Will Cain Country - The Hard Truth About a Successful Life (ft. Jocko Willink)

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Story 1: What is the real solution to America’s affordability crisis? A viral Ben Shapiro clip sparked outrage after he claimed young Americans aren’t entitled to live where they were born. But is he wrong? Will and The Crew look at the broader context behind the clip and discuss how people should navigate the issue. Story 2: Retired Navy SEAL, Author of ‘Extreme Ownership’, and Host of the ‘Jocko Podcast,’ Jocko Willink joins Will to further discuss America’s affordability crisis and share his thoughts on the so called ‘entitlement problem’ facing young people today. Later, Jocko explains how the Department of War has evolved in recent months and what the U.S. needs to do to keep pace with the rest of the world. Story 3: AI, humanoid robots, and genetically engineered babies are no longer science fiction. So how do you raise strong, grounded kids in a world that’s changing faster than ever? Will brings in The Crew to discuss. In ‘Final Takes,’ Will and The Crew break down 'Breaking Bad' creator Vince Gilligan's critique of AI and look at some of the most used passwords from a recent data breach, lamenting the world’s lack of cybersecurity.   Subscribe to ‘Will Cain Country’ on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠Watch Will Cain Country!⁠ Follow ‘Will Cain Country’ on X (⁠@willcainshow⁠), Instagram (⁠@willcainshow⁠), TikTok (⁠@willcainshow⁠), and Facebook (⁠@willcainnews⁠) Follow Will on X: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Boarding for Flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Boarding will begin when passenger fisher is done celebrating.

19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1866-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comixonterio.ca. You may have heard of the sex cult nexium and the famous actress who went to prison for her involvement, Alison Mack. But she's never told her side of the story until now. People assume that I'm like, this pervert. My name is Natalie Robamed. And in my new podcast, I talked to Allison to try to understand how she went from TV actor to cult member. How do you feel about having been involved in bringing sexual trauma at other people?

I don't even know how to answer that question. Allison after Nexium from CBC's Uncover is available now on Spotify. One, TDS, the explanation for everything, from literally kissing the feet of Jasmine Crockett to the government shutdown. Two, the affordability crisis, left, right, populism, socialism, extreme ownership, with Jocko Willink. Three, AIs nothing more than the world's biggest plagiarizer. It is Wilcane Country streaming live at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel on this Tuesday. Welcome into the program, big conversations, big fun, big personalities, including Jocko today on Wilcane Country. But everything from the affordability crisis to Trump derangement syndrome, the one main culprit of everything from kissing Jasmine Crockett's feet to the government show.

Let's see if together we can work our way through these big thoughts with these big personalities. Story number one. Will Kane Show, Fox News Channel 4 p.m. yesterday. We laid out for you, complete with graphs, the affordability crisis in America. What goes up doesn't come down but stays up if it is subsidized by the government. government. Healthcare costs up over 300% in 25 years. Housing costs, up, education costs through the roof, even the hourly wage, above the normal rate of inflation, while flat-screen TVs, like every other consumer good in our society, plummets in accessibility and in price.

Why? Because as Ronald Reagan once said, the scariest thing in America is we're here from the government, and we're here to help. Everything touched by communalism, by socialism, by the government gets more scarce and more expensive. It's the way of the world. It's a law of physics. I laid that out for you yesterday at 4 o'clock Eastern time on the Wilcane channel. Interestingly, what I laid out for you was aggregated by, of course, the normal aggregators on the left. Let me show you a tweet. doesn't matter, the replies I find fascinating. Over on X. Aeson post our video with the caption Cain. There are parts of our economy subsidized by the government, everything, including average hourly wage because the minimum wage law is nothing but a subsidy inside the economy. That's unassailably

true. If you artificially inflate the price of something through government mandate, you've essentially created a government subsidy. A minimum wage law, is a false pressure inside the economy that creates a subsidy for the worker. Now, we can argue whether or not that's necessary, good, or bad. But there is no argument about the actual diagnosis. The comments under that post are pretty fascinating to me. This dude is an effing moron, explaining shit to other morons. Who is this idiot?

Is this one of Trump's children or just another inbred disciple from the Church of Dumb Economics? And on and on. Wages aren't subsidies. They are compensation for labor. Try it sometimes. I'm not talking about wages, my friend. One would have to listen, read, and comprehensively understand. I'm talking about minimum wage. But more importantly, I'm talking about government subsidies that drive prices up. We laid that out, I thought very well, explaining why it is defying the law of economics that to get a knee replacement will absolutely set you back hundreds of thousands of dollars, but LASIC eye surgery is cheaper and more. accessible. Why? One is covered by Medicare and Medicaid. One is left to the free market. We laid that out yesterday. And we may have actually been too smart because the government shutdown wasn't about ACA subsidies, Affordable Care Act subsidies, Obamacare. The ACA was about, of course, Donald Trump. And that's why today everyone is freaking. out, freaking out at the left. Every single politician who is not involved in making decisions

free from the burden of responsibility is crushing anyone that would dare open the government. People like John Stewart. Democrats, you sold out the entire shutdown not to get what you wanted, but for a promise to not get what you wanted later. Where in the art of war? Hold on. Where in the... Or, as we climb the ladder of intellect, Sonny Hosten, on the view.

Democrats had nothing to do with it. I want an opposition party. I think the Democrats caved. I think the Democrats let down the American people. Because these people know nothing of Obamacare. All they know is their Trump derangement syndrome. And that was laid out very well by Ezra Klein, writing, Democrats were winning the shutdown.

Why did they fold? Klein writes, to understand why the shutdown will end with such a whimper, you need to understand the strange role the ACA subsidies played in it. Democrats said the shutdown was about the subsidies, but for them, it wasn't. It was about Trump's authoritarianism. It was about showing their base and themselves they could fight back. It was about treating an abnormal political moment abnormally, because voting to shut down the government to change existing policy is absolutely abnormal. And Democrats put us through more than 40 days of a government shutdown.

People literally lost their jobs. Whether or not you think they should or shouldn't, the federal government should or shouldn't, Should or should not be paired back. It is a fact. Air traffic controllers went without paychecks. It is a fact people lost their job. And for what? For Trump derangement syndrome?

