The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1820 - Jack Carr

00:00:01.000 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

00:00:04.000 The Joe Rogan Experience.

00:00:06.000 Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

00:00:12.000 And we're up.

00:00:13.000 We are up.

00:00:14.000 In the blood.

00:00:15.000 In the blood.

00:00:16.000 You are, without a doubt, within the last 20 years of my life, I've read more of your fiction than anybody else's.

00:00:23.000 Dude, thank you.

00:00:25.000 It's a fact.

00:00:25.000 I am honored.

00:00:26.000 It's kind of a lie, because I'm not reading it.

00:00:29.000 I'm listening.

00:00:30.000 I know, but it's kind of interchangeable today.

00:00:32.000 Yes.

00:00:32.000 It's sort of.

00:00:33.000 But when I say, like, John L. Rawlings give me a hard time.

00:00:36.000 They do.

00:00:36.000 He goes, how you read it while you're just listening?

00:00:38.000 Yeah.

00:00:38.000 He's right.

00:00:39.000 Yeah, it's listening.

00:00:40.000 Reading is harder than listening, but I don't have that time.

00:00:43.000 For me, it's like, I've finished your books in the sauna and on the commute to work.

00:00:48.000 I'm going to try my best to get that out of my head.

00:00:50.000 I'm wearing underwear.

00:00:53.000 It's after training.

00:00:55.000 It's very manly.

00:00:56.000 Don't worry.

00:00:57.000 People think of the sauna as like a leisure activity, but the way I do it is pretty rough.

00:01:02.000 I do it after training, and I do it at 189 degrees, and I do it for 25 minutes.

00:01:06.000 It's hard.

00:01:07.000 We're putting one of those in because of you and a bunch of other people that have talked about the benefits of doing that.

00:01:13.000 So one's going in at the new house.

00:01:15.000 It's a life changer.

00:01:16.000 Do you go between that and the cold thing?

00:01:18.000 The cold bath?

00:01:19.000 Yes.

00:01:19.000 Yeah, I go back and forth.

00:01:20.000 It's so easy.

00:01:21.000 Once you go in the cold thing and then go back in 189 degrees, It's so easy.

00:01:27.000 So I wind up doing...

00:01:29.000 I usually do about 20 minutes in the hot until I can't take it anymore, and then I jump in the cold, and then I do three minutes in the cold, and then I could do another 15, 20 minutes easy in the hot before I start getting hot again.

00:01:40.000 Just because your body is so cold.

00:01:43.000 I know.

00:01:43.000 It sounds not healthy, though, because it sounds like things are going from open to closed.

00:01:47.000 I don't know.

00:01:48.000 I just...

00:01:48.000 It builds resilience.

00:01:49.000 It seems like if I got one of those, because we're definitely doing the hot one, it's going to have this nice view over the mountains and everything, and then I'm thinking about putting it in the cold tub and maybe, but I think it would just be almost for looks, because I'd do it once and say, that was horrible.

00:02:02.000 I'm not doing that again.

00:02:03.000 Why would ones do that to themselves?

00:02:04.000 It's not that bad.

00:02:05.000 It's not.

00:02:06.000 It's not that bad.

00:02:07.000 It's good.

00:02:08.000 It's good for you.

00:02:09.000 And you feel good.

00:02:10.000 It wakes you up.

00:02:10.000 Oh, yeah.

00:02:11.000 I love it.

00:02:12.000 I needed one this morning because my light got delayed last night.

00:02:14.000 So I was in it like 3.30 in the morning and then up for interviews because the book just came out.

00:02:18.000 And I was actually thinking about that.

00:02:19.000 I was like, I'm going to get in a cold shower.

00:02:20.000 I'm going to turn it on.

00:02:21.000 And when I got in that shower, there was no cold water.

00:02:24.000 It's hot out.

00:02:25.000 Once it's hot out in Texas, the water's warm.

00:02:27.000 But we're having one installed here.

00:02:29.000 It'll be here at the end of the month.

00:02:30.000 The cold or the hot?

00:02:31.000 The cold and the hot.

00:02:32.000 We'll have one back to back next to each other.

00:02:34.000 I didn't take you next door.

00:02:35.000 Let's check it out.

00:02:36.000 Afterwards, I'll show you the gym.

00:02:37.000 But we have, at the house, I have a barrel sauna right next to the cold plunge, and it's the best.

00:02:44.000 It's just going back and forth.

00:02:46.000 It's awesome.

00:02:47.000 But Cam Haines says that the way to do the cold is you do the cold and then let your body heat up naturally.

00:02:53.000 And that is the best way to get the most out of the cold.

00:02:57.000 That sounds more healthy than just going back and forth between the two.

00:03:00.000 I don't know.

00:03:01.000 It's hard to do.

00:03:01.000 Last time I did last night, I went out last night.

00:03:04.000 And so before me and the wife went out, I got in the cold plunge for like three minutes.

00:03:09.000 And then it took hours before I felt warm. 0.99

00:03:12.000 I was in the car freezing my ass off, and she's like, oh my god, it's so hot, and she's turning the AC up, and I'm like, shit! 0.98

00:03:18.000 I mean, it's hypothermic, essentially. 0.98

00:03:20.000 I mean, you're on the verge of it, because it's harder for you to warm your body back up, and that's what hypothermia is.

00:03:24.000 You can't warm it back up on your own, so you're close if it's taken a while.

00:03:28.000 I'm fine.

00:03:29.000 I mean, three minutes, I'm fine.

00:03:30.000 One time I did 20 minutes.

00:03:31.000 That was hard.

00:03:33.000 That time it was in the summer, and I was driving.

00:03:35.000 It was like in 90 degree weather, and I was driving all the way to work with the windows rolled up, and I was still freezing, shivering.

00:03:43.000 No AC on, shivering.

00:03:44.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:45.000 I think there's...

00:03:46.000 I don't know.

00:03:46.000 That's not smart.

00:03:47.000 No, I mean, like, I feel like I did that in Buds and just, like, I'm good.

00:03:52.000 You've been there.

00:03:52.000 I think so.

00:03:53.000 I mean, I feel like I don't need to keep doing it.

00:03:55.000 The ocean on the Pacific is brutal.

00:03:58.000 It can be a little chilly.

00:03:59.000 Oh, my God.

00:04:00.000 People are used to the ocean on the Atlantic.

00:04:02.000 The Atlantic Ocean is not bad, you know, especially if it flies.

00:04:05.000 Florida?

00:04:05.000 It's pretty nice.

00:04:06.000 Yep, and you get that warm water that comes up, and Pacific just really stays cold the whole time.

00:04:11.000 The whole time.

00:04:11.000 And that's where most of the quitters come from in BUDS is because of that cold.

00:04:15.000 Really?

00:04:16.000 That's interesting.

00:04:16.000 I mean, the sleep deprivation part of it in Hell Week, I guess, plays in, but I think it plays in more because the cold's affecting your body more, because you haven't slept in, like, Wednesday night, and you're just freezing.

00:04:26.000 But the worst part of it is when they put you on Wednesday night, they let you sleep for a couple hours, so they put you in this tent on the beach.

00:04:32.000 So you've been up since Sunday morning, You've been running.

00:04:35.000 You're in and out of the water.

00:04:36.000 So your body's like that cold, clammy sweat.

00:04:38.000 And they throw a bunch of dudes, like age 18 to like 22, into a tent with no ventilation.

00:04:43.000 And you're on these cots and you're just immediately going to REM sleep.

00:04:46.000 And so you're just like shaking and your eyes rolling around.

00:04:48.000 You're just like shaking in the bed there.

00:04:50.000 And then it feels like one second, but it's really an hour and a half, two hours, something like that.

00:04:54.000 Oh, my God.

00:05:11.000 Yeah.

00:05:12.000 So I did like that.

00:05:13.000 That is a thing that you can't soften up.

00:05:17.000 No.

00:05:17.000 If you want to make seals, you have to make seals the way they make seals.

00:05:21.000 I think so.

00:05:22.000 I think so.

00:05:22.000 I mean, obviously I've never done it, but I can only imagine that there's only one way to do it correctly.

00:05:27.000 Well, I mean, you're doing it every day, getting in and out of that barrel and then into the cold.

00:05:31.000 Oh, please.

00:05:31.000 It sounds like you're doing it to yourself.

00:05:33.000 I sleep on nice sheets.

00:05:34.000 I wake up, you know, 7 a.m.

00:05:36.000 with an alarm clock while we rest with yawn.

00:05:39.000 Yeah, I know.

00:05:39.000 It sounds like you're doing it each and every time, but I thought about this recently, and I thought that, hey, if you were today, In today's day and age where we're all so comfortable and you were to come up with this program and say, hey, you know what?

00:05:50.000 We should make these special operations guys in the Navy and we'll call them SEALs and we'll have this Hell Week thing where we keep them on the verge of hypothermia the whole time. 1.00

00:05:58.000 A guy might die every now and again.

00:06:01.000 But we'll find out through that if they have grit, if they have this intangible thing.

00:06:07.000 And then they would take that up the chain of command and brief that to new admirals and captains up there.

00:06:13.000 There's no way it would get approved.

00:06:14.000 The only reason that it's a program is because it's a legacy program.

00:06:18.000 There's no way you create a program like that today.

00:06:19.000 But that's the only way you're going to make the kind of people that are necessary to do those heavy-duty missions. 0.63

00:06:26.000 There's no other way, because you've got to have someone who you know is not going to quit, is not going to fall apart, and is going to be able to be there for his fellow soldiers if shit goes sideways. 0.96

00:06:38.000 That's right.

00:06:38.000 You're not going to develop a person like that without some sort of extreme adversity, a test, to see what you're made of.

00:06:47.000 And also, I'd imagine, for a guy like you, you wanted to be a SEAL for a long time before you ever entered.

00:06:53.000 So it was something that you built towards, you worked towards, it was in your mind, and you had prepared yourself.

00:06:59.000 You don't want someone who's like, maybe I'll try to be a SEAL. I'm pretty badass.

00:07:04.000 My mentality...

00:07:06.000 Sometimes those guys do great.

00:07:08.000 I was always shocked how many people got to boot camp, and this is still days before the internet, so late 90s, that hadn't heard of SEALs yet.

00:07:15.000 And they were like, oh, I'll give that a shot.

00:07:17.000 And they do great.

00:07:18.000 And then you have guys like me that have been training their whole life for it, and then you have guys training their whole life for it that quit the first day type of a thing.

00:07:25.000 And then you get people that find out about it in boot camp that also quit the first day.

00:07:28.000 And everything in between as well.

00:07:30.000 But it's really, you're testing for that thing you can't test for other than putting people through a crucible.

00:07:35.000 And throughout history, there have been these different crucibles, these different tests, really, to allow men to be part of the tribe.

00:07:41.000 And they have to pass these things.

00:07:43.000 And today it's a Marine boot camp.

00:07:46.000 It's SEAL training, Hell Week in particular.

00:07:48.000 It's Robin Sage in the Q course for Special Forces.

00:07:51.000 What is that?

00:07:52.000 Robin Sage.

00:07:53.000 It's part of the Q course for Army Special Forces guys where they go into a made-up country of Pineland and have to deal with a network of agents and tribes and that sort of thing, really based on Counterinsurgency doctrine of the 50s and 60s and 70s.

00:08:11.000 But it's a way that they test Special Forces soldiers as part of the last thing they do before they get that Green Beret.

00:08:20.000 Wow.

00:08:21.000 Yeah, it's very cool.

00:08:22.000 So is SEALs recognized as the most difficult path to go?

00:08:26.000 Well, that's what I read when I was seven, when I went down to the library with my mom and did some research into what SEALs were.

00:08:32.000 That's when you first got into your head?

00:08:32.000 Yep.

00:08:33.000 Yeah, I saw a movie called The Frogman, which is an old black and white film that showed these guys coming up on the beach.

00:08:38.000 What was in that?

00:08:38.000 I forget the guy's name, and I'll remember it as soon as we're off.

00:08:41.000 Oh, we'll find out right now.

00:08:43.000 Yeah, we can find out right now.

00:08:44.000 Yeah, we have Jamie.

00:08:45.000 Best one-handed Googler on Earth, right next to us.

00:08:47.000 He's the best, but it's called The Frogman.

00:08:50.000 Yeah, Richard Widmark.

00:08:52.000 Wow, look how old that looks.

00:08:53.000 Yeah, yeah, it's an old movie.

00:08:54.000 This is from the 1950s?

00:08:55.000 I think so, 51. There it is.

00:08:57.000 So this was when it was, was it UDT back then?

00:09:00.000 There was the Naval Combat Demolition Units in World War II, and I might have one of those letters slightly off, and then UDT, Underwater Demolition Teams.

00:09:08.000 Have you ever heard the Whiskey Meyers song, Frogman?

00:09:11.000 I don't think so. 1.00

00:09:12.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:09:12.000 I can't believe I haven't heard that. 1.00

00:09:13.000 Fuck. 1.00

00:09:14.000 Really? 1.00

00:09:14.000 It's great. 1.00

00:09:15.000 I'll be listening to that shortly. 1.00

00:09:16.000 Dude, Whiskey Meyers is a shit. 1.00

00:09:18.000 But look at this. 1.00

00:09:19.000 I saw this.

00:09:19.000 I was a remote control back in the 80s, you know, if we didn't have actual remote control.

00:09:23.000 God, look at the scuba outfits.

00:09:24.000 They're so goofy looking.

00:09:25.000 Yeah, check that out. 0.93

00:09:25.000 Look at that. 0.93

00:09:26.000 He's carrying...

00:09:27.000 Hey.

00:09:27.000 They fight like men from another world.

00:09:29.000 Fight like men from another world.

00:09:31.000 Texas and Missouri written all over their hearts.

00:09:33.000 Look at that.

00:09:34.000 You're a brave man, all of you are.

00:09:36.000 You wouldn't be in this outfit.

00:09:37.000 Nobody questions that.

00:09:38.000 But your kind of bravery comes ten cents a dozen and isn't worth a hoot more when the chips are done.

00:09:43.000 Pause that for a second.

00:09:44.000 Pause that for a second.

00:09:45.000 One thing...

00:09:46.000 Fantastic.

00:09:47.000 You know, when people talk about the good old days, they don't make them like they used to.

00:09:50.000 I'll tell you what, that doesn't apply to acting.

00:09:52.000 That was a little different back then.

00:09:54.000 We've got some overacting going on.

00:09:56.000 And they're all like that, too.

00:09:57.000 They're all like that.

00:09:58.000 Everybody.

00:09:58.000 The best movie stars were terrible.

00:10:00.000 I know.

00:10:00.000 What is that?

00:10:01.000 I don't know, but it changed.

00:10:02.000 I don't know when it exactly changed, but I think 60s it started to change a little bit.

00:10:06.000 By late 60s, certainly.

00:10:07.000 Then we have a period of time in the 70s where we had certain things going on.

00:10:10.000 And so it's interesting how each decade, kind of like with music, has a different almost style of acting.

00:10:15.000 Yeah.

00:10:16.000 Yeah.

00:10:17.000 But it's just, I wonder, what do you think it is, Jamie?

00:10:19.000 What do you think?

00:10:20.000 Why were they bad?

00:10:22.000 Maybe it's just different.

00:10:23.000 Maybe it's subjective.

00:10:25.000 I think you just work off of what you heard before.

