is no Jason Bourne over there. That's why they need people like me because it takes two people to be a Jason Bourne over there. That's why they need people like me, because it takes two people to be a Jason Bourne. And so we would help case officers plan their operations, plan their meets, stuff like that, conduct, and then conduct surveillance, conduct counter surveillance, get them kind of whatever they need. And at the beginning, it was, and I wasn't really near the beginning. I mean, I think I started contracting in 2007. So the war had been going on for what, about six years. And so towards the beginning, I guess, but you know, it was real pain in the ass because,

I mean, at the beginning of the war, you know, you had all these case officers coming in, and they're fresh out of school, and they don't really understand the environment that they're in. They don't think they need us until they need us, and then they're screaming for us. But a lot of case officers and chiefs of station and deputy chiefs of station, that would be the head guy and head cia guy in country they they they kind of saw us as a hindrance to their operations until shit started happening like benghazi coast a lot of these uh tragic events that happened and then every once in a while you'd get like a really good it's sorry so let's backtrack a little more so you get a lot of these and then you get the old timers that are coming in from the Cold War, and they're used to working in a semi-permissive environment or a permissive environment where they don't need that kind of shit. They can just go and meet their assets and drink their fucking coffee.

They were in Vienna in the 70s. Exactly, exactly, those types. And then they go to Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, you know, all these type of places. And they bring that mindset with them. And it's like, hey, bud, that shit isn't going to work here. So these people fucking hate you. But every once in a while, you'd get a guy who was a retired Green Beret or a retired Special Operations Marine or a SEAL or whoever. And they would look at the program that I was in and they would realize like, these guys are all

special ops. Like they have a lot of capability that we're not utilizing them for. And so then things started getting added to the plate you know they're like hey could you guys do x y or z and we're like oh yeah we can do all of that we just you guys just don't utilize that capability because i don't think you realize that everybody here is extremely capable not mall cops and uh yeah and uh so then they started using us for all kinds of stuff and um and uh it it was some places were interesting some place was were an xbox tour and um meaning you just sit around and work out and play xbox but um kind of depending where you're at. What was the most interesting? How it all kind of works

and some of the meetings that you sit in on. And from a personal standpoint, I've always been fascinated with how people live in extreme poverty and to see, just to see it and experience it and be a part of it, try to blend into it, was both a challenge and very fascinating. How long did you do this gig? Right around, I think it was a little less than nine years. Nine years?

Yeah. Oh, that's a long time. Yeah, yeah. I took a little break. What did you think of the CIA? Once again, same kind of thing that I thought of the SEAL teams. This isn't what it is cracked up to be. Like,

here's an example. First day I get there and I'm just trying to get the lay of the land. And so it's, I don't want to like talk too much shit. Cause there are some very capable people and, and, and like us, like you get in the country,

you don't even do anything for the first two weeks. They're like, here's a map. Here's some keys, other keys over there. So you don't burn any of our cars. Take a different one every day. And you need to know this entire city, every back road, every road name, every venue, everything, everything about the city you need to know. And if you don't know it in two weeks, then you're out. And so you pair up with another guy that's never been in country and you just hit the roads and you know everything about that city.

Kind of dangerous white guys driving around Kabul. Well, yeah, it is Kabul. Yeah, it is. I mean, it is. You don't always dress up like white guys, but in a place like Kabul or Baghdad, there's diplomats from every country. There's State Department, CIA, NSA, DEA, FBI, and the equivalent of that in every NATO country, right?

So there's diplomats everywhere. So sometimes your cover might be your diplomat in State Department. And sometimes, depending on where you're at, you might be dressed up in Muslim garb. And, I mean, they trick the vehicles out so they look local. And so it's, I mean, you can blend in. You're not going to like, you're not going to blend in, you know, running around the streets. Right.

But you'll, at first glance, it'll pass. And so that's what you do. You learn everything, everything about the city. I know a lot of these places better than I know my hometown. Nine years. So what countries were you working in over that period? I spent the majority of my time in Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan. What's Yemen like?

It's my favorite place to work. Why? Because it is the poorest country in the Middle East and probably the most dangerous. And it was, I just, I loved, I felt like I was doing more there than anywhere else. You had to take tradecraft extremely seriously. Very tribal country.