For pushing back on authoritarianism? For fighting Donald Trump. This is what's left. Not intellectual fights. Not ideological fights. Not fights for Obamacare. It's preening. performative fights to push back on Donald Trump. And there's no sacrifice of yours that they're

unwilling to make. They're willing to sacrifice the existence of the United States government. Brandon Johnson, Chicago mayor, asked the UN to step in yesterday and a peacekeeping mission in Chicago to push back on the democratically elected laws of the United States of America. and here you have Democrats shutting down the United States of America, but for nothing more deep, nothing than Trump derangement syndrome. If you wonder where all of this comes from, if you wonder how someone can lose their mind so much, let me introduce to you Stephanie Miller.

She is a radio host who, I guess, got to meet her hero. She got to meet Jasmine Crockett And what did Stephanie Miller do when she finally got to meet Jasmine Crockett literally kiss her feet She dropped to the floor On her knees

Taking into her hands The ankle of Jasmine Crockett Bringing her tennis shoes The laces to her lips And I'm not even here to laugh Friends I'm here to marvel I'm serious. I want to know Stephanie Miller. I want to know her mind. I want to know what she loves about Jasmine Crockett. I've been told that she's also somebody that wore a literal gas mask on a plane during COVID. So we might not be dealing with the healthiest of minds. We might not be dealing with, you know, sound thoughts, but I'm still curious. I've said to everybody, Booker. I want her on the show. I'm not here to dunk. I'm not here to cut her off.

I want to know what do you love about Jasmine Crockett that would bring you to your knees to kiss her feet. I'm not sure we're going to get anything substantive. My anticipation is it will be Trump derangement syndrome. I want to know, Stephanie Miller, why kiss the feet of Jasmine Crockett? And finally, I want to bring in two days, Dan and tinfoil pat. this is the big conversation. This is the big conversation. I believe, well, if not of our time and in our country,

it's the big conversation of the moment, at least. And it is affordability in America. What's up, guys? Good morning. Hey, how you doing? Do we need to kiss your feet when we see it? That's not a thing? I'm not going to do it because I'm American. I think there is a little too much ass kissing going on.

Yeah. Don't kiss my feet. or my ass. I do. I do. I got Ed and the guys talking about what great shots I hit in bumper pool. Oh, I would kick your ass. I would kick your ass on that.

Dan, you don't really let your flag fly the way I know it is down deep. So I think there's a little too much ass kissing. Let that trans flag fly, Dan. Jesus. Here's the conversation we had this morning about affordability. And interestingly, tinfoil Pat and I are in the same algorithm, I think. Don't you think, Patrick? Which says something about us.

I think we're fairly, very similar algorithm. But we don't always come away from that algorithm with the same thoughts. And we're often on different sides. And I think we are on this affordability thing. All right. Zohramam Dhani is the mayor elect of New York City, and people are saying he's coming in on the back of affordability. Let's just for a moment take that as true.

What I learned in the past 24 hours with the government shutdown and such is that you can search for deeper meaning, but the truth is oftentimes it's not. It is just simply Trump derangement syndrome. Anything and everything that feels like it's the most against Donald Trump will get your feet literally kissed, will get you praised in the media, and get you elected to office. So let's, that's very possible. It's possible that New York City voted for Zora Mamdani because they thought he was the most anti-Trump. but let's for a moment take that there's actually something more intellectual about it, right? And it is the affordability crisis. Well, in that vein, that's not just a left-wing conversation.

That is a right-wing conversation. In the last 24 hours, Donald Trump has talked about introducing a 50-year mortgage. By the way, Dan sent this a moment ago to me. The 50-year mortgage over time, just for the record, would look something like this. your monthly payment would drop on a $400,000 home with 20% down from $2,100 to $1,900. So you're going to save money monthly, right? Good in the short term. But over the life of that loan, on a 30-year mortgage, you're going to pay $446,000 in interest on the 30-year mortgage.

On the 50-year mortgage, that would be $835,000 in interest. You're putting real pain off over a longer period of time. And you'll be gone. But what Trump is doing is responding to affordability. Okay. That's what he's responding with, one could argue, a populist response to the affordability crisis. And that takes us into a real debate and a debate on the right. I was fascinated by this clip going around by Ben Shapiro.

Ben Shapiro appeared on the trigonometry podcast. That's Constantine Kisson, who's been on our show quite a bit. And a user on X, under the name Wolf, said, Ben Shapiro sums up why his brand of conservatism is dying fast and why the populist left will steamroll any Republican parroting Shapiro's views. He then quotes Shapiro, if you're a young person and you can't afford to live here, then maybe you should not live here, he says, to Native New Yorkers.

Now, here is the clip that accompanied that post of Ben Shapiro. If you're a young person and you can't afford to live here, then maybe you should not live here. I mean, that is a real thing. I know that we've now grown up in a society that says that you deserve to live where you grew up, but the reality is that the history of America

is almost literally the opposite of that. The history of America is you go to a place where there is opportunity. And if the opportunities are limited here and they're not changing, then you really should try to think about other places where you have better opportunities.

Okay, so Ben Shapiro, who has become a controversial, figure on the right. And let's be honest, a lot of that is about Israel, okay? But at this point, in many ways, on the right, that has made in persona non grata. And people don't want to hear any other arguments from Ben about whatever it may be, including economics. I'm only telling you what lurks in the background of a lot of these conversations. But Ben, as you saw, is chastised there for suggesting, you know, if you don't like the affordability situation of wherever you live, in this case, New York, maybe you should chase opportunities.

and move. And that's the history of America. Patrick sent that clip to me, and you quite honestly, Patrick, you hated what Ben had to say. And that's what you said. I sent you this morning a little longer context of what Ben had to say. Play that, Dan. Affordability is not like Beetlejuice, where if you just say it over and over, it suddenly arrives. You actually have to pursue policies that are likely to alleviate an affordability problem. But if your solution is always give me more power, And it does seem like that is the solution of the day from both sides, actually. Then you're likely to just continue penduluming one side to the other. Because people don't want to learn the actual lesson, which is if you actually want affordability,

then either you have to change policies or change locations. Those are really the only two things. And also, I think, more broadly, it's not about affordability. We have trained an entire generation of people to believe that if their lives are not what they want them to be, it's the fault of systems, as opposed to decisions that are in their own control. and politicians absolutely have a stake in selling that. A lot of people in our industry have a stake in selling that. It makes people feel good about themselves and bad about the world.