00:10:27.000 So all they had heard was people acting on the radio, maybe.

00:10:30.000 And these are the first things that they have to grow off of.

00:10:33.000 And they're like, are you not watching?

00:10:35.000 I bet you just nailed it.

00:10:36.000 I bet that's exactly what it is.

00:10:38.000 Because you had those World War II reels, the news reels.

00:10:41.000 Same thing.

00:10:42.000 If you listen to those old news reels about Attack on Pearl Harbor or Midway, they have that same kind of tone, which is obviously different than We're good to go.

00:11:06.000 And what usually happens in Hollywood is someone, like, they break the window of the car, and then there's these two wires that are miraculously just underneath the dash, and they just touch them, and then it starts right up.

00:11:18.000 And so, because we wanted to root this in reality, the show...

00:11:22.000 There's a part that got cut of Chris driving his Land Cruiser looking for another vehicle because he needs to get another one because the authorities know that the Land Cruiser is there.

00:11:30.000 So he has to look for one that he knows how to break into.

00:11:32.000 I went to a car stealing school a while back and learned what cars are easier to break into than others and that sort of thing.

00:11:39.000 So we did it the exact way that you would break into that particular vehicle.

00:11:43.000 So we had to find one.

00:11:44.000 I think it's an older pickup truck that he finds.

00:11:46.000 And then he breaks into it the way that you would, and he starts the engine the way that you would.

00:11:50.000 And unfortunately, some of that got cut out in the post-production.

00:11:53.000 But point being, it was written into the script as it goes into the car, touches the wires under the dash.

00:11:59.000 Because I think that at one point in Hollywood, they're like, we need to break into this car, let's say 1950-something.

00:12:05.000 And that's what they did.

00:12:06.000 And then every other movie from then on did essentially the same thing.

00:12:09.000 Yes.

00:12:10.000 Do you remember that movie?

00:12:11.000 There was a movie with Charlie Sheen where he was a Porsche thief.

00:12:15.000 All he did is steal Porsches.

00:12:17.000 Yes.

00:12:18.000 And who was in it with him?

00:12:18.000 Somebody was in it with him.

00:12:19.000 A guy that had been in a bunch of movies, but I don't know his name.

00:12:23.000 And he was like an undercover cop that was like befriending Charlie Sheen.

00:12:27.000 Here we go.

00:12:28.000 D.B. Sweeney.

00:12:29.000 That's who it was.

00:12:30.000 Oh, wow.

00:12:30.000 Jeez.

00:12:31.000 What was the name of the movie?

00:12:33.000 No Man's Land.

00:12:34.000 Interesting.

00:12:35.000 That's like the first movie that got me really excited about Porsches.

00:12:38.000 Nice. 0.99

00:12:39.000 Because Charlie Sheen called Ferraris Italian trash. 0.99

00:12:42.000 All he would steal is Porsches. 0.99

00:12:44.000 Nice.

00:12:44.000 And they would steal Porsches and then, you know, the cops would try to trace them, but of course they couldn't catch them.

00:12:48.000 Of course they didn't.

00:12:49.000 Because of Porsches' handle so good.

00:12:50.000 That's right.

00:12:51.000 They were just going around corners and everything.

00:12:53.000 And they were cool looking Porsches.

00:12:54.000 Like, look at those.

00:12:55.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:12:55.000 The 1980s.

00:12:56.000 Oh, yeah.

00:12:57.000 Yeah, there we go.

00:12:58.000 Beautiful looking little zippy cars.

00:13:01.000 Man, I'm looking at that like a 912. I've always wanted a 912. Really?

00:13:05.000 Why?

00:13:05.000 Because it has the old engine and it's like a Volkswagen engine.

00:13:09.000 I just kind of like that because I have that FJ40 now also that has the original engine in it, rebuilt, but it goes about top speed about 40, 45. And there's just something about like 1968, 912, maybe that slate gray they used to have back then or the British Racing Green or something like that.

00:13:24.000 Look at that.

00:13:25.000 There's one.

00:13:26.000 There it is.

00:13:27.000 Target top.

00:13:27.000 Look at that.

00:13:29.000 Sweet.

00:13:29.000 So something cool like that.

00:13:30.000 A little Sunday driver.

00:13:33.000 Those cars are so light.

00:13:34.000 It was like the affordable Porsche.

00:13:35.000 Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:36.000 And so, I don't know, I just always had a little affinity for those, because everybody knows the 911, and okay, that's wonderful, obviously, but the 912. Well, it's basically the same look, right?

00:13:45.000 Same look, but different.

00:13:46.000 Yeah, big difference.

00:13:48.000 Somebody makes one that's, I think they put it on a Tesla body.

00:13:51.000 Have you seen that?

00:13:51.000 They dropped it, it was on, I think Jay Leno's garage showed it, but I forget the name of the company, but they drop it on a Tesla body, so you have this thing that looks old, looks like a 1968 Porsche 912, but it's really all Tesla'd out.

00:14:02.000 Well, there is one company that makes an electric 964. I think it's a 964. And it fucking flies.

00:14:10.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:14:10.000 But the problem is, it's... 0.99

00:14:13.000 Oh, look at that.

00:14:14.000 That's beautiful.

00:14:15.000 God, that's beautiful.

00:14:16.000 Look at that forest gray.

00:14:17.000 There it is.

00:14:17.000 That forest green.

00:14:18.000 It's electric right there.

00:14:19.000 Yeah.

00:14:21.000 We need to reach out to those guys.

00:14:22.000 That must be so fast.

00:14:24.000 Yeah.

00:14:24.000 Because if you take that insane engine, but the problem with it is, for sure, the problem is that it's going to be an automatic, and it's one gear, and you miss so much of the fun of one of those cars is shifting the gears.

00:14:39.000 Let me hear this.

00:14:40.000 This is blasphemy.

00:14:41.000 I don't hear anything.

00:14:42.000 I know, I know.

00:14:42.000 This should be outlawed.

00:14:44.000 They should go to jail for this.

00:14:48.000 Jesus!

00:14:48.000 Yeah, it's fast, Jay Leno.

00:14:51.000 But I like that it looks so clean and old.

00:14:53.000 Oh, it's beautiful.

00:14:54.000 Like it's just right off the showroom floor in 68. And then it flies like a monitor.

00:14:59.000 A new brand.

00:15:00.000 I wonder if they're allowed to, or able rather, to use anti-lock brakes on something like that.

00:15:05.000 I don't know.

00:15:05.000 Probably the whole thing is, I don't know, whatever they have in Teslas, I don't have a Tesla.

00:15:09.000 Well, Teslas are pretty fucking amazing. 0.60

00:15:11.000 I have the newest one, which you might as well be riding a roller coaster. 0.98

00:15:15.000 I have the Model S Plaid.

00:15:16.000 It's preposterous.

00:15:18.000 Is there a new ludicrous mode or is there something else? 0.76

00:15:20.000 I don't know.

00:15:21.000 I leave it on all the time.

00:15:22.000 It goes 0-60 in 1.9 seconds.

00:15:25.000 Dang.

00:15:25.000 Really?

00:15:26.000 A four-door sedan that is very sedated looking.

00:15:30.000 It's very family car looking.

00:15:31.000 That thing is the fastest car I have.

00:15:34.000 I have race cars.

00:15:35.000 You have a lot of...

00:15:36.000 I have crazy fast cars.

00:15:38.000 I have muscle cars and I have a Porsche 911 GT3. That's crazy.

00:15:41.000 That car leaves that car in the dust.

00:15:44.000 That Tesla buries them all.

00:15:46.000 If I had to choose one car to drive, it would be that car.

00:15:49.000 If I only had to reduce it down to one car, because it's so effortless.

00:15:53.000 When you merge on the highway, it just goes...

00:15:56.000 Like, all of a sudden, you're going 80 miles an hour.

00:15:58.000 I know, there's something to that.

00:15:59.000 But I like that FJ40 that I have.

00:16:01.000 It's, you know, four-speed.

00:16:02.000 But you're working it.

00:16:03.000 I mean, you're in there.

00:16:04.000 You can't be drinking coffee.

00:16:05.000 You can't be doing anything else.

00:16:06.000 You have to be...

00:16:07.000 Oh, is this the guy in the Nurburgring?

00:16:09.000 Yeah.

00:16:09.000 Oh, my God.

00:16:09.000 Which one is this?

00:16:10.000 This is what I have.

00:16:11.000 This is the Model S Plaid.

00:16:12.000 Oh, jeez. 0.99

00:16:14.000 Dude, this is a fucking preposterously fast car. 0.99

00:16:17.000 It's amazing. 1.00

00:16:18.000 That is crazy.

00:16:19.000 It's so good.

00:16:20.000 But, I mean, it's not designed to handle like this, but it still handles better than...

00:16:24.000 I had a Model S before this, like the...

00:16:26.000 I think it's called a P100D, and that was pretty good, but this one handles a lot better.

00:16:31.000 The new...

00:16:31.000 the plaid handles better.

00:16:33.000 That is insane.

00:16:33.000 But there's still a company called, I think it's called Unplugged.

00:16:36.000 It's going to make them even faster?

00:16:38.000 Yeah, they customize them.

00:16:40.000 I don't know if they're, see if they're doing that with the Plaid.

00:16:43.000 But they make them with carbon fiber brakes, a larger brake package.

00:16:47.000 They put high profile, or low profile tires rather, that are wider.

00:16:51.000 So I think they widen the fenders a bit.

00:16:53.000 They upgrade a Plaid, it says.

00:16:55.000 Oh, Jesus.

00:16:56.000 Oh, well, I know where yours is going next. 1.00

00:16:58.000 Ah, Jesus Christ, they turned into a goddamn race car. 1.00

00:17:00.000 Look at that. 1.00

00:17:01.000 Front splitter, holy shit. 1.00

00:17:03.000 That's crazy. 0.98

00:17:04.000 Unplugged performance aftermarket upgrades for the Tesla Model S Plaid.

00:17:08.000 Long range and improve your car's suspension, brake system, aerodynamic capabilities, and others.

00:17:12.000 We offer a range of track-oriented safety and performance upgrades, ensuring you go through track times. 0.99

00:17:17.000 Oh, these sons of bitches. 1.00

00:17:18.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:17:19.000 They're going to make my car faster.

00:17:21.000 I don't need to work on my track time these days.

00:17:23.000 Look how beautiful that looks, though.

00:17:24.000 Scroll down to that one right there.

00:17:26.000 Look what they do.

00:17:26.000 They widen the fenders.

00:17:28.000 I don't know if I can pull that off, though.

00:17:29.000 They put dope wheels on.

00:17:30.000 What do you mean?

00:17:30.000 I don't think it's me.

00:17:32.000 What?

00:17:32.000 I don't like that FJ40. I like the FD62. I know.

00:17:35.000 Well, you're an author, and you like to fuck... 1.00

00:17:37.000 I bet you's a typewriter, you son of a bitch. 1.00

00:17:39.000 I have a typewriter, but it just sits behind me. 1.00

00:17:41.000 I should collect them now.

00:17:42.000 I collect these old typewriters, and I love having them near me, but I don't use them.

00:17:46.000 There's a difference.

00:17:47.000 Look, I'm saying all this, but I really love old cars.

00:17:52.000 I love manual transmissions.

00:17:54.000 I love the gears and hearing the engine rev up and everything.

00:17:58.000 I do love all that.

00:18:00.000 There's something about the tactile, soulful experience.

00:18:05.000 It's different.

00:18:05.000 Yeah.

00:18:06.000 It's different.

00:18:06.000 And you really like it, because you like them that are slow.

00:18:09.000 I like them that are slow, but I also like a couple sleepers.

00:18:12.000 So the FJ-62 has the LS3, and I didn't know that there was a different version of the LS3 that's faster than the one I have.

00:18:19.000 Oh, really?

00:18:19.000 Well, you have it.

00:18:20.000 It's in your...

00:18:21.000 Oh, the supercharged one.

00:18:22.000 Yes.

00:18:22.000 But I don't know why Jonathan Ward didn't tell me that that existed.

00:18:25.000 Because he never did it before mine.

00:18:26.000 Well, but you had yours first.

00:18:28.000 Yeah.

00:18:28.000 So I was like, well, why didn't he try to upsell?

00:18:32.000 I think he likes to keep things simple and functional.

00:18:36.000 And I think the way Jonathan, I'm speaking for him, obviously, I think his deal was, he thinks that the regular eight-cylinder is such a giant upgrade from the four-cylinder that comes, or is it six?

00:18:48.000 That one had a six.

00:18:51.000 Well, no, your 80 had an eight in it, I think.

00:18:55.000 Really?

00:18:56.000 I think so.

00:18:56.000 I think it was all-wheel drive, I think, anyway.

00:18:59.000 But my 6.2 had an inline-six.

00:19:01.000 Yeah, I had a 95 FJ80, and then they converted it into what is now one of my favorite cars.

00:19:09.000 Yeah.

00:19:09.000 And it's got that, it's basically a supercharged Corvette engine.

00:19:12.000 Yeah.

00:19:13.000 So I have the LS3, but I didn't know that it was an option to have something else in there, so dang it.

00:19:17.000 It's still pretty slow.

00:19:18.000 Yeah, well, comparatively, I guess.

00:19:20.000 To me, that's as fast as I want to go.

00:19:22.000 The all-time four-wheel drive system robs it of a lot of horsepower.

00:19:26.000 So I think it has, like, 560 normally.

00:19:29.000 Well, that's not too shabby.

00:19:30.000 But it gets it down to, like, 360 at the wheels.

00:19:33.000 Oh, really?

00:19:34.000 Okay, got it.

00:19:34.000 Somewhere around that.

00:19:34.000 A 380, something like that.

00:19:35.000 Got it.

00:19:36.000 I forget what he said.

00:19:37.000 It's plenty fast for that car, but what it is, man, it's so capable.

00:19:42.000 During the freeze last year, I was having the time of my life.

00:19:46.000 Everybody was freaking out, because I have those excellent off-road tires, huge clearance, so I'm driving through snow and everything, and it just handled everything.

00:19:56.000 I have a Golden Retriever, and he never gets to see snow, but when he does get to see snow, He goes crazy and runs around, circles in it, dives in it, rolls around in his back.

00:20:08.000 That's what the car was doing.

00:20:09.000 The truck was going like, yeah!

00:20:11.000 It's time to party.

00:20:12.000 It's in its element.

00:20:14.000 Rather than just perfect weather all the time, on the street.

00:20:16.000 Yes.

00:20:17.000 But we both love those old Land Cruisers, like your FJ62 that you have.

00:20:22.000 God, that's a beautiful car.

00:20:23.000 It is.

00:20:24.000 It's a sleeper, too.

00:20:25.000 It doesn't look like it from the outside, but if you know what to look for, you do the double takes.

00:20:28.000 I like that.

00:20:29.000 And James Reese loves those, too.

00:20:30.000 James Reese loves those, too.

00:20:31.000 And I think the one is coming from the show.

00:20:34.000 It's on the show, so it's on its way to the house, I think.

00:20:37.000 I don't have it yet.

00:20:37.000 Oh, they're going to give it to you?

00:20:38.000 Well, I have to purchase it, but yeah.

00:20:39.000 They should just give it to you.

00:20:40.000 That would be nice. 1.00

00:20:41.000 You fucking wrote the show. 1.00

00:20:42.000 Jesus Christ. 1.00

00:20:43.000 They had to rent it from somebody who they had to convince to then sell it to them to give to me or to sell it to me.