The North is completely different than the South. You had to learn the cultures of both so that if you're operating in the North, that you know how to dress like the northerners do. You have to dress like how the southerners do down in Aden and try to blend in. And it's also like a spy game there. I mean, the Russians are there, the Amerindians are there, the Chinese are there. And so you're trying to figure out where they're operating out of, what their safe houses look like. Chinese are always super easy to identify

because you would just be passing through Yemen and all these mud huts or safe houses or just houses. And, you know, you drive by the Chinese compound and every single time they have 120 antennas on the roof. It's like, nice one guys but um it it would get i mean it and it's it's it's so you're so you're conducting you know normal operations and dealing with terrorists and assets and all that kind of stuff you know for the main initiative but on the other hand you're also having to conduct surveillance and counter surveillance from the Russians, from the Chinese, from the Iranians, any other key players that are in those countries and have to know who's who.

And and and and they're spying on us and we're spying. It's it's it's very complex. Did you chew got when you were there? No, but I bought some. But you never tried it? No, I never tried it. But the whole country is hooked on it, right? Yeah.

You would, I mean, it's, yeah, you would see these guys and just the whole population. And they would just be so zonked out on that. You'd see them in a shitty taxi drive. They're not even blinking and flies are landing on their fucking eyes and it's like holy shit man people live like this this is crazy and um and uh yeah i was you just never know who you're gonna run into over there either i mean what do you mean i mean i was in heaven i would oh like other operators. Like I'd see guys that are in safe houses from other units that are over there. And I would see like their call sign up on the board.

And I'd be like, is that who I think it is? Oh, shit. I haven't seen him since like Bud's when I was in the SEAL team. And I'd call over there and be like, hey, get up on the shit. I haven't seen him since like buds when I was in the seal team and I'd call over there and be like, Hey, get, get up on the roof. I want to see him. We'd have a phone conversation, looking at each other, waving from rooftop to rooftop. Like what go over and meet them. What are you guys getting into the tonight? And they'd be running operations and killing bad guys. And, and it was just, it was very unique and complex to be able to work there.

So you probably knew the Houthis existed before the rest of us. Yeah. What do you think of the Houthis? I mean, I don't really follow up on it too much these days, but I mean, they took over that damn country in no time. I mean, they yanked the,

I can't remember if he was a president or a prime minister or whatever, but they took the whole country when we were there in like a matter of hours. And so they were really effective and woke up one day and all these new checkpoints are out. The guy got yanked out of the palace

by the Houthis and on totally different dynamic in less than 24 hours. Were you ever afraid when you were there? Yeah, a lot. Did Americans ever get hurt when you were there? No. Interesting. You wound up in Latin America.

We got shot at a lot and car bombs at the gates and shit like that, but not any heavy casualties, no deaths. How'd you wind up in South America? uh well when i left i was um very addicted to adrenaline and um went down to columbia i'd always wanted when i joined the seal teams i was really uh inspired by the vietnam generation i just like was infatuated with that stuff as a kid watched all the documentaries of all the seals in vietnam SEALs in Vietnam and Green Berets. And I just wanted to do jungle warfare. And so the closest I could get to that was running counter-drug operations out of Columbia when I joined the SEAL teams. And then, you know, 9-11 happened. So definitely wasn't going down there and um so i had uh broken broken up with

a girlfriend and i was like you know what i'm gonna go down there and check it out and um so i went down there for a little over a week loved. Had the time of my life doing nothing Christian-based. Where? Cartagena is where I started. And then went home, had a surgery, and I was sitting at a bar in Cape Coral, Florida, listening to a bunch of lazy, entitled Americans talk about their opinion of the war and all this other shit. I just got so fucking tired of listening to the shit on people's opinions

that had never been there, never done it, and never lost anybody. Probably had never even faced any type of hardship in their life, and they're just judging me and all my friends. I was like, you know what? I'm fucking out of here, man. So I put my house on the market and, um,

went back down to Cartagena, stayed with a friend. Uh, the secret service scandal happened down there. Remember that? And, uh, which kind of like put it on the map,

um, for, for people to come visit and to go do bad things. And it became like very Americanized. And I was like, I don't want to be anywhere near Americans at all. And so I checked a lot of spots out around Columbia. I went to Cali. I went to Pareda.