And the reality is if you want a better life, you should feel better about the world and worse about yourself until you actually, you know, go do the right thing. All right. I found that clip absolutely fascinating. Patrick, did that larger context change your mind at all about what he had to say? Well, I did qualify when I first sent the original clip that the context did matter. So like, you know, and it does matter to me,

a little bit. I do think he has some good points, but I also still disagree in general in regards to the systems in place, not being a problem. So, first of all, no, okay. And I don't think Ben would say that, that the system's not a problem. But I think that he's pointing something very addictive here. To constantly scapegoat the system is the reason for your situation in life falling below your expectations is a very addictive thing. You can place the problems outside of your control. You can say it's somebody else's fault. And that's not to say there aren't other people's faults. There isn't the fault of the system. And I'm just back in the envelope. So I told you guys this morning, I think Ben's 70% right there. I think 30% is what we laid out before. Look at medical

care costs. Look at housing costs. Look at education costs. All things that are influenced by the system, namely the government, trying to make them more affordable or more accessible, and they've all gotten out of the reach. Those are the three big ones for any young person. Now, I also think that he's right about young people and I know there is no way a politician gets elected saying I'm about to say or wanting to hear what Ben wanted to hear said. They don't want to hear what he said. We are, we have an entitlement crisis and I think it is fueled by social media or supercharged. Social media's currency is envy and people live through the prism of their screen seeing the way other people live and thinking they have an entitlement to a certain house

or a certain town or a certain type of vacation. And if you want those things, I do believe you have to figure out the choices in your life that lead you in that direction. It's going to be hard with the system. I told you guys this. If the situation were reversed and Ben were only 30% right

and it's 70% the system, personally, I would focus on the 30, not because I'm a badass. We're about to talk to Jock, right, in extreme motion. Not because I consider myself a badass. probably more because I'm a control freak and I'm like I've got to focus on that 30%

because I can control that 30% and I can change my circumstances through that 30% right even if I've got the markers off but I do recognize there are problems with our system and I also recognize that what I'm saying never will get you elected

and that's what Ben fears the pendulum of right and left promising to fix your life one side giving you free stuff to fix the system The other, I don't know where the rights going on this. There's a fascinating debate. Here, I'm going to leave you with this, and we're going to move on to our conversation with Jocko.

Went back. Do you guys remember a big debate between Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro a few years ago? It's fascinating. It's, I don't know, maybe five years old. All right. And Ben says to Tucker, hey, would you have the government step in and basically outlaw self-driving cars, self-driving trucks? and artificially protect that class. And Tucker goes, are you effing kidding me?

Like he's certain. Tucker is certain and exasperated. And his answer is, in a second, in a second, I would outlaw self-driving trucks. He said, it's the number one job for men with a high school education. And if you eradicate that in a five-year, 10-year period, he said, even a 30-year period, The social cost of destroying those men's career, destroying those men's lives, and destroying their family creation and their cohesion in society, then, is existential to our country. It would ruin America. It could bring us down. And so he proposes doing something like New Jersey's done when it comes to the gas pumps. You know, New Jersey is the only state in the country where they still have men that pump the gas, right? They're not, they're not autumn. You don't do it yourself.

because they have a law that requires it be the way it was in the 1980s. So Tucker was certain. That's what he would do. And I'm here to tell you, I get Tucker's argument and Ben's argument. Like, I'm sorry. I don't have that same level of certainty. I don't know what that does. Does the cost of trucking go through the roof if you artificially keep that? And therefore, for the price of every consumer good, go through the roof because you've got this artificially protected work, you know, class of labor. and now everybody complains about the price of bread

because it costs so much to get it to its final destination, right? You see, I am not smart enough to engineer economies. I can tell you that. I am not smart enough. And I'm not smart enough even to restructure a system. And that's why I fall back on capitalism because I don't think anybody's smart enough. But I do think Tucker's right.

The rate of everything falling apart is going to have the potential to destroy our social cohesion. And it's happening so fast. Wait till AI destroys what? 30% of the job market and everybody has to reinvent themselves in a five-year period. New jobs, new everything. And oh, by the way, buy yourself a home. Start a family and live by envy through social media.

You too should vacation in the Malfi Coast. I get where we are on affordability. And I'm even more afraid of where we're going. I just wish I was smart enough to figure it out. Let's talk to Jock Willink. the author of Extreme Ownership and also the dichotomy of leadership next on Wilcane Country

It is Veterans Day What Better Way to talk about that than with former Navy SEAL Jock O'Willick It is Wilcane Country at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel Follow us on Spotify and on Apple Joining us now is the author of Extreme Ownership, Jocko. What's up, Jocko?

How you doing? I'm good, man. I heard you were, because I'm running late as I often am, listening to the last eight minutes. And I invoked your name several times. And I feel like I've got to know you a little bit, even though we haven't ever met in person. And I think I know, like, what you like to talk about and what you don't like to talk about. But as I was thinking about this this morning, Jock, I was thinking about this affordability thing. And I'll tell you, my thoughts are a little sloppy, they're not cohesive.

I don't have the big easy takeaway for the audience. I really don't on affordability and broken systems and corruption and all these things. But I kept coming back to you, man, and what I knew you and I would talk about. And we have in the past. And that one thought I had was where I thought about you. Let's say I'm right. It's 70% your choices. It's 70% what you control in your own life.