00:20:48.000 So this is the fourth book?

00:20:50.000 This is book number five.

00:20:51.000 Book number five.

00:20:52.000 Book number five right here, the one that you're listening to, semi-naked in the sauna.

00:20:57.000 Yeah, semi-naked.

00:20:58.000 Fully clothed for the sauna.

00:21:01.000 Read by Ray Porter.

00:21:03.000 He's great.

00:21:04.000 He is awesome.

00:21:05.000 He's such a nice guy.

00:21:06.000 Such a nice guy, too.

00:21:07.000 He does a great job.

00:21:08.000 He does a great job with different accents, too.

00:21:11.000 Because he has to go one accent to the other. 0.99

00:21:13.000 He's going South African to Russian, back to American. 0.67

00:21:17.000 He's doing it all.

00:21:18.000 What does he sound like in real life?

00:21:19.000 Gosh, he has a voice.

00:21:21.000 He's a traditionally, classically trained Shakespearean actor.

00:21:25.000 So he spent, I think, 20 years up in Oregon at the Shakespeare Festival up there.

00:21:29.000 He was in Almost Famous, the movie.

00:21:31.000 He's been on Sons of Anarchy.

00:21:32.000 He's been on a ton of different shows.

00:21:34.000 Oh, wow.

00:21:34.000 He played Darkseid in the Snyder Cut of Justice League.

00:21:38.000 So that's him.

00:21:39.000 That's him and his voice.

00:21:40.000 But he's, yeah, now he does so much narration, but he's at the top of that pyramid as far as narrators go.

00:21:45.000 No, he's really good because it's... 0.55

00:21:47.000 It's rough when, like, somebody recommended a book to me recently and I started listening, but the guy doing the narration just sucked.

00:21:54.000 It just was...

00:21:55.000 I didn't like his voice.

00:21:57.000 Yeah, that can be a detriment.

00:21:59.000 But Simon& Schuster sent me, because I'm not really an audiobook listener.

00:22:02.000 I'm a reader.

00:22:03.000 I've been my whole life.

00:22:04.000 We're good to go.

00:22:11.000 We're good to go.

00:22:26.000 And they said, yeah.

00:22:26.000 And I said, well, how much time do I have?

00:22:27.000 And they're like, oh, end of business today.

00:22:29.000 And I'm like, look at my watch in Utah.

00:22:31.000 And I'm like, I know how seriously they take their weekends in publishing in New York.

00:22:35.000 And I'm like, oh, geez.

00:22:36.000 So I start listening to samples.

00:22:37.000 And then I found Ray Porter.

00:22:38.000 And then I start listening to more of those samples on Audible of things that he'd done.

00:22:41.000 And I said, this is the guy.

00:22:43.000 I had no idea that he was like the top narrator in the country, in the world.

00:22:46.000 And so I sent it to Simon& Schuster and said, hey, how about this guy?

00:22:49.000 And they said, well, we can ask him.

00:22:50.000 And then he said, yes.

00:22:52.000 Oh, that's nice.

00:22:53.000 Yeah, and he brought a whole fan base to it.

00:22:54.000 I didn't realize people follow narrators from project to project now.

00:22:57.000 Oh, that's interesting.

00:22:58.000 It makes sense because he's really good.

00:23:01.000 It makes sense that you would assume that if he's also attached to a project, there would have to be a good project.

00:23:07.000 Yep.

00:23:07.000 Did he get a chance to read it before?

00:23:09.000 Did you just send a few chapters?

00:23:12.000 I don't know how they did that.

00:23:13.000 They must have sent...

00:23:14.000 I think he just said yes.

00:23:15.000 I think he just looked at the bio and was like, oh, that would be...

00:23:18.000 I think he just did it to be a nice guy.

00:23:20.000 And then he ended up being great friends.

00:23:21.000 And the first one was up for Audiobook of the Year next to Stephen King and Ruth Ware.

00:23:25.000 And we went to New York and put on the tuxes for the Audibles, which is like the Academy Awards of the audible industry.

00:23:31.000 Now, when you have a movie or a film version of these books, these books starring this gentleman that you've created, this James Reese guy, these books are insanely violent.

00:23:45.000 There are wild moments in this book where I'm like, ooh, when I first found out that you guys were going to do an Amazon series, I was like...

00:23:54.000 How are they going to show this?

00:23:56.000 And how much are they going to show?

00:23:58.000 And how much are you going to leave to the imagination?

00:24:01.000 Because in the book, it's super graphic. 0.99

00:24:05.000 There's some graphic shit. 0.99

00:24:07.000 Yeah. 0.99

00:24:07.000 I mean, it's an issue. 0.99

00:24:10.000 But it was so interesting to see it come to life and to see the Amazon make their notes because you do these scripts and they get approved and then it's like planning something in a boardroom or planning something in a mission planning space in the military where it's air conditioned and you're talking through things and you're looking at the maps and you're saying,

00:24:27.000 okay, we're going to put a blocking force here.

00:24:28.000 We'll have the Predator over here. 0.99

00:24:31.000 The AC-130 is on station for this amount of time and you plan it out perfectly and then you leave the gate to the base in Iraq and Afghanistan and you get out there.

00:24:38.000 And then things change for whatever reason.

00:24:40.000 Maybe you hit an IED, or you get out there and you're like, wait a second, that mountain, even though it looks a little higher in me, okay, this isn't exactly how we thought it was going to be.

00:24:48.000 Same thing with the scripts, in that you get out there to start filming, and you're on set, or you're in an area location, and you look around and you're like, oh, this is not working with how we envisioned this.

00:24:57.000 And you have to morph it on the fly right there.

00:25:00.000 Yeah.

00:25:14.000 Edit as you go.

00:25:15.000 So things change throughout the whole process.

00:25:17.000 But Amazon, every change, you have to send it up the chain.

00:25:20.000 Just like in the military, it goes up to the top, and then it comes back down.

00:25:23.000 Does it go up to Bezos?

00:25:24.000 I don't think so.

00:25:25.000 It should.

00:25:26.000 Bezos looks like he's jacked lately.

00:25:28.000 I think he's all hopped up on testosterone. 0.99

00:25:30.000 I think he might have proved some radical shit now. 0.99

00:25:32.000 He's possible. 0.98

00:25:33.000 Can you just get a hold of him?

00:25:33.000 Give him a shot of whiskey?

00:25:34.000 It should, yeah.

00:25:35.000 Come on, Jeff! 0.99

00:25:36.000 Let's make some fucking history! 0.99

00:25:38.000 Give this a thumbs up, buddy. 0.99

00:25:39.000 Yeah.

00:25:40.000 So it comes back down with their notes, and there were some concerns there about the violence, for sure.

00:25:45.000 Yeah, but they had to have read the book.

00:25:47.000 Yeah.

00:25:48.000 Well, I don't know how that works up there at those levels, but I'm still shocked about a few things.

00:25:54.000 But they came down on the right side of it every single time.

00:25:57.000 Really?

00:25:57.000 Yeah.

00:25:58.000 So there's a couple scenes in there, and people who have read the first book in particular will know the ones that we're talking about.

00:26:03.000 The comment that I got the most when I said that this book is being turned into a film or to a series, people would say, oh, Amazon's never going to let this be shown, or I hope they leave this scene in.

00:26:14.000 Those are the two things that I got, and Amazon left this in.

00:26:18.000 They had concerns about this one very graphic scene.

00:26:20.000 And it's in there, and now it's like one of the iconic scenes of the show.

00:26:25.000 And it's in there, and it's going to be in the advertising and all the rest of it when that hits here shortly.

00:26:30.000 But yeah, they left it, and they came down on the right side of everything we wanted every single time, which is a little bit shocking because you hear about, hey, they're only making things for people in L.A. and New York and forgetting about the country in between that really has this hunger for good content that's not just...

00:26:45.000 Flooded with all these things that might not necessarily connect with a lot of the people in the middle of the country.

00:26:51.000 And they kept it all in.

00:26:53.000 The middle of the country.

00:26:54.000 How weird is that?

00:26:55.000 Isn't it?

00:26:55.000 Yeah.

00:26:56.000 How is that real?

00:26:58.000 Like, what's going on?

00:26:59.000 Like, the whole...

00:27:01.000 Like, this idea that there's parts of the country that are so different than other parts of the country.

00:27:07.000 It's almost like we have different countries wrapped.

00:27:09.000 I mean, it's almost like Europe, right?

00:27:10.000 Where there's...

00:27:11.000 Different parts of Europe, you travel a little bit, and you're in a place that speaks a totally different language.

00:27:16.000 But this idea that the middle of the country is different than the edges of the country is very strange.

00:27:22.000 Yeah, it's more a figurative way of putting it, but it's really...

00:27:29.000 The first person that takes advantage of making content and having production levels at such a high level that isn't infused with all these things that people are kind of tired of, that person's going to do well. 0.98

00:27:41.000 I like how you're dancing around what it is, the woke shit. 1.00

00:27:43.000 The woke shit. 1.00

00:27:44.000 Yeah, the woke shit. 1.00

00:27:45.000 I wonder how long that's going to keep going for. 1.00

00:27:47.000 Because it doesn't seem like it's abating.

00:27:50.000 It seems like what's happening is the pushback against it is getting more loud and people getting more angry that it's being shoved down their throats.

00:27:58.000 But it doesn't seem to be stopping the amount of woke stuff that's being put out.

00:28:03.000 So it's interesting.

00:28:04.000 It is.

00:28:05.000 And there's definitely an opportunity there for somebody who wants to buy a bunch of soundstages maybe in Atlanta and bring in people that can create things with this super high production and make movies just kind of like we'd like to see without all this other political stuff in there.

00:28:18.000 Wasn't Daily Wire doing that?

00:28:19.000 I don't know.

00:28:19.000 They're trying to do like right-wing versions of things.

00:28:22.000 Like they hired Gina Carano right after she got fired from The Mandalorian for... 0.98

00:28:28.000 I mean essentially she was just talking about how we...

00:28:34.000 There's like a tendency in human beings to think of other people that think differently than you as being others.

00:28:43.000 They're not us, they're others.

00:28:45.000 And, you know, she equated it to the Holocaust.

00:28:49.000 Yeah.

00:28:49.000 Which is like, ugh.

00:28:50.000 As soon as you do that, people are like, oh boy. 0.99

00:28:53.000 Don't fucking... 0.99

00:28:54.000 Compare anything to the Holocaust. 1.00

00:28:56.000 And then they fired her. 0.96

00:28:57.000 But I don't think that what she said was outrageous or egregious or awful.

00:29:01.000 I think she was just trying to say that this political divide in this country that separates people and is so polarizing is unhealthy.

00:29:10.000 And there's a natural tribal instinct that people have to look at people from other tribes as being the enemy and that we were doing this in this country.

00:29:17.000 But she unfortunately compared it to the Holocaust and they just fired her.

00:29:21.000 So the Daily Wire immediately hired her after that, and then they just did a western that looks wild.

00:29:29.000 They showed the trailer for it at the last UFC. Nice.

00:29:33.000 And I was like, oh my god.

00:29:34.000 It was the Donald Cowboy Cerrone's in it.

00:29:36.000 Yeah, I saw them filming that.

00:29:37.000 It looks wild.

00:29:38.000 It looks wild.

00:29:39.000 I don't know if it's good.

00:29:41.000 I haven't seen it, but man, the trailer looks sick.

00:29:43.000 I'm gonna check that out for sure.

00:29:45.000 I think Gina's coming to the Sig Hunter Games this year. 0.97

00:29:48.000 I'm not supposed to say that, but last year I was there with Bullet Valentina, and so we were out there.

00:29:53.000 She's awesome. 0.83

00:29:53.000 She is so great, and we were partners in this. 0.83

00:29:56.000 We were sniper partners in this long-range shooting competition.

00:29:58.000 Me, her, and then an elk guide from Oregon.

00:30:01.000 So we went through.

00:30:02.000 We got second place.

00:30:04.000 She has some serious gun skills. 1.00

00:30:06.000 She does.

00:30:06.000 I found in Brazil she was saying that she did IDPA stuff down there, so mostly handgun stuff.

00:30:11.000 But when I met her, we went up to Oregon and we got to the range.

00:30:14.000 And I hadn't met her yet, but I see her.

00:30:17.000 And she is focused.

00:30:18.000 She's on the range and she is learning.

00:30:21.000 You can just tell that it is different than the other people who were on the range getting used to their rifles.

00:30:25.000 And she is so focused on there.

00:30:28.000 Nothing else was coming in.

00:30:29.000 And then she got up and... 0.67

00:30:31.000 Totally switched off and was like, oh, hey, nice to meet you.

00:30:33.000 Hey, we're going to be partners.

00:30:34.000 And she was so fantastic.

00:30:35.000 Yeah.

00:30:36.000 And she cried.

00:30:37.000 I mean, it was a long course.

00:30:38.000 You have 12 different stations and you're shooting, I think, four different targets three times each. 0.99

00:30:44.000 And you have to find them, shoot them.

00:30:45.000 You have time limits and all that. 1.00

00:30:47.000 But you're packing through this high country in Wyoming.

00:30:50.000 And yeah, it was a put out evolution.

00:30:53.000 She's a scary lady. 1.00

00:30:55.000 Well, yeah, in the ring.

00:30:56.000 But as we're just getting to know each other and hanging out around the campfire, she was so nice.

00:31:01.000 Oh, she's wonderful.

00:31:02.000 I mean, she's been on my podcast.

00:31:04.000 She's a wonderful lady.

00:31:05.000 But I mean, she's scary in her competence and her abilities and her focus and her intensity.

00:31:09.000 And she crushed it out there.

00:31:10.000 She crushed it. 0.92

00:31:11.000 But it was so cool to get second place.

00:31:13.000 Interesting, we beat a bunch of other people that had some military background and stuff like that.

00:31:17.000 But the people that beat us, it was like a bass fisherman and like a BMX racer.

00:31:21.000 And they were way in front of us.

00:31:23.000 Like, they really beat us.

00:31:24.000 But it was still cool to get second because I've been doing a lot more typing recently than I've been doing shooting.

00:31:29.000 She's an avid shooter.

00:31:30.000 She's so good.

00:31:31.000 Yeah, oftentimes when she's in camp, when she goes to places, she'll show up at a range, a local range, and get some practicing in.

00:31:41.000 I think it helps relax her and calms her down.

00:31:43.000 But the people that I've talked to that have seen her shoot go, man, she's really skilled.

00:31:47.000 Oh yeah, she is focused.

00:31:48.000 So yeah, we had a great time together.

00:31:49.000 I think she's going back this year.

00:31:50.000 We have to do some filming stuff for Amazon here for some behind-the-scenes interview stuff that week.

00:31:55.000 But that's a great event out there.

00:31:57.000 Sig really puts it on. 0.96

00:31:58.000 The Cowboy was there too.

00:31:59.000 Oh, nice.

00:31:59.000 So we got to hang out there and we were talking about the thing he was going to do with Gina.

00:32:04.000 Yeah.

00:32:04.000 It was just super cool.

00:32:06.000 But going back to the Hollywood side of the house, it's not necessarily I don't think that someone needs to take advantage of there being a gap and go totally right wing.

00:32:15.000 It's just make a movie without...

00:32:17.000 Just make a good movie.

00:32:18.000 Right.