I went to Medellin and then camped out in Medellin for about four years. Doing what? Doing what? Living a rock star life. A lot of cocaine. A lot of girls, a lot of, basically what I was doing was chasing my adrenaline. And cause I wanted to feel that all the time. It creates some type of imbalance in your brain when you have that many

adrenaline dumps and you, it's's it's very much like a heroin addiction and um so i went down there and i started doing a lot of shit that i shouldn't be doing buying drugs that became a big rush um buying and sourcing and cocaine and um and so that's how i would get my thrills and uh what were. Was that what you were doing for a living? No, it wasn't for a living, man. It was for the rush. And so I've talked about this on a couple of other podcasts, but there's a lot of rumors going around there that I was down there working for CIA, setting up these drug networks when, yes, they do do that.

But no, I was by myself on my own program. And I've always been fascinated with narcos and kingpins and cartels. And it's like, it was a major rush for me to go into the worst neighborhoods in Columbia and start setting up networks. And it, I mean, it's extremely dangerous for a gringo to be, I would go in neighborhoods where there were, you couldn't get into the neighborhood without going through at least two checkpoints. And so I would just, I would go in there. I would hang out. I would talk to people.

I would buy drugs, cocaine. I'm bringing it back to my place, do them all. Then go get more. Go get more. What does cocaine cost? It's five bucks a gram. So about a twentieth of what it costs in the United States. Yep.

And so what I saw, you know, back to my entrepreneurial branch, is you know, what it was going to be is, you know, you get, I mentioned that, you know, Secret Service kind of put sex vacations on the map for- Which is not technically their job, right?

For rich white people to come down there and take advantage of that. And, you know, down there, I mean, prostitution and these type of things are not looked at like they are here. It's an actual legitimate career. And so you get these guys that come down and that's all they want to do. And they want cocaine, but they're all scared to talk to the Colombians because they think they're all cartel and they're all going to chop your head off. And so what I was going to be was an intermediary. And basically... Sort of the maitre d' of Medellin.

Like, I'll deal with all these people and I'll get you what you want and you can just talk to me. For a fee? For a fee. Did you do that? No. Why?

Because I got sloppy and I got ran out of there by the Colombian version of the FBI. Did you go to jail down there? No. As soon as I caught wind of it, I left. But I built a network from the ground up. And so just like how I was telling you I take care of my team right now and I want the best for them and I treat them with respect and I'm very giving. I was like that down there. And so starting with the doorman, you know, I mean, I would live in these penthouses at the top story of the building, wherever I was at. And I would make friends with all the guys that were at the door because they control who comes in and out of the building. And so if I went to the grocery store, they got groceries. If I bought cocaine, they got cocaine. If I went to go get booze, they got booze.

If I went to go get pizza, they got a pizza. And so I just took care of them all the time because I knew it would get to the point where they would watch my ass. Yes. And so I did that and built a great rapport with them. And then, you know, nobody knows town better than taxis. And so I would take taxis and take taxis and try to develop relationship with different taxi guys that were not scared to go into Barrio Antioquia, which is kind of the worst neighborhood down there. I would have my girls help me make decisions and tell me about the different taxi drivers that they used to pick them I need to know, all the places that people don't want to go where, and I would get in with them. And then I would get in with the dealers and then the dealers would introduce me

to their mid dealer. And then they would introduce me to their guy. And, and the network grew so big that if I went to other countries, they would know who I was. What were you doing for income? Well, I made money contracting, and your money goes a lot farther down there than it does in the U.S., so I didn't really need any until I blew it all. But so the story goes. So that's what I did and got in a lot of really hairy situations where I didn't know if I was going to come out,

didn't really care if I did. I kind of had the Hunter S. Thompson mindset where if life gets too boring, then I'll just check out. And it was starting to get boring down there. I had OD'd a couple of times. What's a cocaine OD like? So cocaine OD is, you know, when you, I remember my best friend was down there for a little while with me and, and I would always think, oh shit, I probably did too much. I'm going to die. And he got tired of me being paranoid about it. And he goes, look, he's like, you don't need to worry about ODing on cocaine until things start slowing down.

When you're on speed and things get slow, that's when you're really riding the line. And that had happened to me a couple times where it sounded like my voice was in slow motion. The people next to me that I was talking to all of a sudden sounded like my voice was in slow motion. The people next to me, uh, that I was talking to all of a sudden sounded like the Will Ferrell thing where it's like, and I'm like, and you can't talk, you can't get the words out that are in your head. And, um, and that's when, you know, it's about time the lights are going to go out. And they did go out.