But there's 30% that's broken. and the deck is stacked against you. But what if I'm wrong, and it's flipped the other way? I'd still focus on the 30 that I control. And not because I'm you. I don't wake up at 4.30, man. Because I feel better that way. I literally feel better, maybe diluting myself even,

that I'm in control of my circumstances. And so I just want to get your thoughts on that. If you want to talk about affordability or everything that's going on in relationship to the things you know and care about, I see the overlap jaco yeah for for sure and I agree with you and you know this this brings me back to the mentality in combat which mentality in combat you know you're going out you're taking your humvees in down a road in Iraq and you know when you go out there's a chance that you can get

blown up by a by roadside bomb like that can happen and there's some parts of that there's it doesn't matter what you do it doesn't matter how good you are doesn't matter what steps you take there's still a chance that that can happen. And if you focus on this chance that that might happen, I think I would have gone crazy over there. So instead, what I focused on is, okay, what can we do, what intel can we gather, what preventive measures can we put in place, what reactive drills can we rehearse so that we're as ready as we possibly can. And yes, this is the theme of extreme ownership. I'm going to take ownership of what I can actually control. And I would also tell you this, generally speaking, we can control a lot more in our lives than what people think.

And I don't very easily abandon the agency of what's going on in my world. And, you know, when I think about affordability of housing, you know, and I live in San Diego, I think San Diego might actually be more expensive than New York. It's really expensive out here. You know, when I had, when I was a young Navy guy, I lived in my house with my wife and four kids. It was a 934 square foot house. And why did I do that? This was in a time when you could get, you know, these loans that had a,

what, no documentation. You could basically borrow as much money as you wanted, but I tried to fit, you know, try and borrow money that I could actually afford to pay back. And it put me in a really tiny house and that's where I lived. And when you walked through the front door of my house, on the right hand side was a couch and a TV. On the left hand side of the main room that you walked into was the bed where my wife and I slept. That was our bedroom. And then we had two kids in one room and two kids in the other room. And so that's what we did. And, you know, over time, you save money and you build equity and you are able to expand on the house and eventually hopefully buy a new house. But I think the idea that, you know, you're going to

just automatically get the house of your dreams. That's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. And, and the only way, instead of concentrating on. Do you think there's an entitlement crisis? You know, I don't know. I talk to people all the time. I don't, I don't just spend my time on, on social media. And I go out and talk with normal people. And, Normal people. And by the way, I have kids that are 25, 22, 24, and 16 years old. So I've got kids that are in this bracket. And they are all working hard trying to make things happen, trying to put things together. They don't complain to me about what they can and cannot afford. They're out there trying to make things happen. So, you know, I don't see much of that. I don't see much of it with my own eyes. I think when you go on social media, you can definitely see some of that. But I think if you go out and interact with normal people, And even young people today, I don't, I don't see a lot of it with my own eyes. Well, you're the last guy somebody's going to come to with their entitlement problems. You know, I mean, that's like going to a priest.

Well, I guess people do go to a priest and tell them about the lust that they're dealing with. But I don't think anybody's confiding in you because they're not going to find a very willing listener on, man, I really wish I could vacation in the Malfi Coast like all the people I follow on Instagram. You know, it's funny you keep bringing up the Malfi Coast. I don't even know what the Malfi Coast is. So that's where I'm at. Well, you'd have had no reason to ever invade it, Jocko. I mean, it's beautiful on the, I've never been, but it's like the quintessential vacation

spot on Instagram. It's on the Italian coast. It's beautiful with buildings falling down, not literally falling, like cascading down into the sea, yachts off in the water. I don't even know. I assume it's expensive. The combat thing, that's interesting because of course, of course there are things outside of your control. Perhaps even bad leadership, bad intel, bad plans put in place that are beyond

your control. And of course, just like in life, bad effing luck. Like there's a lot that can go in, but, and you could be, you could be effed from the outset of your mission, I'm sure. I'm sure there are missions that are doomed to fail from their inception. I'm sure that happens. And yet you got to control what you can control. Or you're not able even going out. and doing your job, period. Yeah, to be honest with you, I never went on any operations that I thought were going to be doomed from the start. If we thought that there was going to be that much resistance or that many problems, then I would

say no. And I had good enough relationships with the people I work for that if I said no, they said, yeah, if Jock was saying no to this thing, then we probably shouldn't do it. So I always had that good relationship. That doesn't really happen. But yes, every mission that you go on and everything that you do in life, there's going to be risks, and you're never going to get exactly what you want. bad luck is going to happen in the military the term Murphy's law is a real thing and it will

absolutely happen and if you focus on the things that went wrong and the focus on the things that are out of your control and focus on the system that you can't even interact with what good what you're wasting your energy so don't waste your energy uh buckle down control what you can control yeah um and which by the way you've written about extensively with extreme ownership Do you feel the same way as me, Jocka? Like, it's not just, I don't know, it's not just a self-improvement recipe. I feel better. It's almost like a mental health recipe for me.

I don't like thinking about things outside of my control. It makes me really unhappy. And I've often said, like, I'm not afraid to fail. I would rather fail by my own account than succeed. by luck i think i don't know but um i i'm okay as long as i'm in control of it like i fell by my own choices yeah and that's a that's a little mental hump that people need to get over because it does hurt it does hurt to look around at your life and look at your financial situation and look at your relationships and look at where you are and if you don't like it to look

at all those things and say you know what this is because of me that hurts but the beautiful thing as you just said, is once you make that mental transition, now you have control over it. Now you can change things in your world to try and improve your situation. And that is ownership. And it does, it does give you control. So I think it is a, it's a tough mental hump for people to get over. But once you get over it, it's very rewarded. Have you thought about that, Jocko, on a societal level? Like what I described earlier. Look, I don't need your opinion on it. You can give it if you want, Jocko. But like, okay, so essentially the people of New York say, look, I'm unhappy with my circumstances in life. I think it's due to circumstances

outside of my control. I'm going to vote for this guy who promises to fix the system. And his answer, his prescription is through increasingly number of things that we will provide you, free. And then the flip side is, and this is definitely happening on the right, and I don't think it's all wrong is the hard part, is the other side starts to say it is the system, it is the system. I wonder what that means for a society. Psychologically. At some point, for an entire society, begin to think that it doesn't have agency over its own life. And we pendle in the swing back and forth between two different leadership, quote-unquote leadership groups that promise to fix things that are beyond our control. It really, I think, has the potential for a schizophrenic, you know, out-of-control population.