00:32:18.000 Don't make a movie and try to force things down people's throats.

00:32:21.000 Just make a good fiction movie.

00:32:23.000 Yeah.

00:32:24.000 Yeah, I mean, in the 80s, we go back, I'm trying to think there were some, I'm sure there were some with political bents, and, you know, that's fine.

00:32:29.000 But there were some great films, some great 80s action movies that didn't have, weren't infused with things from either side.

00:32:34.000 It was just fun to sit down and experience.

00:32:37.000 And then you could look up to those characters, too.

00:32:39.000 Like, Rocky films, obviously, starting in the 70s, but continuing to go on today.

00:32:43.000 I mean, those were so influential.

00:32:45.000 For an entire generation.

00:32:46.000 And what a great message.

00:32:48.000 I mean, underdog, you know, getting the shot, putting in the work, getting knocked down.

00:32:52.000 You know, it's just so many great things.

00:32:54.000 I mean, they're like mentors without having an actual mentor.

00:32:57.000 Well, that's a movie that was written by Stallone.

00:33:00.000 And, you know, they wanted other people to play him.

00:33:02.000 Oh, yeah.

00:33:02.000 And he held on.

00:33:03.000 And he said no.

00:33:04.000 He held in there and became an iconic character.

00:33:07.000 Such a great story.

00:33:08.000 Such a great story how all that came about and how he didn't let anybody do it.

00:33:13.000 And obviously it changed the course of his life.

00:33:15.000 Did you bring the James Reese books to someone else first?

00:33:20.000 Or did you just go straight to Amazon?

00:33:22.000 And how did you know where to be?

00:33:24.000 Because I would imagine with this particular character and these particular adventures that he goes on, they're so intense.

00:33:33.000 And it's so deeply connected to your past as a SEAL that it has to be very personal.

00:33:40.000 And you can't...

00:33:41.000 Like if someone tried to inject wokeism into the James Reese books, you'd be like, oh Jesus Christ, what are you doing?

00:33:47.000 You can't do that.

00:33:48.000 Yeah, and I didn't know how it was going to be when I got to New York Publishing, you know, not known for being a bastion of conservatism.

00:33:54.000 But it seems like, at least in fictional books, you're allowed to, you know, because it's not, you can't take it out as a clip and put it out there for people to get angry at.

00:34:07.000 Right.

00:34:07.000 You have to read.

00:34:08.000 You have to put in the work.

00:34:09.000 And it's also, it's like you're taking into consideration the fact that there's good characters and bad characters and you have to show the evil side of man, you have to show the character and good nature.

00:34:22.000 There's so much going on there that you can't monkey with that too much.

00:34:25.000 Yep.

00:34:26.000 No, I've had complete creative control.

00:34:27.000 That was the...

00:34:28.000 Because I didn't know.

00:34:28.000 I didn't have any touch points with publishing or with Hollywood before this.

00:34:32.000 And I was kind of wondering when I first started down this path and Simon& Schuster first read it, I was wondering, hey, are they going to say, hey, lighten up on the Second Amendment stuff?

00:34:40.000 Or, hey, do you really have to talk about the freedom so much as your character have to have these opinions?

00:34:45.000 And they never even mentioned that.

00:34:47.000 I've never even hinted.

00:34:49.000 I've had complete creative control the entire time.

00:34:52.000 What kind of notes did they give you?

00:34:54.000 Almost zero.

00:34:56.000 And I think a lot of that has to do with this podcast because I heard Steven Pressfield on this podcast and I misinterpreted something that he said.

00:35:13.000 And so I wrote Revenge.

00:35:19.000 And had that on a yellow sticky. 0.67

00:35:20.000 And that just kept me on theme, whether it was directly or indirectly, more importantly, tied to that theme.

00:35:25.000 So I think by the time it got to New York and they read it, I had stayed on theme that there are only content edits from Emily Bessler at Emily Bessler Books, who is just amazing.

00:35:36.000 She's the only person I wanted to be my publisher-editor.

00:35:38.000 Because I saw her thanked in the back in the acknowledgement section of Brad Thor's books and Vince Flynn's books.

00:35:43.000 So I just decided as I was writing and had no connections anywhere to decide that she would be my publisher and editor.

00:35:49.000 And then she ended up being my publisher and editor.

00:35:51.000 But she said, hey, would he really do this here?

00:35:53.000 Would he really say this here?

00:35:55.000 And one other thing that I can't remember.

00:35:56.000 So those are like the three notes.

00:35:58.000 And that's it.

00:35:59.000 Wow.

00:35:59.000 So I've had complete creative control there.

00:36:02.000 It's been amazing, the whole journey.

00:36:04.000 I think?

00:36:22.000 You sat me down in your office.

00:36:23.000 You're the only person that talked to me about getting out of the military.

00:36:26.000 You introduced me to people in the private sector.

00:36:28.000 You're the only person that cared to do that, and I've always wanted to thank you.

00:36:31.000 And I said, no problem, man.

00:36:32.000 How's it going?

00:36:33.000 And he said, it's going great, but I heard you have a book coming out.

00:36:35.000 And I said, yeah, it's coming out in a few months.

00:36:36.000 I can give you a galley copy, which is like a rough draft.

00:36:39.000 And he said, I'd like that, but I'd like to give it to a friend of mine.

00:36:41.000 And I'm like, no problem.

00:36:42.000 Who's that?

00:36:42.000 He said, Chris Pratt.

00:36:45.000 So, and Chris Pratt was the person that I thought of playing the role as I was typing.

00:36:50.000 So as I started, it's just as a child of the 80s, it's very natural to think of some Hollywood star that's going to bring your story to life.

00:36:56.000 And I thought of Chris Pratt because he had done nothing like this before.

00:37:00.000 Most of the things had been, it was only really Guardians, not even Guardians of the Galaxy, not Avengers.

00:37:05.000 Not Jurassic World yet.

00:37:06.000 It was only Andy Dwyer on Parks and Rec.

00:37:08.000 Really?

00:37:09.000 And then he played a Seal in Zero Dark Thirty.

00:37:11.000 So I saw the transformation from Andy Dwyer to Seal, and I thought, this is the guy.

00:37:15.000 He's inherently likable.

00:37:17.000 I just have this connection with him already.

00:37:19.000 I don't know how, but this is the guy that's going to do it.

00:37:22.000 And so for Jared then to be best friends with Chris, to give him the book, and then Chris read it in the last week of December of 2017, called the next week and wanted to option it.

00:37:32.000 Wow.

00:37:34.000 Fate is a weird thing because everybody wants to poo-poo fate.

00:37:38.000 Me too.

00:37:41.000 I poo-poo it.

00:37:41.000 I'm like, eh, come on.

00:37:43.000 It's just random events.

00:37:44.000 Sometimes I wonder.

00:37:46.000 Sometimes I wonder if stuff was meant to be.

00:37:48.000 Sometimes I wonder that if you write something...

00:37:51.000 And put it out there and really focus and really dedicate yourself to creating the best work that you can like you have done with your books that it'll attract the right person to play the role if it ever becomes a theatrical representation of it.

00:38:06.000 It's crazy and then as I was writing it also without any sort of touch points with Hollywood or New York, I thought of Antoine Fuqua directing.

00:38:13.000 Oh, wow.

00:38:14.000 And he got it at the same time Chris did through another buddy.

00:38:18.000 He gave it to Antoine.

00:38:19.000 He wanted it.

00:38:20.000 I forgot he was directing it.

00:38:21.000 That's so awesome.

00:38:21.000 He is so fantastic.

00:38:24.000 Before this, before I knew him, I thought, oh, amazing director.

00:38:27.000 That was my...

00:38:27.000 What has he done?

00:38:28.000 So it was Training Day with Denzel Washington.

00:38:30.000 That's the one.

00:38:31.000 He did Replacement Killers before that.

00:38:32.000 Training day with Denzel Washington, which obviously is incredible.

00:38:36.000 And then he did Tears of the Sun, he's done Magnificent Seven, Equalizer, Shooter, which is based on Stephen Hunter's book, Point of Impact.

00:38:43.000 And I just love everything that he's done.

00:38:45.000 But now that I know him, he is much more than a great director.

00:38:49.000 I mean, he is a visionary.

00:38:51.000 He did Southpaw, too, huh?

00:38:53.000 He is such a great person.

00:38:54.000 That's the best.

00:38:56.000 Just salt of the earth, amazing guy.

00:38:59.000 Could not be in better hands.

00:39:01.000 Because when you give something like this to someone, there's a lot of trust involved.

00:39:05.000 Because they can butcher it.

00:39:06.000 Oh, sure.

00:39:07.000 And for Antoine and for Chris, and now we're all three executive producers on this.

00:39:10.000 So Antoine called Chris and was like, hey, I know we both have this thing, but let's just partner up and do it together.

00:39:16.000 And Chris was like, let's do it.

00:39:17.000 Wow.

00:39:18.000 So yeah, for them, they wanted this series to be rooted in the dark, gritty, primal, violent nature of the novel.

00:39:24.000 So any changes had to be rooted in that foundation.

00:39:27.000 And then David DiGilio, who's the showrunner, who is like, there's eight parts to this.

00:39:32.000 So there's multiple directors.

00:39:33.000 Antoine is the first director.

00:39:35.000 And then he stayed involved in doing all the editing throughout.

00:39:38.000 So there he is.

00:39:39.000 There we are right there.

00:39:40.000 Look at that.

00:39:41.000 Yep.

00:39:41.000 And look at this.

00:39:42.000 Most of these guys are SEALs.

00:39:44.000 There's a Marine in the back there somewhere with the dog.

00:39:46.000 Yep.

00:39:47.000 Right there.

00:39:48.000 Yep.

00:39:48.000 Call of Duty Rex right there.

00:39:49.000 Jared Shaw on the left.

00:39:50.000 That's my buddy who gave it.

00:39:51.000 Patrick Schwarzenegger is right behind me right there.

00:39:53.000 So I think the only two non-military are Chris Pratt in the middle and Patrick Schwarzenegger right there.

00:39:58.000 Wait.

00:39:58.000 Patrick Schwarzenegger like Arnold Schwarzenegger's son?

00:40:01.000 Yep.

00:40:01.000 Right there.

00:40:01.000 Shut the fuck up.

00:40:02.000 He acts now? 1.00

00:40:03.000 Oh, yeah.

00:40:04.000 Oh yeah, he's great.

00:40:05.000 And he was so awesome.

00:40:07.000 He was so great in this.

00:40:09.000 All these guys are.

00:40:10.000 So I served the guy to Chris's left right there.

00:40:13.000 That's Ryan Sankster.

00:40:14.000 And he does some stunt doubling on SEAL Team CBS and just another great guy.

00:40:18.000 We were in Iraq together.

00:40:20.000 Kenny Sheard right behind him right there.

00:40:22.000 He writes in Hollywood now, writes for SEAL Team CBS. But all these guys are just fantastic.

00:40:27.000 And obviously me and Antoine right there.

00:40:29.000 Have you, because of these books, do you think it's opened doors for other SEALs to start writing and making things into these sort of Stories of similar things to what they've experienced they realize this is kind of a path out once you're you know you've retired from the seals or you've decided that you've done your time and to pursue other things in life that sort of using those life experiences to create these

00:40:59.000 realistic interpretations realistic versions of that there's that like a new sort of pathway now I I don't know.

00:41:07.000 I think it's more, hey, identifying that passion.

00:41:10.000 So mine happened to be writing.

00:41:11.000 I happen to know that this is exactly what I wanted to do, but it's not what everybody wants to do.

00:41:14.000 But being able to listen to the call.

00:41:17.000 So my call was to service in the military and then to write these thrillers.

00:41:20.000 I listened to the call, both of those.

00:41:23.000 But a lot of people don't listen to that call, or they get discouraged or something along the way.

00:41:27.000 But for people, what I hope anyway, is that if anybody takes anything from this journey, Whether it's the military or transitioning from anything in life, whether it's the job transition, death of a loved one, divorce, it can be any sort of transition in life, is identifying that passion and figuring out your mission and putting those two together to give you purpose going forward.

00:41:46.000 So if there's anything that people can take from this or from my journey, that's it, I think.

00:41:51.000 But there's a lot of SEALs and Army Rangers.

00:41:53.000 Max Adams is an Army Ranger.

00:41:55.000 So Max Adams, Army Ranger, wrote on the show...

00:41:59.000 Jared Shaw was there every day, and Ray Mendoza, who has War Office Productions.

00:42:04.000 Those three guys, military, were on set every single day with the actors, with the showrunner, with the directors, and without them, this would be a very different show.

00:42:14.000 But they were there every single day, and they were so invested because we're all so close.

00:42:17.000 And I went out there like five times for a week each, and so I got to be there intermittently, but they were there every single day.

00:42:26.000 And that we're so close.

00:42:27.000 They wanted to do such a good job with it.

00:42:29.000 So I'm so indebted to those guys for being there and for David Agilio, the showrunner, for trusting us, for trusting them with every single decision that came down to tactics or reality and authenticity.

00:42:41.000 There's no product placement in this.

00:42:42.000 No one paid what I think is unusual.

00:42:44.000 No company's paid for product placement.

00:42:46.000 That's unusual?

00:42:47.000 I think so.

00:42:47.000 I think they usually have like a, you know, if you pick something up, like, hey, Coca-Cola.

00:42:51.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:42:52.000 So I think that's usually some sort of a deal in there, but nothing like that for this.

00:42:56.000 It was all based on the gear that we actually use, gear that I talk about in the books, things that are so personal to me, other seals, other operators.

00:43:03.000 So all that stuff is in there because I think Amazon realized how important that was.

00:43:21.000 Was that a decision that was made before the film started?

00:43:25.000 Before the filming started?

00:43:26.000 Yeah, I think the showrunner knew how important that was, and Antoine and Chris were just all about authenticity and all about veterans watching this and not being taken out of it by rolling their eyes and saying, oh, Hollywood screwed it up again, even though it's fiction.

00:43:40.000 When things like that happen, when there are product placements in a show, is that initiated by the producers of the show, the network?

00:43:47.000 Is it initiated by the writers?

00:43:49.000 I don't know.

00:43:50.000 Are they trying to generate income to offset the cost of the production?

00:43:53.000 Probably.

00:43:53.000 I have no idea.

00:43:54.000 Yeah, because it wasn't a part of this show, so I have no idea how it really works.

00:43:56.000 So from the beginning you decided no commercial product placement?

00:43:59.000 Yeah, I'm guessing it was David DiGiulio and the senior executives at Amazon, I'm guessing.

00:44:06.000 But they just knew how important it was.

00:44:08.000 And I mean, I think it's very unusual.

00:44:10.000 So I couldn't be more thrilled with how this turned out.

00:44:14.000 It was just such a good team.

00:44:16.000 And how did you guys wind up at Amazon?

00:44:18.000 Well, Chris, so in December of 2019, Chris and Antoine linked me up with the showrunner, David Agilio.

00:44:25.000 And usually they like to get rid of the author right away because the author could be on set saying, you ruined my vision!

00:44:30.000 It just becomes an issue.

00:44:30.000 So they usually like to get rid of the author.

00:44:33.000 But Chris and Antoine wanted me involved.

00:44:35.000 So they connected me with the showrunner the first week that he got hired.

00:44:38.000 And we kind of felt each other out, him really feeling me out and seeing if I'm going to just be a pain this whole time.