How do you recover from that? Lots of Valium. Yeah, exactly. Lots of Valium, Xanax, stuff like that. And so I developed these. everything got boring to me, so the women got boring, it sounds weird to say that, because it's like, you know, but it did, it was like, there's nothing that you could say that I had not done. And that got me to go deeper in and go to more dangerous places.

It doesn't sound weird at all. It sounds absolutely right. There's no satisfaction in that. Of course, it gets boring. Yeah. And so then I started looking up the most dangerous places in the world. And I looked up the most dangerous places in the world. And I looked up the most dangerous place in the world, and it was San Pedro Sula in Honduras. So I went there and started to try to develop a network there just for the rush.

What was that like? Got almost arrested on the first night. So it didn't last long. Were there other Americans down there in honduras yeah not at that time which i thrived off that it made me feel really alive like oh this is like uncharted territory nobody comes here because they're scared to death did your dad ever text you to say hey what about the jimmy johns franchise we're supposed to be doing? Nah, because 2008 happened and so that it got called off at the very beginning of my contract career. And then, and yeah, and he went

on to do other things and yeah. So, and I was, I was frustrated, but the money was really good contracting. And so I kind of got stuck in this loop of like, well, I'll just go over there and make a bunch of money and then do whatever the hell I want to do. And yeah, so anyways, so the last thing that got me, and I was talking to my dad too. I knew I had a problem, and I'm really close with my parents. My dad's my hero. And I would call them all fucked up on Coke or Valium or Xanax or hydrocodone or Oxy or whatever. And I was always part drunk. And I would allude to my dad like, I got to get the hell out of here.

I'm going to die. And I wouldn't remember a lot of these conversations. I'd be totally blacked out. And he was trying to get me to go get some help. And I lied to him, told him I was talking to this Vietnam guy about my experiences, and I was, but that guy was a total mess too. He was there for the same reason. Yeah, exactly.

No, this wasn't in Columbia. This was actually in Fort Lauderdale. Same difference. Yeah, and I had, there's this place called, what was it called? Pointe de los Locos or something, which Bridge of the Crazies. And so it was like all these like,

look like LA, lots of tents under an overpass and crazy drug addicts who have no direction in life, who are dirt poor. And I had a bunch of girls with me, and I went to that bridge, and it stacked up a ton of cash and thought it would be a great idea to throw all the cash up and just watch these people go to town to try to get it. And very, very dangerous part of Medellin. And came back to my building, walk through and, uh, the doorman came up and told me that, um, that, uh, the national police had come to question him about me and one of my passport and all this shit. And, uh, wanted to know who I was, where I came from, what I'm doing, all of that stuff.

And I was pissed. I was like, man, and the guy's name was Freddy, and I'm talking to him in Spanish, and I'm like, man, I always take care of you. I can't believe you would try to suck more money out of me on this bullshit story. And he's like, no, he was trying to tell me that they had bugged the light outside my door, which I couldn't understand. My Spanish wasn't that good, but eventually I got what he was saying. And I was like, this is complete bullshit. There's no way. And he showed me, he said, they have a picture of you at the bridge throwing money in the air. And I had just come from there. And so at that point,

I knew that he wasn't lying. I was like, okay, literally nobody knows that I did that because it was like 45 minutes ago. And the only people that would know is my taxi guy and the girls that were with me and the crazies that were living under the bridge. And so he had said that they had set up an observation point at the building across from me and were watching me from that apartment. So I went up and identified it, where it was, flushed all the coke, and went back into my previous life on surveillance and counter-surveillance. And I did a counter-surveillance route to a couple of different internet cafes, bought a couple of tickets to different places outside of the country

and hauled us to the airport, got out of there and never went back. That day? Yeah. Was decisive. Yeah, yeah. It's your hooded box training. Yeah, yeah.