Yeah, one of the things I heard you saying in the last segment, it might have been the smartest thing you said in the last segment was that you aren't smart enough to run an economy. And guess what? No one else is either. No centralized agency can run an economy. They can't out think what the market is going to do. And that's why when we interfere with the market, there generally will be problems. And listen, I understand that there are certain parameters you have to put in some level of control, but you've got to keep that as broad as you possibly can because human beings and systems just aren't smart enough to figure out and stay ahead of what the market requires.

Let's take a quick break, but continue this conversation on Veterans Day with the author of Extreme Ownership, former Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink. Welcome back to Will Kahn Country. We're still hanging out with former Navy SEAL, Jocko Wilnik. All right, Jocko, it is Veterans Day. I'm going to have a couple of guys on a little later today, one of whom was a Navy SEAL, Chris Cassidy. And, you know, one of the things, I already know what I'm going to ask them, but I'm going to do it with you as well. Last week I played this clip of this veteran, British military, UK, World War II, really old, like 100 years old. Voice is kind of feeble, but not for 100 years old. Let's put it that way.

And he says, did you see this, Jocko? He says, rows and rows of white tombs and graves. I look at that. They're all my friends and everybody's fallen. And I look at what they fought for and where we are today in the UK, and I think it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth it. what we fought for he's talking about the UK he says like a free country that embodies our values is is long gone and I look at that and go I don't know what we sacrificed for if we gave it up

so willingly ourselves I don't presume that you would feel that way but can you imagine that feeling you know what I mean can you imagine looking at everything you fought to defend and then seeing a scenario here at home we're like and now it's all gone anyway Yeah, it's a really heartbreaking clip to watch that guy. And, you know, you can look at what England is going through right now. And England is becoming very difficult to recognize as England, as the England that existed during World War II for sure, you know, what those, what those Brits stood up against. And yeah, if you look at England right now, it's very difficult to recognize. So I understand the sentiment that that veteran was going through.

But I would hope you feel nothing like that about where we are in the United States. You know, I'm an optimistic person, and I believe that the pendulum, you know, goes back and forth all the time. And, you know, people often say, like, we've never been as divided as we are right now. And I always say, well, certainly we were more divided than this during the Civil War. And really, in the late 1960s and early 70s, we were very divided, probably more than we are right now. bombings all the time. There were assassinations all the time. And so we were probably more divided than than we are now. And we swung back from that. So, you know, I always have a positive attitude and optimistic outlook that we will swing back and maintain our values as a nation. Is there a chance

that things could get a little bit too far off the rails? I think there's always a chance of that. But listen, I also always remind people that when people start thinking about tearing down the country, but they're also like looking at their iPhone and getting a Starbucks, it's very hard to truly maintain a rebellious attitude when you've got the luxuries that we have in this country. I've never thought about that. For all the revolutionaries out there, their biggest Achilles heel may be their iPhone and their Starbucks. So we've got that going for us, which is nice in the words of Bill Murray. Um, you know, uh, what do you think you, I think the last time you were on with me, maybe when

might have been during the confirmation process of my friend, uh, somebody you supported Pete Hegseth. How do you think things are going at what I used to would have said is DOD, uh, what do we say now? D.O.W. It just doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way. I think we just said, I just doesn't roll off the tongue. I told him that. Seck death rolls off the tongue. DOD rolls off the tongue. Seck wars just got a, I don't have it, I don't have it as an instinct yet. Well, I think you should get it there because I think that's the way it's supposed to be. A, um, I can give you some reports from the front lines. I was, I was with the Marines at Camp Pendleton for a birthday party for 250 years. There's 15,000 Marines on the ground. There was

aircraft, fighter jets, helicopters, tanks, the whole nine yards. It was, it was an epic event. And I can, I can tell you, when Secretary of War, Heggseth showed up, the Marines were absolutely fired up for, to see him, to hear the words that he had to say. I think that this is real obvious. You know, when you talk to the frontline troops, the frontline troops are completely on board with what he's trying to do. And then, you know, you could make the criticism that, yeah, well, that's just the frontline troops.

What's he doing with the top? And you go and watch that speech that he gave at the National War College the other day of really trying to fix our acquisition system. which is an absolute problem. And look, was it a problem 10 years ago? Yeah, it was a bit of a problem, but the nature of war wasn't moving as quickly as it is now.

That is a strategic requirement right now that we address the slow-moving acquisition system that we've had in the past with the military-industrial complex, with the just bureaucracy that's in place. And Pete Hegg-Seth, the Secretary of war is addressing that because he knows that is what is going to be critical in the next fight. Look, in World War II, we had to go out and we had to build ships and tanks and planes,

and we did it. Right now, we've got to be able to adapt technologically very quickly, and that old system does not work. So I can tell you from the front lines, Hegseff, Secretary of War is very popular. I think there's probably some flag officers and general officers that are not happy about his presence. I think they're leaving rapidly. So from the front lines, I think he's doing an outstanding job. The troops love him. And then addressing, I think, the biggest strategic issue that we have, which is our acquisition system. I think he's on that and he's going to make some changes there and he's going to do it aggressively. Okay, really quick. I want to follow up on those three things. First of all, you're way more in touch, obviously,

than I would be. But anecdotally, anytime I hear the same thing about the front line. and the way he's being received among the troops. The flag officers, that's interesting to me as well. And I keep hearing that. Why do you think, Jocko? I mean, he gave the speech in front of all of them about physical standards and the mentality, the warrior ethos of the new military.

Is it that or is it just disruption of the way of doing business for the past half century and careerism? What do you see is the source for the discontent among the, flag officers. Just probably a combination of all those things. But when someone comes in and wants to make change and you've been doing something a certain way and you've you've written a certain system to get to where you are and someone comes in and wants to change that system, that can be scary. And the other thing is if you haven't been focused on war fighting and someone comes in and they shift the focus from all these other programs to war fighting, which is what you're

what the Department of War is supposed to be doing, and you haven't been war fighting, you're probably not going to like it, right? It's like if you were training for a basketball, you know, a basketball game, and then someone came in at the last minute and said, hey, actually, we're not going to do basketball game. We're going to do mixed martial arts.