00:44:44.000 And we hit it off right away, and we've talked every day since to include this morning.

00:44:48.000 And we wrote, well, he wrote the pilot episode, and I was just learning.

00:44:52.000 And he really mentored me along, taught me about screenwriting, and I get to advise on that pilot episode.

00:44:58.000 Advise on all the scripts, but primarily that pilot episode we worked together on.

00:45:03.000 But then he took it with Chris and Antoine and they shopped it around and went to Netflix and Amazon and Showtime and HBO and Hulu and Apple and it got into some sort of a bidding war at some point and Amazon ended up with it.

00:45:15.000 Wow!

00:45:15.000 So they wanted it the most, which is perfect.

00:45:18.000 They wanted it the most, yep.

00:45:18.000 Nice.

00:45:18.000 Yep.

00:45:19.000 Wow, that's amazing.

00:45:20.000 I think they're the best place for it anyway because it's like...

00:45:23.000 They have some great shows, and they're kind of under the radar.

00:45:26.000 And they have Reacher now, which they did a...

00:45:28.000 Boy, the difference between the Reacher from the Tom Cruise books and this guy.

00:45:33.000 This guy's perfect.

00:45:34.000 What is his name? 0.99

00:45:34.000 The fucking big giant dude? 0.99

00:45:36.000 He's a big boy. 1.00

00:45:36.000 I forget his name. 1.00

00:45:37.000 He's doing a great job.

00:45:38.000 You saw it, and he needs to test that guy immediately.

00:45:40.000 Move in on him and check his pee. 0.56

00:45:43.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:45:43.000 But he does a great job.

00:45:45.000 He's perfect.

00:45:45.000 Perfect for that role.

00:45:47.000 Yeah, Amazon, I mean, they were so great.

00:45:48.000 I can't say enough.

00:45:50.000 Jesus Christ. 1.00

00:45:51.000 Besides that fucker. 1.00

00:45:52.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:45:53.000 What was his name?

00:45:54.000 Alan Richman.

00:45:56.000 Richson.

00:45:57.000 Richson.

00:45:57.000 And he seems like such a good guy.

00:45:58.000 I've seen some interviews with him.

00:45:59.000 Yes.

00:45:59.000 He seems like such a nice guy.

00:46:01.000 Yeah, he seems like a sweetheart. 1.00

00:46:02.000 But man, he's fucking... 1.00

00:46:03.000 Good boy. 0.99

00:46:03.000 That's the perfect guy for that role. 0.99

00:46:05.000 I think so.

00:46:05.000 Because that was the big complaint about...

00:46:08.000 I never read the Reacher books.

00:46:10.000 Yeah, the child.

00:46:11.000 Yeah, the complaint was that the Jack Reacher in the books is this hulking man.

00:46:15.000 Yeah.

00:46:16.000 And Tom Cruise is basically my size.

00:46:18.000 Yeah.

00:46:18.000 And everybody's like, hey...

00:46:20.000 Yeah, except not as yoked, maybe.

00:46:22.000 Yeah, that's even worse. 0.98

00:46:24.000 At least you can believe a short yoked guy can fuck people up. 0.99

00:46:26.000 But Tom Cruise is just out there. 0.99

00:46:28.000 That guy looks like the guy in the books.

00:46:30.000 I don't know, it's making me feel inadequate.

00:46:32.000 A little bit.

00:46:33.000 I feel a little bit.

00:46:34.000 Go back to that 1951 show, that 1951 series.

00:46:37.000 Yeah, back when guys barely did push-ups. 0.94

00:46:38.000 Exactly.

00:46:39.000 You had what you had.

00:46:40.000 That was it.

00:46:41.000 That was it.

00:46:42.000 But yeah, I heard Lee Child in an interview once because the fan base of the books was a little upset with Tom Cruise getting that role.

00:46:49.000 But I heard Lee Child say something, and he's such an amazing guy.

00:46:52.000 Lee Child has been so nice to me.

00:46:54.000 But he said, hey, there are worse things in the world than having Tom Cruise play your hero from your novels.

00:47:00.000 Well, he's pulled it off before when people complained.

00:47:03.000 Like Lestat, when he played an interview with the vampire.

00:47:06.000 Anne Rice's book had this very intense, brooding, romantic, evil character who was the vampire. 0.98

00:47:16.000 When they were like Tom Cruise, people were like, The fucking risky business guy? 0.99

00:47:20.000 No! 0.99

00:47:21.000 Maverick?

00:47:21.000 Yeah.

00:47:22.000 No!

00:47:22.000 And that one's coming out too, so Maverick's coming out soon.

00:47:25.000 I saw, as I got here last night, it was playing on the big screen when I got off the plane in Austin Airport, and so that's coming out.

00:47:31.000 That's Skydance. 0.99

00:47:32.000 David Ellison does that one, so it's going to be, I can't wait to see that. 0.93

00:47:35.000 In Interview with the Vampire, though, he fucking nailed it. 0.87

00:47:38.000 I mean, Tom Cruise is weird as a guy as he is. 0.98

00:47:41.000 He's a very weird guy.

00:47:42.000 But I think you have to be weird to be that good.

00:47:44.000 Maybe.

00:47:45.000 And maybe we have that level of stardom, too.

00:47:46.000 It's tough.

00:47:47.000 I mean, I don't know.

00:47:48.000 Well, from the time he was a teenager.

00:47:49.000 A whole life.

00:47:50.000 You know, he was in that...

00:47:52.000 Outsiders with Johnny Depp.

00:47:54.000 Those pictures are so fantastic.

00:47:56.000 Those old ones from that...

00:47:57.000 Wild!

00:47:57.000 Yeah.

00:47:57.000 And the book is great, too, for people who haven't read the book, Outsiders, and Rumblefish also.

00:48:02.000 But that whole crew back then, when you see those pictures of them from the early 80s, I think it's fantastic.

00:48:06.000 And then Taps, and he's done an amazing job.

00:48:09.000 Those people who have staying power in Hollywood over decades, because if you look at a lot of actors' careers, it's like a 10-year period where they have this success, and then they do things still, but maybe not at that level they had for this 10-year period Well, he's 60 years old, and he's still in great shape,

00:48:25.000 and he still looks really good.

00:48:27.000 He looks like he's 40. There's a couple guys out there that look very similar to they did 30 years ago.

00:48:31.000 He's one of them.

00:48:32.000 Who else?

00:48:33.000 I don't know.

00:48:34.000 Who else?

00:48:36.000 Rob Lowe looks pretty.

00:48:38.000 Yeah, he looks great.

00:48:39.000 Some of those guys.

00:48:40.000 Tom Cruise keeps it up better than anybody.

00:48:43.000 I don't know what he's doing. 0.99

00:48:44.000 He's doing some weird Scientology shit. 0.98

00:48:46.000 He made some sort of a deal. 0.98

00:48:47.000 Maybe they got hyperbaric chambers he sleeps in or something.

00:48:50.000 Yeah, maybe he did some sort of a deal.

00:48:51.000 I don't know.

00:48:52.000 I don't think so.

00:48:52.000 I don't think Scientologists believe in the devil.

00:48:55.000 Well, I don't know.

00:48:56.000 I don't know.

00:48:57.000 He's doing all right, though.

00:48:58.000 He's doing all right.

00:48:58.000 But yeah, he crushes everything.

00:49:00.000 He does his own stunts.

00:49:01.000 Yeah, he still does all his own stunts.

00:49:03.000 He does everything, including flies helicopters.

00:49:05.000 It's amazing.

00:49:06.000 Yeah, I mean, what film was it?

00:49:07.000 One of the Mission Impossible films?

00:49:09.000 He learned how to fly helicopters so that he could do one of these scenes because you can't fake it.

00:49:14.000 Who does that? 0.99

00:49:14.000 So he's literally cutting through these canyons in a fucking helicopter that he's piloting. 0.99

00:49:19.000 That's wild. 1.00

00:49:20.000 Wild!

00:49:20.000 Remember Patrick Swayze jumping out of planes for Point Break?

00:49:23.000 Oh, yeah.

00:49:23.000 Like, it was a big thing back then.

00:49:24.000 Yeah.

00:49:24.000 What if you burn in?

00:49:26.000 We invested all this money and he would go out and do it on his own anyway.

00:49:30.000 Yeah.

00:49:30.000 I know.

00:49:30.000 What a great...

00:49:31.000 I love that movie.

00:49:32.000 I'm sure you've seen the Tom Cruise Mission Impossible one where he jumps between buildings and shatters his ankle.

00:49:37.000 Oh, yeah.

00:49:37.000 And runs...

00:49:38.000 Keeps the scene going.

00:49:39.000 Yep.

00:49:39.000 Hits the wall, jumps off, and clearly he's got a broken ankle and he's running away.

00:49:43.000 Yeah.

00:49:43.000 That happened on the set of The Terminal List with Taylor Kitsch, who was Friday Night Lights for...

00:49:47.000 All my wife's friends are like, Taylor Kitsch, oh my goodness. 1.00

00:49:50.000 I don't know who that is.

00:49:51.000 He's in...

00:49:51.000 Let's see what he looks like.

00:49:52.000 Yeah.

00:49:52.000 Pull up Taylor Kitsch.

00:49:54.000 So girls like him, huh?

00:49:55.000 Is that what you're saying?

00:49:55.000 Yeah.

00:49:55.000 Yeah, they really do.

00:49:57.000 More than that other guy?

00:49:58.000 That Adam Richson guy?

00:50:00.000 I don't know.

00:50:01.000 There we go.

00:50:03.000 Oh, he's a handsome fellow too?

00:50:04.000 Yeah.

00:50:04.000 So he got hurt?

00:50:05.000 Well, yeah.

00:50:06.000 But he pushed through.

00:50:07.000 I mean, tough.

00:50:09.000 People think that a lot of times Hollywood, oh, you're going to You know, they're gonna baby you around.

00:50:13.000 But he got in this one scene, this gunfight that he's in with Chris.

00:50:17.000 He came off these steps and tripped on something that wasn't supposed to be there.

00:50:21.000 And you can tell.

00:50:22.000 Like, you can see that he's, like, hurt.

00:50:24.000 Not just like, oh, I rolled my ankle a little bit.

00:50:26.000 Like, it was serious.

00:50:27.000 And he got up and just did it.

00:50:29.000 And then we did more takes.

00:50:30.000 Wow.

00:50:30.000 Yeah, super tough.

00:50:31.000 He was so devoted.

00:50:32.000 And he worked that shotgun.

00:50:33.000 Ray Mendoza was out there with him working the shotgun.

00:50:36.000 So when you see him work the shotgun in the film, It's him really working the shotgun.

00:50:40.000 They'd have spent weekend time off.

00:50:42.000 I don't know if they're supposed to be doing that or whatever, but they were out there training on that thing in the desert, and it shows.

00:50:47.000 It's amazing how hard it is to look competent when you're shooting guns.

00:50:52.000 Especially with camera angles, and that can mess things up.

00:50:55.000 One of my takeaways from this whole experience was how Right.

00:51:03.000 Right.

00:51:22.000 Any part of this production, they were in it.

00:51:25.000 And they made sure that it didn't go off the rails.

00:51:27.000 And having those seals there and Max Adams Army Ranger there each and every day like that kept this thing on the rails.

00:51:33.000 But I can see...

00:51:34.000 I was always forgiving when I saw things in movies like someone's thumbs in aren't in the right position on that pistol or finger on the trigger type of a thing.

00:51:41.000 Very forgiving.

00:51:42.000 But now I'm even more forgiving because I see just how easy it is to mess these things up.

00:51:47.000 And even if you film something and you're like, oh, let's do it again.

00:51:49.000 Well, in post-production, someone that doesn't know weapons might be like, oh, let's just use this one.

00:51:53.000 It looks way better.

00:51:54.000 But it's the one where something was on backwards because they gave it to the actor or whatever else.

00:51:59.000 But yeah, I think we accomplished what we set out to do and keep this thing rooted in authenticity and That's because of Antoine and Chris and David DiGilio.

00:52:07.000 So when all those got...

00:52:09.000 Does Antoine have any military experience or any...?

00:52:12.000 His first touch point with the military that really stands out to him is working with Bruce Willis in Tears of the Sun.

00:52:20.000 And it was a SEAL-centric movie and they had advisors on set and they had SEALs there.

00:52:26.000 That's typically with Vietnam type of tactics because that's what we had really up until September 11th was Vietnam tactics.

00:52:32.000 Because we hadn't been in sustained combat operations since Vietnam.

00:52:36.000 We had flashpoints in Mogadishu and Desert One and Panama and Grenada, but those were flashpoints.

00:52:41.000 It wasn't sustained combat operations.

00:52:43.000 Now, obviously, we have 20 years.

00:52:45.000 But the tactics in that movie were Vietnam era tactics, which were when I came into the SEAL teams and what we were doing.

00:52:51.000 And he had this experience with SEALs.

00:52:54.000 And he was like, wow, these guys are just saying, yes, let me move that.

00:52:58.000 Let me move that barrier. 0.99

00:52:59.000 What do we need done?

00:52:59.000 Let's do it.

00:53:00.000 Instead of having to ask somebody and worry about unions and all the rest.

00:53:03.000 Who's allowed to do what?

00:53:05.000 And these guys just got it done.

00:53:06.000 So after that, Antoine was like, wow, these guys, there's something a little different about these guys, and he's been a supporter of the military.

00:53:12.000 He's probably a military supporter before that, but that was his real experience, getting to know team guys, getting to know SEALs.

00:53:18.000 When you're saying Vietnam-era tactics, what's the difference?

00:53:22.000 So it was in the jungle.

00:53:25.000 If you watched that movie in particular, I'm sure there's some other ones out there, but the way that you would move in the jungle and just lay down suppressive fire and having two elements leapfrogging back to get out of that contact, it was just a little different that you could take that.

00:53:42.000 And what we did for training after Vietnam was we'd take those tactics and we dropped them into an urban environment in training, or we dropped them into a mountain environment in training.

00:53:51.000 And then after September 11th, we got to over 10,000 feet in Afghanistan and realized, hey, some things are a little different here.

00:53:57.000 Like, the enemy's going to be shooting.

00:53:58.000 There's not all this jungle around.

00:54:00.000 They're going to shoot at the muzzle flash.

00:54:02.000 And what we have initially out of the gate, we had M4s with suppressors, but the automatic weapons didn't have suppressors yet.

00:54:09.000 And so where does that mean the enemy fire goes?

00:54:11.000 To those guys on the automatic weapons.

00:54:13.000 So the suppressor hides the muzzle fire?

00:54:15.000 Yeah.

00:54:16.000 So does the muzzle fire go off inside the suppressor?

00:54:18.000 Is that what happens?

00:54:19.000 Yeah, it just masks it.

00:54:20.000 Right.

00:54:21.000 Yeah.

00:54:21.000 And so you can just see that AW just lighten it up.

00:54:24.000 And so that's where the enemy fires went.

00:54:25.000 So after that, we realized how important it is to...

00:54:30.000 We're good to go.

00:54:47.000 Is this something that they sit down, discuss with people?

00:54:50.000 Or do they just work in the field?

00:54:53.000 How do they do that?

00:54:54.000 Yeah, those guys are adapting in the field right away, and then they're getting back, and they're doing a hot wash right away.

00:54:58.000 What went right, what went wrong, how we can do it better next time.