So that's how that ended. How long between that moment and the beginning of your podcast not long oh the podcast probably a couple years so it that wasn't that long ago yeah you were leading a life that bears no resemblance at all to the life you're leading right now yeah at all yeah it took it took a lot of work you know and um it took a lot of work to to clean myself up and and find a productive

direction to start running and and um and once once I discovered business, that became my new addiction. What do you make of the claim that you're still working for CIA? I think it's, I mean, whatever. People are going to think what they think, but people don't understand how it works over there. And so, I mean, there's a part of me that understands it. I'm like, all right. Like, I didn't really come out of nowhere. You know what I mean? I mean, a lot of people say like, oh, this guy just pops on the map and like fucking gets ginormous. And it's like, you didn't see all the backend work that it took to get here. And I started this in my attic as a one man team and then taught my wife how to film and it was me and her. And we only did nine interviews for the first year and a half because I was editing sound video, cutting previews, doing social media packages, doing distribution, doing the research, interviewing, you know, all of that stuff. And

so, I mean, I think it's, you know, what really pisses me off is when somebody that I am paying attention to because they're bringing things out that I'm into, They're going down rabbit holes and conspiracy stuff that a lot of time winds up to be true. But then, and I think we're all on the same team and then I'll see him throw something out like Sean Ryan's a CIA shill. And it's like, dude, I just, I was like totally fucking bought in on what you're bringing to the table and all of your research. It was like totally fucking bought in on what you're bringing to the table and all of your research it was like really good stuff and i i thought it was trustworthy but when you throw something like that out there you've just discredited yourself to me because you have no fucking proof because i'm not one and now i don't believe anything that you say because if you're just gonna loose lip throw shit

out there like that then what else are you fucking throwing out that you have not verified i've had some more experiences yeah um i do think that people are paranoid because it is true that the cia operates against you know the constitution against the law in the united states and it um it does try and shape news coverage. Like, that's a fact. Yeah. No, I mean, I know that that happens and happens all the time. But at the same time, if you've listened to me, I've been extremely hard on CIA.

And I've talked about things that they have done that make me very paranoid after the interview. Like we, I can't remember if we discussed that an hour ago or if that was last night at dinner, but I mean, uh, I, there, it, it, that, that, that happens and all the fucking time, all over the world. But nobody is ever able to pinpoint exactly why they think that. They just throw it out. Of course. It really grew traction after I interviewed the founder of Palantir. Because, I mean, people think that's a big war machine and losing my train of thought here. The military industrial complex type company.

But I mean, guess what, buddy? We need innovators and we have to innovate. We can't just be doing the same old shit. And I want to know how we're innovating our military capabilities and our intelligence capabilities. And that's a big part of it. And to be honest with you, it gives me comfort knowing that we are still innovating as much red tape as we have to deal with. And I think that that's what gives me a glimmer of hope when we're talking about global domination and China and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And people don't even under, I don't know why Palantir has such a bad rap.

Maybe you know something that I don't. But I mean, to me, that was fucking genius. It speeds up the decision making process. It speeds up the decision-making process. It speeds up the intelligence gathering. We're able to it's, I mean, not to be a conspiracy nut, but your, you know, public performance over the past five and a half years has, you know, been run counter to the aims of the CIA, I would say. I mean, it has. Mm-hmm. And so to tell people that you yourself are working for the CIA secretly is a way to discredit you. Yeah. That if I were the CIA, I would be encouraging.

I guess that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's a good point. That is a good point. I mean, I'm very hostile to the CIA. I've said that many, many times. It doesn't stop people from claiming that I secretly work there. Yeah. And I've always thought that maybe that was.

I mean, I've challenged people too because I think about it. I mean, it would be impossible. You know, I mean, they might... They might have somebody in operative do a five-hour interview

and they might say, hey, this is all we need you to get in that interview. It's this one fucking sentence. And so the whole other five hours could be complete bullshit, except for the one little thing that they want injected into that interview to create some type of a narrative. And I'm always trying to look out for that, but it would be impossible. It would be impossible to figure out what exactly that is, if that operative is good.

And they'll do other things like, they may do other things like, hey, we know that this happened. You're going to go to this show and you're going to talk about this. And then two weeks from now, that's going to release this to the press and then they're going to say this was set on this show by this person before it ever came out of the media and then when it comes out in the media because right everybody hates the media but they still fucking watch it all the time that builds credibility to the operative. You know what I mean? And then they, and then, and then they go on. Oh, I know what you mean. Okay, you're tracking. So I'm watching it all around me.

So. Do you feel that, have you ever had a guest where you thought, huh? Yeah. Really? Yeah. That this person might be acting on behalf of an intel agency? Mm-hmm. About a couple of them.