You'd say, hold on a second. I was getting ready with my jump shot over here. And now you've got someone that's going to punch me in the face. You're going to be mad about that. I think the real warfighters in the flag and general officers, there's a lot of flag and general officers that were totally on board and are totally on board, and that made it through the system

despite the the basketball players that weren't wanting to fight. And then the procurement thing that you brought up and I keep hearing that a lot as well like how big a deal that is. And also on the shipbuilding front

I do hear about that as well that we've got to get our shipbuilding back and that we're pretty, somebody gave me a quiz the other day and said, do you realize how many is it subs we produce every year? Like can you give me the over under? And it was, is it like one?

I can't remember. It's incredibly low. But you also talk about the technologically rapid pace of modern warfare, moving to drones, moving to automation, moving to all these other things. So how can he, and how is he, improving acquisitions from the system that existed before that's going to set us up for this new modern warfare? Yeah, that's what you talked about earlier. It's capitalism. It is engaging with commercial and putting competition in place where instead of just going to the biggest con the biggest military industrial complexes to find out a solution to a problem put it out on the open market and let people come to the table and that's why america's great in the first place and we've isolated our military industrial complex away from that and he's opening up the doors and saying hey if you have something some technology that can help us or an idea or a system that will help us win we want it and we want it now and that is a that's going to be a game changer and it really does need to be that way, especially because the military industrial

complex, those big companies, look, they were building billion dollar ships and a hundred million dollar aircraft. We're talking about companies that need to be building $250 drones. That's what we need right now. And there's going to be some people that are going to be able to do that rapidly. And by the way, the drone that we build this week, we're going to need to build a completely different drone in three weeks. And if we're a big giant company, we won't have the nimbleness to do. that. So he's opening up competition, putting in capitalism back into the military industrial complex. And I think it's a, that's how he's going to make it happen. That's how America has always won. Who built the tanks? Ford, right? It was, it was our, it was our industry that built

these, these big aircraft carriers and whatnot in the past. But now we need someone that can do it nimbly. And that's why he's commercializing it. All right. Finally, uh, Jocko is hosting a Fox Nation special above, below, and beyond, celebrating 250 years of the Navy and the Marine Corps. It is up on Fox Nation. Tell us about the show, Jocko. Yeah, this is an epic thing. I don't think that any Hollywood production company could have put this thing together. This is aircraft carriers, fighter jets, stealth bombers, just everything, Marines, Navy. It's an incredible thing. There's an honor to be a part of it. And it takes place all over the world. They traveled to a bunch of different locations to film

it. And then it went on Fox Nation and it did so well on Fox Nation that the president is going to stream it live on Twitter on X, Twitter X tonight from the White House account. I think it's eight o'clock Eastern time, a celebration of 250 years of the United States and the Marine Corps. And really just an honor to all veterans, everyone that has gone out and signed that dotted line to make a sacrifice for the country, do what the nation needed. And it's going to be seen by as many Americans as possible tonight with the Commander-in-Chief. That is awesome. Streaming on X tonight from the Commander-in-Chief.

Hosted by Jocko, great to see you. Appreciate all the conversation we had today, and we have every time. Thank you, man. Thanks for having me. Good seeing you. Good to see you as well. I remember check out Jocco's book, Extreme Ownership, and he also has written the dichotomy of leadership. He's also the host of the Jocco podcast.

So make sure you check out. all of those things as well. Okay. Who said this? Who said it? AI is nothing but the most gigantic plagiarism mechanism. Breaking bad.

In the world? Creator. Oh, Vince. Vince, uh, is it Gilligan? Vince Gillian, yep. Gilliam? Gilligan. Breaking bad creator.

AI, nothing but a gigantic plagiarizer. I think he's onto something when we come back on. Wilcane country. Hey, you know what? I love. A real American success story. And Brooklyn bedding started with a guy named John out in Arizona. No fancy degree, just grit, hustle, and a dream. And today, they handcraft some of the best mattresses you can find right here in the USA. Now, I'll tell you my experience. I have a Brooklyn bed mattress. I do. Legit. And it couldn't have been easier. It showed up at my door in a big box. I unboxed it.

And I instantly knew this was different. I picked the firmness level that I wanted beforehand on their website. And then, let me tell you, I've been sleeping better than ever now that I got exactly what it was tailored for me and my desires. No more saggy dips, no restless nights, just real comfort and support from Brooklyn bedding. What makes them stand out, it's every mattress is built on their own in an Arizona factory. No middlemen, no gimmicks, just honest pricing, top-tier quality. true American craftsmanship. They got a mattress for everybody, every sleep style, even those hard-to-find sizes.

And if you sleep hot, if you sleep hot, their glaciotex cover and copper-flex foam helps keep you cool all night. Plus, Brooklyn Bedding is one of the few mattress brands endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association for spinal alignment and back health. And yes, they are 100% fiberglass-free. Here's the best part. You can try at risk-free with their 129 comfort trial, and don't just take my word for it. They've been rated the best mattress by C-NET and Best Hybrid Matt by Wirecutter. So here's what you do. Go to Brooklynbetting.com. Use my name as the promo code, Will.

And check out for 30% off sitewide. That's Brooklynbetting.com, and remember, use the promo code, W-I-L-L, and don't forget, after checkout, enter that show name so they know that I sent you there. We sent you there from Will Cain Country. Get that 30% off. Get yourself a mattress from Brooklyn betting. All right, we'll be right back on Will Cain Country. You know what? I want to go back to this. Freedom over on YouTube says, I agree with you, Will.