00:55:01.000 And then they put together an after-action review, an AAR, and then send that out to the force.

00:55:06.000 So you're going to be back in Coronado, California, Virginia Beach, Virginia, and read this and say, oh, geez, okay, we need to adapt this, this, this, and this.

00:55:13.000 Let's get to work.

00:55:13.000 What do the next guys going downrange need?

00:55:15.000 What do the guys downrange need right now?

00:55:17.000 Whether it's suppressors, whether it's the next generation of night vision, or whatever it is.

00:55:21.000 Now we have to start adapting.

00:55:23.000 Hey, in training here, we've been training for a number of years just to rush into a building doing hostage rescue techniques when there might not be a hostage inside.

00:55:32.000 When we might just be going into somebody's house to grab them out of their bed in the middle of the night, let's say in Ramadi.

00:55:36.000 We're good to go.

00:55:55.000 I mean, not really, I hate using the word game, but it's a game of adaptation, constant adaptation.

00:56:01.000 So you can't just say, oh, now we're in the mountains, or now we're in the urban environment, this is what we're going to do.

00:56:05.000 Well, guess what?

00:56:06.000 The enemy is taking notes as well.

00:56:07.000 Is it one of those situations, though, sometimes where there's an impediment to success in that when you do have situations go sideways, people are reluctant to take the blame, so maybe they don't describe what happened as accurately as possible?

00:56:24.000 If you're going to do something in Hollywood, you have so many people involved, it's very difficult to get What you really want out of it because, you know, everybody wants to have their say, everybody wants to kind of manipulate things.

00:56:37.000 Is that the case in warfare where if a mission goes sideways, maybe you want to blame it on the operators and maybe someone wants to blame it on the plan initially?

00:56:49.000 How do they hash that out and figure out what's the right way or wrong way to handle something?

00:56:54.000 Right.

00:56:54.000 So I'm sure that some of that went on.

00:56:56.000 I just, that was not my experience.

00:56:58.000 My experience was when someone failed in the field, they wanted to pass those lessons along to the force because it makes us a stronger force as a whole, make stronger country as a whole if we pass those lessons on.

00:57:08.000 So it's so important to pass those failures on as well as the successes, what's working, what's not working.

00:57:13.000 And that means you got to, yeah, that ego has to be subverted.

00:57:16.000 And you have to share those failures.

00:57:18.000 Like Jaco says, extreme ownership.

00:57:20.000 That's it.

00:57:20.000 You take ownership of it.

00:57:21.000 I'm sure there are instances here and there of something going sideways.

00:57:24.000 And I mean, I'm sure that exists.

00:57:25.000 It's just human nature, maybe to cover up something you did wrong.

00:57:28.000 I don't know.

00:57:29.000 But that wasn't my experience.

00:57:30.000 I saw everybody really being completely honest.

00:57:33.000 We get back, hey, I did this wrong.

00:57:35.000 I screwed this up.

00:57:36.000 And this is how we're going to change it for next time.

00:57:38.000 Like just owning it right away to make us all a better way.

00:57:40.000 And it increases trust, both up and down the chain of command.

00:57:43.000 You're telling your senior leaders, hey, we messed this up, and the guys below you in the chain of command literally say, hey, my leaders want us all to be stronger next time so this doesn't happen again.

00:57:51.000 So if you don't do that, it can really erode that trust.

00:57:55.000 So it's so important to be honest, especially about the failures.

00:57:58.000 One of the reasons why I'm bringing this up is one of the recurring themes in your books with James Reese is these people that are, they're in the military, but they're either corrupt or they're egomaniacs or they're pencil pushers who, 0.98

00:58:14.000 because of their whatever's going on, whether it's corruption or whatever's happening, They'll come up with ideas that benefit them and put the soldiers lives in danger and It seems like that's a kind of a reoccurring theme that there's people that you have to listen to that are assholes Oh yeah, 0.97

00:58:33.000 and I get a lot of that from real world. 0.71

00:58:37.000 Certainly our senior level generals and politicians are giving me a lot to work with when it comes to that side of the house.

00:58:44.000 Let me just look at Afghanistan.

00:58:45.000 We had 20 years to prepare to leave Afghanistan, and the best we could do is what we saw last August.

00:58:53.000 You didn't need a background in military.

00:58:55.000 You didn't need to read a book on military history, on strategy, on tactics.

00:58:59.000 You could just apply common sense to that problem set.

00:59:02.000 And that's what Carl von Klauschwitz, who wrote On War, he described as the most important attribute of a battlefield leader is common sense.

00:59:10.000 George Marshall, the same thing.

00:59:11.000 He fired so many people to get to those generals we all know today who won World War II. We're good to go.

00:59:35.000 And so he gave them a chance, gave them a second chance.

00:59:37.000 Boom.

00:59:37.000 They were gone.

00:59:38.000 Someone else moved.

00:59:39.000 And they didn't fail forward either.

00:59:41.000 They were gone.

00:59:42.000 And that made us a stronger military.

00:59:44.000 Put those people in place that we all know today.

00:59:46.000 And then something shifted after World War II. And I don't know what it is, but there's a lack of accountability that got attached to senior level leadership.

00:59:55.000 And we've seen that time and time again.

00:59:56.000 We had 20 years in Afghanistan.

00:59:58.000 There's a great book called The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock, and there were these interviews that were done with these senior-level generals leaving Afghanistan in particular, and they thought that these interviews and questions were going to remain classified.

01:00:12.000 There were Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, two of them, that got these released.

01:00:17.000 And he juxtaposes what they said in these private classified interviews with what they were saying to Congress, the American people, their troops, and their 180 out from one another.

01:00:26.000 And if you go back and look at testimony to Congress, you can take the person's name off there, take the date off there, and they say essentially the same things.

01:00:34.000 The Afghan military, we're making progress.

01:00:37.000 All we need is, we're meeting our milestones, just need more resources, more funding, more troops, whatever it is they're asking for.

01:00:43.000 For 20 years, the same things.

01:00:45.000 And the one guy, I think it was in 2009, people can go back and check me, the guy that said one thing that wasn't a party line, and he didn't even say anything bad, he said something along the lines of, things aren't going as well in Afghanistan as we think they are.

01:00:58.000 He was removed a couple months later.

01:01:00.000 The only person held accountable over that 20-year period.

01:01:02.000 And then we get to Afghanistan, and look what we have. 0.77

01:01:05.000 That's why anybody can look at the situation and say, why are we giving up this tactically advantageous position at Bagram, and we're putting America's sons and daughters in a tactically disadvantageous position at this airfield in Kabul?

01:01:17.000 And then what do we have?

01:01:18.000 We have 13 Americans dead.

01:01:20.000 Numerous others with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress, missing arms, legs, in wheelchairs.

01:01:25.000 There's a Marine, a female, who is in a wheelchair now.

01:01:29.000 And friends of mine at Rescue 22 Foundation have trained up a dog for her.

01:01:32.000 She's an inspiration, just incredible.

01:01:35.000 But why was she there?

01:01:37.000 Why did we give up Bagram?

01:01:39.000 And you don't need a military background to look at that situation and say, hey, if we're leaving, why don't we leave from this position that's tactically advantageous?

01:01:46.000 And a lot of that falls on politicians.

01:01:48.000 But still, we have senior level military leaders for a reason, and their responsibility is to the troops.

01:01:54.000 And I don't know why none of them have been held accountable over this last 20 years, particularly for Afghanistan, for that debacle and the way we left that country. 0.53

01:02:03.000 20 years to prepare.

01:02:04.000 You didn't have to go back to the Soviets in 79-89.

01:02:07.000 You didn't have to go back to three British incursions in the 1800s and early 1900s.

01:02:11.000 Certainly didn't need to go back to Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great to pull out certain lessons.

01:02:15.000 We fell prey, I think, to imperial hubris, and we thought that we could do this, and we took the wrong lessons from the Soviet experience. 0.90

01:02:23.000 What we needed to do in 2001 is flood that country and flood Tora Bora in particular.

01:02:29.000 We had 100 special operators, CIA guys, on the ground in Tora Bora.

01:02:33.000 That's where Bin Laden was.

01:02:34.000 They asked for rangers.

01:02:35.000 They asked for Marines. 0.93

01:02:36.000 They asked for 10th Mountain Division.

01:02:37.000 Those requests were denied, and Bin Laden escaped.

01:02:41.000 And that moment right there, more than any other moment, really defined the next 20 years.

01:02:47.000 Now, when you say they requested all these people and those requests were denied, was there a reason given as to why those requests were denied?

01:02:55.000 I don't know if there's a reason, but in looking back at it, it is that the senior level leaders didn't want that Soviet experience, which we eventually had.

01:03:08.000 They wanted to keep the troop levels to a minimum and do the job with a minimum amount of people on the ground.

01:03:14.000 And of course, after that, we ballooned way past what their initial...

01:03:19.000 We had more people, I think, at the Salt Lake City Olympics than we had in Afghanistan, which is crazy to think about.

01:03:26.000 But hey, lessons learned.

01:03:27.000 And what I would hope is that we take those lessons and apply them going forward as a wisdom.

01:03:32.000 And we neglect to do that in this country.

01:03:34.000 We think of things in terms of four-year election cycles, eight-year election cycles for the real deep thinkers among us.

01:03:39.000 But what we owe those people who sacrifice their lives, and it's not just their lives, people coming home with this post-traumatic stress, and it's a generational type of deal because it's going to affect their children.

01:03:48.000 It's going to affect their spouse.

01:03:50.000 So it's a multi-generational thing that people come home with.

01:03:53.000 But we owe them everything.

01:03:54.000 Our best efforts going forward to take those lessons and apply them to the next conflict, apply them going forward as wisdom.

01:04:00.000 And I'm not hopeful that we're going to do that because we don't have a very good track record of that.

01:04:04.000 So bringing it back to what happened post-World War II, what do you think is the cause of that?

01:04:12.000 I mean, there's two wars, the Korean War and then the Vietnam War, that are not thought of favorably.

01:04:20.000 World War II, the people that came home were heroes.

01:04:23.000 In World War II, we were fighting against this evil empire, the Third Reich and the Japanese and the Russians. 1.00

01:04:32.000 There was so much chaos going on during World War II. There was so much happening.

01:04:41.000 And then afterwards, there's the Cold War.

01:04:43.000 There's us and the Russians, right?

01:04:45.000 And then you have this thing that happens in Korea, which is...

01:04:50.000 It's not publicized.

01:04:53.000 It's not like a big part of American history.

01:04:55.000 A lot of people sort of...

01:04:56.000 They go World War II Vietnam, and they kind of forget about Korea.

01:05:01.000 But Korea was... 0.99

01:05:04.000 You know, a very fucked up war and the ramifications of it were very fucked up and then Vietnam was way more fucked up. 1.00

01:05:12.000 Vietnam, no one thinks we should have ever done in the first place. 1.00

01:05:15.000 The pretense for going into Vietnam was fake.

01:05:18.000 The whole Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened and there was a false flag event that led us to lose untold American lives.

01:05:26.000 50 over 58,000. 0.89

01:05:27.000 Yeah, and then on top of that, just the fucking generations, as you said, of families and loved ones that have to deal with the stress and the chaos and having lost people over there. 0.96

01:05:38.000 There seems to be a direct connection between the loss of faith in the military in those conflicts, the Korean conflict and then the Vietnam conflict. 0.94

01:05:48.000 Whereas, we don't think about it that way when we think about World War II. When we think about World War II, we think about it as the good guys versus the bad guys.

01:05:58.000 And we won, and we came back, and there's the famous kiss on V-Day in the middle of the street.

01:06:06.000 There's all these romantic notions attached to World War II that aren't attached to Korea and aren't attached to Vietnam.

01:06:14.000 Yeah, I mean, Eisenhower's speech, people pull out that military-industrial complex line, but people should listen to the whole speech.

01:06:20.000 Listen to it and watch it, because it's fascinating.

01:06:23.000 But something shifted, and I don't know exactly what it is.

01:06:25.000 I can't put my finger on it, but it keeps coming back to accountability.

01:06:28.000 But my question is, why do we lose that sense of accountability?

01:06:32.000 Why did we lose the importance of accountability following World War II, particularly in 1947 when we reorganized, really, our defense system?

01:06:38.000 Our intelligence agencies and the military got reorganized in 1947. We changed the name of the War Department to the Department of Defense.

01:06:47.000 So we have precision in language, precision in thought.

01:06:50.000 There's a shift there.

01:06:51.000 We used to have a Secretary of War.

01:06:53.000 What do we have after 1947?

01:06:54.000 We have a Secretary of Defense.

01:06:56.000 So there's that little thing, little thing, but language is important.

01:07:00.000 And then for some reason, we stopped holding our senior level leaders accountable.

01:07:04.000 And I don't know why you could point to This essentially a triad of politicians, of think tanks, of the defense industry, kind of how people float between all those things.

01:07:19.000 So it became big business.

01:07:20.000 NATO became big business.

01:07:22.000 So there's a lot of things that came into play that weren't at play before World War II that become reality after World War II. So I don't know what it is.

01:07:32.000 I can't put my finger on it.

01:07:33.000 But then we have that same generation that came home and what did they do?

01:07:35.000 They got to work.

01:07:36.000 They didn't whine about what they'd been involved in.

01:07:39.000 They got to work and they built this country into what it is today.

01:07:43.000 And it's so hard to see what we're doing to ourselves really in this country.

01:07:48.000 That last book, In the Devil's Hand, I put myself in the enemy's shoes and I thought, hey, what did they learn from us on the field of battle over the last 20 years at war?

01:07:57.000 And during the time I was writing that, COVID hit.

01:07:59.000 Summer of civil unrest.

01:08:00.000 Very contentious political season and election cycle.

01:08:03.000 The enemy's learning from all those things.

01:08:05.000 And the sad part of my takeaway from that research Was that, hey, if I'm the enemy, I might just watch.

01:08:10.000 We're doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves from the inside right now.

01:08:14.000 I might just wait and watch and see what happens.

01:08:17.000 But, of course, I had to figure out in a fictional sense how to deal with that, and I did in a very creative way that was fun to figure out.

01:08:23.000 But it's sad to think that we've lost this appreciation, I think, for what was sacrificed so we could have these freedoms and options and opportunities that we do today.

01:08:33.000 So from the inception of this country up until today, people have sacrificed everything or they've risked everything so that we can have these freedoms.

01:08:39.000 And now we have a segment of society that wants to undercut those freedoms because I don't think they appreciate what was sacrificed so we could have them.

01:08:47.000 And that part, that's sad.

01:08:48.000 I took my daughter to...

01:08:49.000 Pearl Harbor for the 80th anniversary commemoration events this last December.

01:08:53.000 And we volunteered with an organization called the Best Defense Foundation, Donnie Edwards Foundation, that takes people back to the World War II battlefields primarily so they can say goodbye.

01:09:02.000 They can make peace with what they did there.

01:09:04.000 And a lot of them, it's their last trips to these places.

01:09:06.000 A lot of them, it's their second trip.

01:09:08.000 The first one was actually going over the beach in Normandy or going to Iwo Jima and fighting.

01:09:12.000 And now they're getting to go there in the last years of their lives and say goodbye.

01:09:16.000 But we went to Pearl Harbor, and so my daughter is 16, and she sat it.

01:09:19.000 We volunteered.

01:09:20.000 We took 64 veterans, age of 96 to 104. Wow.