Any confirmation on that? No. You know, gut instinct. I don't want to name a bunch of names because if they're not, I don't want to. Of course. You know, but I just did a really good interview with this guy, Blarem Skoro, who was an asset. He got recruited out of prison, and then he got recruited in prison by the CIA right after 9-11 to make friends with all of the Muslim Brotherhood, all the terrorists that were in there. And so he built a network in there. And so he built a network in there. And then when he got out of prison,

and so he would report back to the agency about like, hey, this is what this guy has done. This is what he's a part of. These are the people he talks to because they all trusted him because this guy basically became like the head mullah of the prison system. And when he got out, agency gets back in touch with him and said, hey, you're going to use this network and your cover is going to be, you're building a Al-Qaeda cell in Macedonia. And so he would set up shop in Macedonia and he would go into Pakistan and go into Afghanistan and Syria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, all these places. And he would meet with the head of the Haqqani Network, the head of the Taliban, the head of al-Qaeda. He didn't meet specifically with bin Laden, but he's like one step away.

That's a dangerous job. No kidding, man. That's the real Jason Bourne shit right there. And what he would do is say, hey, you know, I'm recruiting because I'm setting up a terrorist cell in Macedonia. And then they would give him all of these weapons. They'd give him bombs, rocket launchers, guns, mines, you name it.

And then basically what he would do is tell him that that shipment is, he would take care of logistics and get that to Macedonia. But what he would really do is get it to the agency and then supposedly they would destroy it. What do you say supposedly they would destroy it? Well, who knows? I don well who knows you know i don't know but because i don't trust him but the so then uh he has an assassination attempt um see how he cuts him he gets pissed off he's still pissed, rightly so. At the same time, I'm like, how do you think this works, man? You got burned. They don't use burned assets so we kind of had this discussion. And you know, Russia's a big,

obviously a big topic of discussion. Some people think we should be in Ukraine, some people don't. And some people think Russia's our ally, some people don't. And I'm kind of like, this isn't really our war. Why are we involved? But I said, well, what are they going to do with these? And he said that they wanted to get him into the U.S. and it would blow, it would kill half a million people. And I asked him if he thought I'd done that. But it didn't really fit in the interview.

It didn't fit. You know what I mean? It did not fit in the interview. Do I know what you mean? Yes. In fact, I was just thinking that as you were speaking. Like we're talking about all these other things. I don't trust this for a second. And then all of a sudden we get to Russia. And so I just called him right there on the interview. I was like, you know what goes through

my mind? I said, when's the last time you had contact with CIA? It was exactly what I was just thinking. And he said January 16th or something in 2022. Like knew the exact date and got really flustered. And I mean, I would probably be flustered too if somebody just said that and I wasn't. But I said, you know what goes through my head is what if somebody contacted you knowing you were coming on the show to say that you were getting uranium to Al Qaeda to sneak into our country to blow us up? A lot of a lot of people want to see us go to war with Russia. Did he tell you that Iran was trying to assassinate Donald Trump, too? No.

That's my favorite. No. Iran is trying to assassinate Donald Trump too? No. That's my favorite. No. Iran is trying to assassinate Donald Trump. Yeah. Okay. But I called him on it because it didn't fit in the interview. And it was almost like, shit, I lost my opportunity to insert this into the interview. So now I got to swing for the fence and just drop it. And it just immediately clicked in my brain.

And then I got to swing for the fence and just drop it. And it just immediately clicked in my brain. And then I got paranoid again. I'm like, Jeremy, you got to, sorry, buddy, you got to fucking switch your phone out. Like you've been texting with this guy who knows what came in. And, and, but I mean, you never really know it's going to be a gut instinct, you know? And so, but I wanted to say that out loud because if they're watching, and they probably are, then they know that I'm a target. So I'm a little bit shocked. I sort of knew the rough outlines of your life, but I didn't realize like 20 minutes ago you were living in Columbia and then you were on the road. I mean, this just happened not 20 years ago, like seven years ago.