You have to be responsible for yourself. But Sundog 11 says banks, interest rates, and a lack of housing is the issue. Freedom also says, Shapiro is absolutely right. It is Wilcane Country at the Wilcane Country YouTube channel on the Fox News Facebook page, Spotify, Apple. Let's bring you back into In Full Pat and Two a Days Dan. I think this is an impossible conversation to have in one sitting. I really do. And it makes me feel stupid. It really does, guys. Like sometimes I'll see these clips. And a lot of these guys are legitimately, well, a lot of these guys are legitimately, well, a lot of these guys are

legitimately smarter than me. But I don't get their clarity on how to move forward. The only clarity I have is internally. Do you know what I mean? Like what I should do. I know, I strongly know what I should do. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's really hard. And honestly, Patrick, like, for example, I thought, I've been thinking about you, Patrick, because these texts are sending me. And Mr. Dium and Gloom. You know, I was thinking. about today. I was thinking about it in the shower. I was thinking about you in the shower, Patrick. And I was thinking about my son, right? And I was thinking, what would I tell my son? Both of my sons. And I have a lot of advice on what they should do, meaning what choices they should make,

including, by the way, where they should live, who they should marry, where they should put their kids in school. You know what I mean? All that stuff. But it's all centered around advice on what they should choose. And by the way, based on your experience. Trust me, as somebody who's in yeah, man, I mean, based upon my experience. And by the way, they got to make their own choices. There's only so much advice can do. And honestly, should do. But I don't have advice, Patrick, on what we should do. It's really hard. It's what makes me feel stupid. Like, You all, you're a big Ron Paul guy, and you go back to the Federal Reserve, and, you know, you think it's the source of a lot of our systemic problems. And by the way, I think you're right.

I do know why we have the Federal Reserve. Like, I know why it was created. It was created to, literally to soften the economy. That's what it was done. To do away with booms and busts. Like, if you look at the American economy before, what was the Federal Reserve? Like, was it the 19 teens? 1920s when it came in.

Well. Okay. Yeah, 1912. So pretty close. If you look at the economy of the late 1800s, it's boom and bus cycles at pretty rapid rates, like every five to ten years. You got a huge boom, huge bust, right? So people were going bust, and they were worried about that, so they wanted to soften it out by controlling the money supply. one could argue that's a noble concept but one could also argue those boom and bus cycles are exactly what creates opportunity it flushes out bad investment it flushes out you know bad businesses bad choices and once you flush it out you get a system that's much more ripe for someone making something of themselves you know from the ground up but once you start saving things because

the pain is too much. I think you created a safety net and a ceiling. And that's pretty frustrating for people to be in that in between. The point is, I don't know if that means, you know, you do away with the Federal Reserve, you go back to the gold standard. I don't know what that means. I'm just not smart enough. But I get it from the health care system to the money supply, from education subsidies to even the one that the left is mocking me for, hourly wages, you know, being subsidized through the advent of the minimum wage loss. I want people to all make a working wage. I think, like Tucker often says, like, I think an American should have a right to build a family and pursue some level of happiness. You know what else is a sliding

scale? Happiness. Happiness. And that's where that envy thing comes back in, right? And entitlement. What are you, what makes you happy? And I think we have definitely raised the standards on that over time you know anyway um did your did your mind change at all patrick um slight i mean now i'm like thinking well now i got to go out here and just be like jaco and figure it out and you know maybe i'll maybe i'll just not sleep and uh you know it is it is out there it is different generation to generation like as a millennial my situation is different than a gen z person you know we were taught by you know our parents are boomers so we still have that kind of work ethic thing and you know we don't have this like give me give me give me but we are still in the same

situation where we can't afford anything but there is a younger generation who people who voted for mom donnie mostly that have you know i'm owed this because just because you know because our situations are so crap i'm owed something for free millennials get crap down a lot But it's really like the Zoomers who, you know, we still have a pretty good work ethic in general, I would say. Well, like, okay, you have a bunch of kids, Patrick, Dan, you don't have kids yet. Like, think about what you would tell your kids. What would you say to your kids? Would you say you're effed?

Give up now? The system's rigged against you? Would you say that? Would you tell them? Don't try. It's not worth it. Work the system. Work it.

Yeah. I mean, you're going to have to work the system. We're going to have to figure out a way around the system. I mean, the system's different. Is that AI, is that, you know, the internet, social media? I don't know. It's about to change. It's hard to give a consumer.

Advice. I mean, even if you sell Palmer's going to be out of a job soon, you know, with AI. Who? Honky talk, honky talk, whatever. AI sex workers. It's coming for people. That's good. It's already there.

man, at least James Tolerico has that going for him. She looks like a real person. It wasn't AI Instagram. Imagine if it was. Maybe she is. We would never know. We've been trying to book her. Patrick,

you're going to book Honky Tonk Angel? I'm going to work on it. It makes me feel really awkward. I definitely didn't look her up. Let's confirm. Let's confirm she's not AI. You know what I mean? I'm not saying she's AI.

I'm saying she's going to be out of a job with AI coming. Yeah. So like all, you know, all these people going to that, it's like, what are you going to do? I mean, there are literally women who make millions of dollars. Customizable pleasure. So, so I went to a thing the other night. I just randomly walked into it kind of.

I was at another thing, a friend of mine said, come over here. And it was about robotics. And Elon Musk recently spoke to the robotics thing, like how far away they are. And they're all talking about jobs. Like this job, that job. I started thinking about the family immediately. I'm like, how many dudes are going to have, an AI robot chick, you know?

Can't afford kids these days anyways. And then you're talking about what? What are you going to? Well, and you know what else you can do? We did this story yesterday. Now they have the gene editing company that they say Sam Altman and the Coinbase guy are investing in. And you can gene edit.

And the point of that they say is to eradicate genetic disease so that you don't have kids born with certain genetic diseases. But come on. Have you seen Gattaca? Andrew Yang about this. Yeah, totally. You know where this is going. Yeah.

People are going to select for height. They're going to select for intelligence. And how long is the leap from that to you just create babies? You and your robot wife create babies with genetic donors, you know, I guess. And then you edit those genes into an amalgamation of perfection. And what are we talking about at that point? We're going to build ourselves out of existence as a human species. in our lifetime in our lifetime yeah i mean so what does that mean for what the government should do

about that control what you can control go get your very very human wife define happiness together pursue it relentlessly with your choices work hard serve god you're here for a higher purpose you're not here just to make money you're not here just to acquire material things go control those things and you will live a life makes me want to have a bunch of kids honestly yeah like go the other way not new york too well yeah i'll move down to florida with patrick we'll be neighbors i know all you new yorkers are moving here and raising my my cost man i need to we need to have a mass exodus of freaking you know what i'm going to get desantis on this we need to kick these new yorkers out. Too many immigrant

New Yorkers. Wow. A guy literally said to me the day, is there anything Abbott can do Governor of Texas? Because he joked about putting tariffs on New Yorkers moving in. The guy was legitimately curious. Is there anything we can do to keep them from moving here? And I'm like, no, there's nothing you can do.