01:09:24.000 And in wheelchairs, we're getting them on and off the buses, taking them to the events, getting the dinners, making sure they're taking their medications, all that stuff.

01:09:30.000 And it was a turning point in her life, because she got to sit down across the table from this generation that, yeah, she's heard me talk about, and she's read about.

01:09:36.000 But to hear them tell their stories, and a lot of them haven't even told their stories until just a few years ago.

01:09:41.000 There's one guy, Jack Holder, who was on the airfield at Pearl Harbor.

01:09:45.000 He watched the planes, Japanese planes, come over the mountains, drop down, strafe the runway.

01:09:50.000 He jumps into what was then a sewage ditch, and he showed us the bullet holes in the runway, still there, in the hangar, still there.

01:09:57.000 And so he jumps into this sewage ditch, he watches the planes take this left-hand turn, bank, And he jumps up, runs to the edge of Pearl Harbor right there on the water and watches them and watches the first torpedoes get dropped in Pearl Harbor.

01:10:11.000 And then he went back, he flew a PBY, which was a seaplane.

01:10:16.000 And then he went on to fight in the Pacific and he sunk a Japanese submarine and helped sink a Japanese aircraft carrier.

01:10:23.000 And then he goes to the Mediterranean and sinks a German submarine.

01:10:28.000 I mean, incredible.

01:10:30.000 Incredible.

01:10:30.000 That's what this generation did for us.

01:10:31.000 And so she got to see that.

01:10:34.000 Point being is that she appreciates what that generation gave us.

01:10:39.000 And then by default, what previous generations have given us.

01:10:43.000 So we're going to go to D-Day here this June, taking her out of school.

01:10:47.000 We're going to go do that.

01:10:48.000 Go to Normandy and take the same group of veterans back to Normandy.

01:10:53.000 And a lot of them, it'll be their last trip.

01:10:56.000 But she'll get to help again, get them to the events, get them to dinners, get them on and off the buses, in and out of the wheelchairs.

01:11:01.000 And experience that place with them.

01:11:04.000 I can't imagine what it must be like for them to go back to Normandy and to be on that beach.

01:11:09.000 And I mean, I've seen the photographs and, you know, I think probably one of the best theatrical representations of it is Saving Private Ryan, right?

01:11:18.000 It's just horrific.

01:11:20.000 Horrific.

01:11:21.000 They nailed that scene.

01:11:23.000 Oh, yeah.

01:11:24.000 Oh, yeah.

01:11:24.000 I mean, it puts things in relative terms.

01:11:28.000 And for me, it was in buds on the beach in Hell Week, you know, doing push-ups, getting yelled at, you're freezing, you're on the verge of hypothermia, people are quitting.

01:11:34.000 And I thought, hey, you know what?

01:11:35.000 I'm not coming off of a boat onto a beach in Normandy where I'm running through a hail of machine gun fire that's set up in an elevated position with no cover and concealment between me and...

01:11:46.000 Right.

01:11:46.000 I'm like, I can do a few more push-ups here on the beach.

01:11:48.000 You know, I can shiver here in the water a little longer here.

01:11:50.000 Those guys sacrificed that so I could follow my dream and I could be here on this beach in Coronado, California, testing myself in this crucible of buds.

01:11:57.000 So I think about that generation in particular quite a bit and what they gave us. 0.99

01:12:02.000 Tactically, when they review storming the beach at Normandy, is there alternative methods of approaching that situation that people have proposed that would have caused less casualties?

01:12:16.000 Because it's such a crazy thing to just dump everybody off at the beach and run towards the gunfire.

01:12:21.000 I mean, I always wonder, like, why didn't they do something differently?

01:12:26.000 Why didn't they shoot at them with planes and soften them up first?

01:12:30.000 I mean, it seems...

01:12:31.000 Well, we had some of that.

01:12:32.000 So we did drop people behind the lines.

01:12:34.000 We had gliders going in.

01:12:36.000 We bombarded the shore first.

01:12:37.000 And gliders is because no sound?

01:12:40.000 You know, that is a good...

01:12:41.000 I mean, that must be a part of it.

01:12:42.000 I can't remember exactly why, but that must be it.

01:12:44.000 But they had the gliders going in, and oh my gosh, what a crazy thing to be involved in, especially back then.

01:12:51.000 Yeah.

01:12:51.000 In the 1940s, being in the back of a glider.

01:12:54.000 Jesus Christ.

01:12:55.000 Essentially crashing, and then getting out, and then having to figure out where you are.

01:12:58.000 And then to figure out, without radios, who the good guys are, who the bad guys are, which direction are we going, all of that.

01:13:04.000 So we get dropped off in the right place.

01:13:06.000 Some of them were shot down, and then a lot of them were shot down.

01:13:10.000 So they did do things to soften up those beaches and all of that. 0.92

01:13:15.000 You know, we're dealing with 1940s technology.

01:13:17.000 We're coming off of lessons of World War I, which was even more horrific.

01:13:21.000 Did they have missiles back then that are capable of, like, being precise?

01:13:26.000 No.

01:13:26.000 Or did they just sort of launch them in the general direction?

01:13:29.000 No, the Germans had some miscellaneous.

01:13:31.000 I believe they had missile technology that was rocket technology that was...

01:13:35.000 Far superior to ours, I think.

01:13:36.000 People can check me on that.

01:13:38.000 But no, it was mostly like a gigantic bullet coming out of a battleship.

01:13:41.000 Wow.

01:13:42.000 And hitting something, or not.

01:13:44.000 So yeah, it's an amazing place to go for people who haven't been, to go to these memorials, especially to take kids to these memorials, and to go to Pearl Harbor, and to go to Normandy, and to go stand up on Pointe du Hoc and look down.

01:13:54.000 And see where the Rangers had to climb up ropes and ladders.

01:13:58.000 And the Germans are firing right down on them from these positions.

01:14:01.000 And they just kept climbing.

01:14:02.000 The Longest Day, that old movie, it shows that as well.

01:14:06.000 And I grew up with that film.

01:14:07.000 It's an old black and white movie that people should watch.

01:14:09.000 They should watch that end, Saving Private Ryan.

01:14:11.000 And that's the power of popular culture.

01:14:13.000 Like, these movies play an important part in our popular culture and in our history because you can show these things and create this appreciation.

01:14:21.000 And we're just losing that, I think.

01:14:23.000 I mean, Hollywood used to be our most prolific and valuable asset that we would export.

01:14:30.000 And so people from all over the world would see these movies and see this opportunity that was the United States.

01:14:34.000 And I think that's shifted.

01:14:35.000 That's shifted over time.

01:14:37.000 That's why those war films I think are so important because you can watch that and say, oh my gosh, I am so appreciative of what those guys did.

01:14:44.000 And you know what, my life here, maybe I can make some changes here and I can appreciate what they did for us so that I can make my own decisions and I can have these freedoms and opportunities rather than just complain about it because really, you know what I'm not doing?

01:14:58.000 Running into a hail of machine gun bullets as I cross this beach.

01:15:00.000 So there's a lot to appreciate the previous generations and what they did for us.

01:15:06.000 This is what I was getting at by saying, trying to figure out what weren't wrong and did it go wrong because after that, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam conflict were not thought of as victories for America in the same way, especially Vietnam.

01:15:23.000 I mean, I've talked to people that came back and the things that they endured and the abuse that they took, people calling them baby killers and people saying horrible...

01:15:32.000 Some of it was accurate.

01:15:35.000 I don't remember who the senator was, but there was someone who was a politician.

01:15:40.000 It may not have been a senator, but they were calling him a hero, and they had this depiction of his past about what a war hero he was.

01:15:53.000 Do you know what I'm talking about?

01:15:54.000 And it wasn't true.

01:15:55.000 He came clean and he said, listen, I killed women, I killed children, I did some horrible things when I was there.

01:16:03.000 I don't know who this guy is.

01:16:04.000 I'm thinking of the person who just lied in general and didn't really even serve.

01:16:07.000 There's a few of those guys.

01:16:08.000 This is a different story.

01:16:10.000 This is a story where the guy said, look, I can't do this anymore.

01:16:13.000 This is not what happened.

01:16:15.000 What we were involved in was essentially war crimes and we did some horrible, horrible things.

01:16:20.000 Which was also a part of the Vietnam War.

01:16:23.000 What happened in those jungles and the way the war was playing out and the frustration that the soldiers had and the evil potential that men have for evil.

01:16:36.000 Oh yeah, you see it.

01:16:38.000 You see that potential for evil and that's why you have to take such pains to maintain the moral high ground because oftentimes that's all we have that differentiates us from the enemy.

01:16:48.000 Is that moral high ground, and when you lose it, you've lost.

01:16:51.000 But there was a giant shift in the difference between the way people thought of war...

01:16:55.000 Yeah.

01:16:55.000 Well, it's televised, so that was another thing.

01:16:57.000 There's so many factors that come into play.

01:16:59.000 The world changing, military-industrial complex becoming an actual business, and televised war in Vietnam, obviously.

01:17:06.000 But the unnecessary aspect of Vietnam, too. 0.97

01:17:09.000 And you're seeing it every day.

01:17:10.000 So a lot less people killed in Vietnam, but you're seeing it every day.

01:17:13.000 It's on the TV every single night.

01:17:17.000 And it's televised.

01:17:18.000 The body counts are coming in.

01:17:20.000 The protests.

01:17:21.000 The protests start.

01:17:22.000 And so you're seeing that.

01:17:23.000 It becomes a part of everyday life rather than in World War II, hey, you know what we need to do now?

01:17:28.000 Anybody that has vehicles that have tires, we need that rubber for the war effort.

01:17:31.000 Take it downtown.

01:17:32.000 If you're on the coast, make sure you have those blackout curtains in your house.

01:17:35.000 Like, everybody was involved in it somehow.

01:17:38.000 What was that?

01:17:39.000 Blackout curtains in your house?

01:17:39.000 Blackout curtains so you wouldn't see a light on at night, so they're worried about another attack, let's say, on the Pacific coast from the Japanese.

01:17:46.000 So everybody had to have blackout curtains.

01:17:48.000 Really?

01:17:48.000 In their house on the coast.

01:17:49.000 So did they shut off the street lights and everything?

01:17:51.000 Probably.

01:17:52.000 I don't know about the street lights, but yeah, I would assume that all the lights went off and you had these blackout curtains.

01:17:57.000 I'd never heard this before.

01:17:57.000 Yeah, yep.

01:17:58.000 So that was the thing.

01:17:59.000 That was the thing.

01:18:00.000 My grandparents had to do it and everybody was a part of it.

01:18:03.000 It affected everybody.

01:18:04.000 You know, Vietnam affected everybody because you're seeing it. 1.00

01:18:08.000 So you're seeing it right there.

01:18:09.000 It's on TV. Those body counts are coming in, so you have that part of it.

01:18:12.000 And for some reason, once again, this imperial hubris...

01:18:15.000 Blackout means black. 0.90

01:18:16.000 American poster from World War II reminding citizens of blackouts for civil defense.

01:18:23.000 Wow.

01:18:24.000 Minimizing outdoor light.

01:18:26.000 Yeah.

01:18:27.000 So everybody's a part of this.

01:18:29.000 And there's a threat of invasion, a very real threat of invasion.

01:18:33.000 Yeah.

01:18:34.000 And we got, we did, there were, I think it was, I'm going to get this exact numbers wrong, but there was a small number, less than 10, of German saboteurs.

01:18:44.000 I think there were two U.S. citizens that were involved in it on the East Coast.

01:18:47.000 They came out of a submarine.

01:18:48.000 I think there's an old black and white movie about it.

01:18:51.000 But they were tried in like a month.

01:18:54.000 Military tribunals on U.S. soil.

01:18:57.000 And I think two were executed.

01:18:58.000 I think the rest went to prison.

01:19:00.000 But what do we have now?

01:19:02.000 We still have people attached to 9-11 that are still in Guantanamo.

01:19:07.000 We're good to go.

01:19:26.000 There are so many different...

01:19:27.000 I've read so much about it.

01:19:30.000 It's so confusing.

01:19:31.000 It's kind of like...

01:19:31.000 I know you've had Oliver Stone on here talking about JFK. Yeah.

01:19:34.000 It's just there's so much out there, and there's so much information, and there's just...

01:19:38.000 So much time has passed now.

01:19:41.000 So it's confusing about all that stuff.

01:19:43.000 Hey, was this stuff taken under duress, you know, any of this?

01:19:45.000 Yes.

01:19:46.000 I don't know.

01:19:47.000 I don't know, but I know that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is in there still, and we're still waiting on his final, what's going to happen to him, so...

01:19:56.000 I don't know.

01:19:57.000 It's just a different time.

01:19:58.000 So once again, all these things come into play.

01:20:00.000 So we have 20 years now, compared to World War II, one month to deal with someone.

01:20:06.000 Is that better or worse?

01:20:07.000 I don't know.

01:20:08.000 I mean, I guess you can debate that as well.

01:20:11.000 But something certainly shifted after World War II. But the main thing I can point to is that accountability or lack of accountability, I should say.

01:20:17.000 There's still accountability for the people at the tactical level who mess up, not so much at that strategic level.

01:20:22.000 There are very few senior-level generals who have been held accountable for any missteps strategically over the last 20 years.

01:20:29.000 So, that's a shift.

01:20:30.000 That is a difference.

01:20:31.000 How much of a part does it play in the general public's confidence that the war is just and that these actions are just?

01:20:38.000 Like, there's a lot of lack of confidence after the weapons of mass destruction debacle.

01:20:43.000 I mean, it was promoted by the mainstream media.

01:20:46.000 It was promoted by politicians and military industrial complex wanted us to get into Iraq, and they were claiming that there was Unquestionably, weapons of mass destruction.

01:20:56.000 We had to get in there.

01:20:56.000 We had to stop this before it became another disaster.

01:20:59.000 Yeah, that's a tough one because when you see these authoritarian regimes and you see, just like with Putin today, they don't necessarily get the best information from their senior level generals and advisors because if you bring bad news to, let's say, the leader of North Korea or Iran or Russia,

01:21:15.000 well, guess what?

01:21:16.000 You might not be long for this world.

01:21:17.000 So it doesn't encourage people to step up and say, hey, you know this nuclear program that we've been talking about?

01:21:24.000 We don't really have it.

01:21:25.000 If you're telling Saddam Hussein that.

01:21:27.000 So there are plenty of people who thought that they actually had that.

01:21:30.000 And why did they do that?

01:21:31.000 Well, they wanted to deter their neighbors.

01:21:33.000 Or they looked at it as a deterrence, probably.

01:21:36.000 So that comes into play, too.

01:21:39.000 It's very hard for me to think that, even though I write about in the book all sorts of...

01:21:43.000 In my books in general, all sorts of nefarious things at senior levels of government, it's so hard for me to believe that they actually took steps deliberately that they knew were wrong based on faulty intel.

01:21:55.000 I have to think that they assumed that they were getting good intel and these things, although later on in the war, I would not have been able to launch a mission based off the kind of intel that we use to actually go to war.

01:22:07.000 I would not be able to launch a mission off of single-source intelligence that wasn't corroborated by technical means and another human source, meaning another human on the ground disassociated from the network that's giving me my information on said bad guy.

01:22:21.000 Well, I'm not just going to launch based on him because, well, he just might have some sort of a feud with that guy and want me to use the military to take that person out.