Yeah. So that's got to be one of the hardest pivots, one of the most profound transformations I've ever seen. I don't really kind of know anyone who's come this far in a separate direction in such a short period of time. You're not even 50. Where do you think it goes from here who knows man um i do want to say something though you know i think a lot of people think that kind of that i was doing down in columbia is cool and it's adventurous and yeah there was a lot of adrenaline and it was a good time it was definitely adventurous but i think we can say

that was adventurous but um you um, you know, it, it was a, I mean, who knows where I would be if I didn't do that. And I would have started this earlier, you know, and, and, um, it's just no way to live. And everybody that you think is your friend is fake and everybody just wants to take advantage of you. And once you get through the initial phase of, Oh oh man this is like the coolest life it's the loneliest fucking life that you can lead and um and almost died because of it and several times and and um you know how would it have turned up if i would have od'd in one of those penthouses and my parents who i love so much and finds out oh yeah there's our son the navy seal

cia contractor decomposing in a fucking penthouse in columbia because he od'd on cocaine and that scenario went through my head a lot of times and um so i just you know i just i don't want to encourage anybody to do that that was a low point in in my life and something I'm not proud of. You've been a, I would say, pretty vocal advocate for sobriety in this job. How many of the guys who work for you are sober? Almost the majority of the team. I think there's two guys that drink. Do you think sobriety is going to catch on as a way to live?

Absolutely. I think it's already catching on. There's a huge wave. It's like the new thing to do, it seems like. Truly sober, just like not using pills, alcohol. Yeah. Do you think we're in the middle of some kind of christian revival absolutely a hundred percent i mean have you seen have you seen the baptism parties that are going on at at colleges that

look like it looks like it's a kegger crazy tailgate party and they're baptizing people in the back of the back of trucks and yeah i think there's a huge wave going on i think so too it's cool to see do you think the us government can continue continue what to exist i think the current system can continue i think it will continue. You do. Because it does feel like we're moving towards something. Like a one world government? I'm not sure what. I'm not sure what, but it seems like so much changed in a short period of time.

The scales falling for so many people realizing that, you know, what they believed was real is not. Questions people are asking the resurgence of Christianity in the country. I mean, it all seems to be happening at once. And I know, you know, in every age people think the end is near, but does that ever occur to you? I think it will. I think it will continue to exist until people no longer have the appetite for it to exist. You think we're pretty far from that? Yeah.

Goes back to critical thinking. Yeah, maybe that's right. Last question because I can't resist. I know you spent a lot of your time talking about this, but having fired every firearm been trained on every firearm what are your favorite firearms?

favorite firearms? I like lever actions come on I do too they're my favorite I'm tired of all the tactical black gun shit that was my life for 14 years you know and um but i have a lot of them but i don't get excited about them

i get excited about lever actions now if you're gonna ask me you know shit it's the fan what am i going to it definitely isn't going to be my lever action. It's going to be my AR because I know that like the back of my hand and it's a tool that I'm really good with. But when you shoot for fun with just open sights? Yeah, open sights. You know what I really like is, I don't even know what it's called, but it's a revolver, but it's the, you know, you lift the little thing up and you have to load it one by one.

Yeah, like the 12-shot.22s, the cowboy guns. Yeah, I got a.45 Long Colt one. Is it just single action? Yeah, dude, I love it. I can't hit a damn thing with it. And it's got the pin that you push the holes out with? Yes, I love that thing. Really? Yeah. Talk about your life going for

full circle so you went from like you know some high-tech kimber to a single action yeah cowboy gun i love it and you went from the air platform to the lever what do you what do you prefer uh the lever gun chambered in 357 i knew i liked 35 I liked you..357 revolved. Same ammo. Sidearm and long gun. That's my favorite pair. I could see beneath the fame. I knew that you were the kind of man who preferred.357.

I love it. A straight wall cartridge. Amen. Sean Ryan, thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. It was a honor being here. You're one of the people, and this is not true for everybody, but

every time I see some marker of your continuous success, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled by it. I mean that. Well, that means a whole of a lot. I'm not joking at all. I thought, and part of it is just like my narcissism because I saw you, because my nephew sent me a clip from you

and I was like that guy's really talented I like knew instantly I knew you'd be successful and the fact that you had no background whatsoever I didn't quite realize how far you did not go to the Columbia School of Broadcasting um but your your natural ability to interview people and to listen to them and to empathize with them. It just came right off the screen. I was like, that guy's going to be a star. And you have been. And I just find it thrilling.

Thank you, Todd. Thank you. It means a lot. Thank you. And congratulations on all your successes. It's been cyclical. Oh, and Alp. Can I just say, I never do this.

I'm proud to call this man an Alp user. Thanks. I'm proud to call this man an Alp user. Thanks. I love it. We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor. Hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode.

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