I appreciate, unless you secede from the union. It's over. Build a wall, man. Make that wall 360 degrees now. Carry it on up the Sabine along Louisiana, along the Red River, around Oklahoma. just keep building that wall, baby. It's becoming your own country. All right.

Final takes. Tinfoil pat. All right. So Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad, had this to say about AI. He said it is the world's worst plagiarism machine. He thinks that AI is essentially just taking everyone's material. And then whenever you get something output from it, it's just spitting out what somebody already made. And so you're actually not, it's not creating anything, which I actually agree with in

general. All a bunch of horseshit, he says. Yes. You know what? He's right. So did we talk about this? I don't know if this was a private conversation I had or this was a conversation that I had on air. It all mixes at this point. What we're talking about the AI right now is large language models, right? They survey the internet and every people, of, you know, published information, they synthesize it and organize it. That's what AI does. And the whole interactive feature makes it so it's like you're having a conversation. And it's really good. It puts Google out of business. That's what it is. It puts Google search out of business. But it's not, it has a real cap on its ability to be right and insightful as long as

it's built upon a large language model. Because all it's doing is grabbing what already exists and putting it together in different forms for you. And it often does it wrong. And somebody saying, AI is our future, but not the AI we're dealing with today. And everything that we're building and building upon is sort of like building railroad lines to nowhere in the 1800s. We don't know that the end of that rail is someplace that people need to actually be. And it may go to nowhere. And the money we're spending, the investment we're putting into it, both publicly and privately, could end up bust.

Some guys were pointing out to me, every industry has produced massive bankruptcies, every innovative industry in the beginning. It's the second wave. I've famously, I've quoted this a lot. It's from the book Sonic Boom, and I believe it's from KKR, the big venture capital firm. They're like, we don't invest in pioneers. We invest in settlers. Pioneers get scalped. Settlers come in after.

words, and that's who actually produces success. And it's not that the pioneer isn't noble. The pioneers pushing frontiers, but the risk is through the roof, you know, getting scalped, or going bankrupt in these industries. And they go like every one of them, from railroads to telecom to every single one, the first company's in that built these things out, bust, bust, bust, bust. It's the ones that comes after. And it's pretty interesting to think that could be the case with AI as well.

The data centers we're building, the models we're building it on LLMs, chat GPT, open AI, perplexity, all something we look back upon, like MySpace. It's not going to be what it actually ends up being. It doesn't mean we won't have AI, but we won't have this version of AI. The problem is energy. I mean, we're going to get to a point where we just can't fill that energy need, and it's going to be way too much cost for a little bit of increase in productivity. activity from AI. So we'll get to a point where it just doesn't make sense anymore. It'll just have to stop. The guy who's shorted the housing market

just shorted AI. He thinks it's going to be a bubble that will pop. Yeah, we need to ramp that and you clear up fast. Michael Burr? Yeah. Michael Burry? Is that who you're talking about? Michael Burry? Yeah, yeah. The big short He's played Christian Bail's character. Exactly, yeah. I mean, it's just energy. It's just, it doesn't

make sense. We're going to work it out of existence. Well, that's why you've seen, by the way, climate, climate change, that's also like, we're going to look back on that with such revulsion. Seriously, it's going to be such the dumbest religion that was ever created for a short period of time. That's why Bill Gates is out on it now.

Bill Gates is out on it because he now realizes the energy needs are going to be through the roof. And you're not going to get that through a bunch of windmills and solar panels. Maybe there have to be part of the recipe, but, Patrick, it takes decades to put a nuclear facility online. Yeah, you're right, though. better get on it better get on it but we just had one of the most recent ones down here on our supply power grid project Vogel so it takes a while and even then it's

but for us just to like type in chat gbt it doesn't make sense to use up all that energy just so like you know write something you know to me plagiarize yes exactly all right uh you have something else for final takes patrick i do i do happen to have something so there have been billions of accounts that have been compromised and and people have determined that these are the top passwords that people have been using it's a lot like the movie space balls where they were trying to get the guy's password i don't know if you guys see the space balls no brooks that's good um so these are the these are the passwords not to use india at one two three is one of the top ones one two three four five six cordy which is your

your top buttons on your keyboard password and then these are uh and then you also have one two three four five six seven eight you know there's people watching being like damn it i got to change my password now admin to a a one two three four five six yeah boomer generation these are the most popular passwords people use yes password one two three wow nowadays i would think that like with a lot of the uh a lot of the passwords you're supposed to to have like these compound passwords with like you know capitalization I think it's capitalized yeah I think it's more people don't take cybersecurity as seriously as they should I think that's kind of the issue

I don't know you're gonna be changing your pen today work here you do no I know but I think just the regular I mean I got to change that damn password every six weeks and I can't remember them Facebook how many times do you reset a password every week every week I'm resetting some password yeah yeah Facebook is a nightmare. By the way, who's doing India at one, two, three? Never heard of such a thing. There's a lot of people.

There's a lot of people in India. When I talk about the system being rigged, like, you know, I thought about going and doing like coding, you know, back when they were, they were saying, oh, you're in a coal mine. I think Hillary Clinton said, why don't you go learn to code? And I'm like, I consider learning to code, you know. But now all those jobs are going to India. And that this is a prime example of that. India at one, two, three.

And those jobs are gone. Yeah. And AI's killing, AI's killing those jobs, coding. Yeah. Right. That was 10 years ago. She said, learn to code. Was it Hillary that said that?

I don't know if it was Hillary. Yeah, she was the big one. As a euphemism, that lasted 10 years. And as a usomism, learn to code. Somebody fill in the blank, learn to what now? Learn to what, if you're telling your kids what to do? Learn to X. Fill that in in the comment section.

Here, we'd love to hear your thoughts. That's going to do it for us today here on Will Cain Country. We hope you will subscribe to us on Spotify or Apple. We'll see you again next time. Listen to ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members, you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music app.