01:22:29.000 So we saw that a lot in the beginning.

01:22:30.000 So you have to Corroborate that with another totally disassociated network and then technical means as well.

01:22:37.000 So you really know you're going after the right person for the right reasons and you're not just settling some centuries-old feud.

01:22:43.000 But going into the war, I wouldn't have been able to launch a mission 10 years later based on that kind of intel.

01:22:51.000 I had a conversation with a guy once, and we were talking about weapons of mass destruction, the way it was promoted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

01:23:01.000 And they were saying that it was just obviously that it was not true, but that it was this massive hoax and that it was all designed to get us to enter into the war.

01:23:11.000 And I'm like, man, I don't know if people would be willing to accept a coordinated lie that easily.

01:23:19.000 I have to think that at least there was some concern that this was real.

01:23:22.000 And is that the case that when you're getting military intel on a situation that's ongoing, oftentimes it's cloudy and you're not exactly sure and you have to err on the side of caution.

01:23:34.000 And if you decided to ignore whatever intel was saying that they have weapons of mass destruction, it turned out to be true. 0.79

01:23:41.000 That would be even more disastrous.

01:23:43.000 And the atmosphere in this country was, we had just been hit.

01:23:47.000 9-11 had just happened.

01:23:48.000 We can't take that chance again.

01:23:50.000 We have to be proactive.

01:23:51.000 And even though it turned out to be a gigantic, horrific disaster, I'm reluctant to believe that it was this large-scale conspiracy involving everyone, that CNN knew it was a lie, that Colin Powell knew it was a lie.

01:24:06.000 I have to think that at least some of them thought that it was real.

01:24:10.000 I would think the same thing.

01:24:11.000 I mean, you'd have to be so cynical, not just cynical, but to the extreme.

01:24:16.000 You'd have to be evil.

01:24:17.000 To think that that number of people had to want us to go to war so that their stock could do better or something.

01:24:23.000 Right, and then they had a coordinated lie.

01:24:25.000 Obviously, it turns out to not be true.

01:24:27.000 And obviously, there was lies to support the initial assertions.

01:24:30.000 There was obviously some coordinated effort to cover up the initial assertions and to make it seem like they were more accurate than they were.

01:24:41.000 Or painting a rosy picture, or you have this outcome that you want, and so what do we need to support that?

01:24:46.000 And looking at those things that support that, rather than the things that don't support it.

01:24:50.000 So I have to think that they're acting off the best intel that they had at the time, and making decisions that they thought were in the best interest of the American people, and protecting I have to think that, and it just ended up not to be the case.

01:25:03.000 And there are many reasons why it's not the case that we just talked about with Saddam thinking that he might have had a more robust capability in the end, because people are telling him that, possibly.

01:25:11.000 And that's a distinct possibility as well.

01:25:14.000 I always wonder, and then so you take that and you extrapolate 20 years later, right?

01:25:20.000 When you follow up 20 years later and you look at the kind of confidence that people have in the military's ability to make the correct decisions, and then You fuck that sideways with the extraction from Afghanistan.

01:25:31.000 Because now everybody's like, Jesus Christ, why would you do it that way? 0.77

01:25:36.000 Why did anybody do it that way?

01:25:37.000 You know, I've had conversations with people on this podcast that were military people, high-level people that were involved in this, and they said, there's nothing about that extraction that was right. 0.82

01:26:02.000 No.

01:26:04.000 That is meaningful.

01:26:05.000 But really, it's the responsibility of those leaders to do that for that E1, E2, E3, that lower enlisted person who's going to be standing the gate guard, who's going to be going out there into these streets or out there into the mountains and taking fire and dealing with a car that's coming up that looks like,

01:26:21.000 oh, maybe is it bad suspension or is there a family in there or is it packed with explosives?

01:26:26.000 Right.

01:26:26.000 And they're 18 years old and they're out there looking at this thing and have to make a decision.

01:26:30.000 And then it pulls up, and it detonates.

01:26:33.000 Or they shoot, and guess what?

01:26:34.000 It's full of a family.

01:26:36.000 Like, these things are so difficult.

01:26:38.000 And then they have to live with that for the rest of their lives.

01:26:39.000 And they're put in that position by senior-level leaders who should have known better on a few things.

01:26:44.000 Specifically to Iraq, disbanding the Iraqi army, okay?

01:26:47.000 So now you have this entirely trained-up military that's essentially now an insurgency, okay?

01:26:53.000 We have that de-Baathification. 0.96

01:26:55.000 So anyone who had any job in Iraq was a Baathist. 0.98

01:26:58.000 So the person that emptied the garbage, the people that kept the lights on, now de-bathification, those people don't have jobs. 0.99

01:27:03.000 So now we're fighting an insurgency and we're figuring out how to get the trash picked up, how to keep the power on.

01:27:09.000 We're building up an entirely new government.

01:27:12.000 And those lessons and those senior-level leaders, they are responsible for making those decisions, just like we would be at the tactical level.

01:27:21.000 And they made the wrong decision there.

01:27:23.000 And that one, those two things right there, looking back at those two things, like, It's almost unforgivable that they would make those decisions and not correct it immediately.

01:27:34.000 We created that insurgency because of those two decisions.

01:27:37.000 The hindsight is always 20-20, but looking back on the Afghanistan situation, what is the consensus of what would have been the correct approach?

01:27:48.000 It's not lost on many people that we essentially spent 20 years replacing the Taliban with the Taliban.

01:27:54.000 And well-armed.

01:27:56.000 And well-armed.

01:27:57.000 Yeah, with our stuff.

01:27:57.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:27:59.000 Now, why did they do that? 0.99

01:28:00.000 Why did they leave behind all of our shit? 1.00

01:28:04.000 I don't know. 0.99

01:28:04.000 I mean, I know when we left Iraq, I was at a lower level, tactical level, so you just kind of hear things, so I don't know how true it is, but how much it costs to bring certain things back rather than leave it there. 0.99

01:28:15.000 Like the gyms that went up all over the place.

01:28:17.000 So there's all these gyms all over Iraq, and you've seen the videos on YouTube of the Iraqis trying to work out.

01:28:22.000 They're pretty funny.

01:28:22.000 I think there's quite a few out there.

01:28:24.000 But rather than pack all that up and take it home, just leave it.

01:28:28.000 Well, the gyms are the least concerned.

01:28:30.000 I know.

01:28:30.000 I'd use that as the most basic level, but then you apply that to how much does it take to get this helicopter back and that helicopter back and this and that.

01:28:37.000 Did we think that we were going to turn those over to the Afghans and leave those with them? 1.00

01:28:41.000 Why didn't we blow them up?

01:28:42.000 Well, I think we thought they were going to remain in place as the army that we trained up for the last 20 years.

01:28:48.000 But nobody on the side of the people that were over there believed that was possible.

01:28:53.000 They thought that everyone was going to fold the moment the United States left.

01:28:57.000 Well, you didn't even have to think that.

01:28:58.000 You could see it.

01:28:59.000 You can see the provinces falling from January, February, March, April, May, June, July.

01:29:05.000 I mean, you could watch it.

01:29:07.000 If you put it on the screen and show the provinces that fall, I mean, yeah, you don't have to be Nostradamus to figure out that, hey, this isn't looking so good, and everything is converging here, and you could extrapolate that, oh, probably every province is going to fall.

01:29:21.000 But once again...

01:29:21.000 So what should they have done?

01:29:23.000 In that particular situation?

01:29:24.000 Yes.

01:29:24.000 So you have a couple options.

01:29:26.000 One being, hey, maybe you could leave a small force at Bagram, perhaps, to try to keep this military, keep this intelligence service, keep this government running, maybe after 20 years.

01:29:36.000 I don't know how long you can sustain that, but you could have done that.

01:29:39.000 And then, if things aren't working out, they're the last people to leave.

01:29:42.000 So that's one.

01:29:44.000 So you could have done that.

01:29:47.000 You get everyone out and leave Bagram, and it ends up being the same thing. 0.52

01:29:50.000 You see, watch the whole government fall, the leader left, of course, but now you're not leaving from a tactically disadvantageous position.

01:29:58.000 So you had essentially those two options, to draw down to something, a very small force left there, trying to keep that government going, trying to keep that military going, trying to keep that intelligence service going, and then you could see how that works out.

01:30:11.000 Get everybody out in a way that makes sense.

01:30:14.000 What would be a way that makes sense?

01:30:16.000 How do you get everybody out in a way that makes sense?

01:30:18.000 So Bagram, there's a lot of standoff distance at Bagram Airfield.

01:30:22.000 You can be there.

01:30:23.000 You can look out.

01:30:24.000 You can see people coming from a long way off.

01:30:26.000 We control that whole area.

01:30:28.000 You control the airfield.

01:30:30.000 It's not that chaos that we saw people hanging on the side of these planes as they're taking off.

01:30:35.000 You control that thing rather than the way we left at the airfield and essentially in town.

01:30:40.000 So yeah, I don't know why we did that.

01:30:44.000 It's just happening.

01:30:44.000 But not just that, but also leave behind people that work with the US forces to be tortured and murdered.

01:30:51.000 Yeah, that happens.

01:30:52.000 It's probably still happening right now as we're speaking here.

01:30:55.000 What do we think was going to happen?

01:30:57.000 I talked to somebody about that in 2003 in the back of a Hilux pickup truck in Afghanistan and asking him about what does he think is going to happen when we eventually leave here.

01:31:08.000 You get a good answer.

01:31:10.000 You're trying to figure out the language barrier and all that, but I did ask that because I was thinking about that because what's our track record?

01:31:17.000 Well, we have Vietnam to look at. 0.99

01:31:19.000 And at the time, we had the Kurds at the first Gulf War.

01:31:22.000 We had that, leaving them, kind of hanging them out to dry.

01:31:25.000 So we don't have a very good track record of supporting people that ally with us in foreign countries when we're doing particularly expeditionary counterinsurgency, meaning a counterinsurgency campaign in another country.

01:31:36.000 So I was asking about that.

01:31:37.000 I was thinking about it back then.

01:31:39.000 And I was like, oh man, I hope this guy's going to be okay when we leave here eventually.

01:31:42.000 And I didn't know if it was going to be a year or two years, 20 years.

01:31:45.000 I didn't know when it was going to be, but I was fairly certain that at some point in time, we're going to leave this place.

01:31:50.000 And what's going to happen to all these people that helped us?

01:31:52.000 It doesn't look good.

01:31:54.000 And then you have, there's talks of China aiding the Taliban and moving in and supplying them and sort of working with them the moment they realize the United States is no longer going to be in power.

01:32:07.000 Yep, yep.

01:32:08.000 Essentially maybe taking over Bagram.

01:32:10.000 Yeah.

01:32:11.000 And working with them.

01:32:12.000 Yeah.

01:32:13.000 Like they don't seem to have the same qualms that we have about human rights and No, they're not known for that in China, being overly concerned with human rights.

01:32:21.000 I mean, just look at the lockdowns.

01:32:22.000 Have you seen those lockdowns of people banging on their doors?

01:32:25.000 Or what they do with the Uyghurs. 0.99

01:32:25.000 Yeah, there's that. 0.99

01:32:27.000 Yep.

01:32:27.000 And once again, that's an interesting one.

01:32:30.000 Right there when we talk about big business and their associations with China.

01:32:33.000 But when I look at the country and I just look at what's happening today and I see a few things that you could apply common sense to, just like Karl von Klauschwitz and George Marshall talked about, well, if you look at our position in the world today and say, huh, why are we outsourcing our energy to our enemy?

01:32:51.000 Okay, the energy, that essentially runs our national security apparatus.

01:32:55.000 Okay, and we're outsourcing that to our enemy.

01:32:57.000 We need oil from what countries?

01:32:59.000 And we could be energy independent here?

01:33:01.000 Okay, that's one.

01:33:02.000 The accountability we talked about, obviously.

01:33:05.000 And hey, where are all these chips coming from that also run our defense establishment and run all our phones?

01:33:10.000 And where are our pharmaceuticals coming from and the precursor drugs for a lot of those pharmaceuticals coming from?

01:33:15.000 Oh, China? 0.78

01:33:16.000 Wait a sec, so we're dependent on China, Iran, all these people that are essentially our enemies, we're dependent upon them, and we have a porous southern border at the same time. 0.95

01:33:26.000 Some very basic things that you would think we could address as a nation.

01:33:31.000 Would there be an argument that it's good to work with them, and that if our energy systems and our chips and all these other things are dependent upon them, that they wouldn't want the demise of America because it's crucial to their economy?

01:33:46.000 And that we could have some sort of a cooperative effort that would at least in some way ensure some level of peace.

01:33:53.000 I don't know.

01:33:54.000 I think that as the companies used to be, America first, these different companies.

01:34:00.000 And now when you become these global conglomerates and dependent upon China for a lot of that revenue and to shareholders and to everything else, Well, now you're dependent on an enemy.

01:34:10.000 So now you have this company that's an American-based company.

01:34:12.000 You had the opportunity to create something and create untold wealth.

01:34:18.000 But now we're dependent on China.

01:34:20.000 So who are we now loyal to?

01:34:24.000 Are we loyal more to these shareholders and our company or to the United States of America?

01:34:28.000 What's most beneficial to us and what conditions can we create here in this country to not be reliant on our enemies for those things that keep us safe, that run our defense establishment, our intelligence establishment, and some of the things that we rely on to run mom-and-pop businesses across the country.

01:34:45.000 Do you think it's also a function of the fact that the United States essentially, like you were talking about before, we're dealing with four-year time periods or eight-year time periods where that's the time someone's in office as a president, whereas in China they have full control and they can play this long game. 0.86

01:35:01.000 And also the government and big business are completely entangled.

01:35:07.000 Oh, yeah.

01:35:07.000 In China.

01:35:07.000 There is no separation between business and government, and the business always acts in the best interests of the government.

01:35:15.000 Oh, yeah.

01:35:16.000 If you're dealing with a company in China, you're dealing with the government of China.

01:35:19.000 You're dealing with the defense establishment of China.

01:35:21.000 You're dealing with the intelligence community of China.

01:35:23.000 So these lines are blurred now, and they weren't always blurred, and they're getting more blurry as we continue to go forward.

01:35:29.000 And I don't know what the solution is, but I know that we're on a path right now that...

01:35:36.000 The outcome is not hopeful.

01:35:38.000 And I try to remain as hopeful as I can publicly, but when my wife and I sit down at the end of the night and have a glass of wine on the couch and talk about what world that our kids are inheriting, it's a tough one.

01:35:48.000 They're in a tough position.

01:35:49.000 I don't like it.

01:35:50.000 I know.

01:35:51.000 It scares the shit out of me.

01:35:52.000 I know.

01:35:52.000 It's crazy.

01:35:53.000 And I went deep into it in this one, too.

01:35:55.000 Looking into quantum computing, looking into artificial intelligence, looking into data storage and surveillance of U.S. citizens and the Internet of Things and how all this is connected.

01:36:06.000 That part is scary.

01:36:08.000 It was scarier than the bioweapons research that I did for the last book.

01:36:10.000 No doubt about it.

01:36:12.000 And the picture that I paint in this thing, I think it is close.

01:36:15.000 Because the people that I talked to that were involved in quantum computing, and for people who haven't seen a quantum computer, look that up and hit images.

01:36:23.000 I thought it was just a big computer.

01:36:24.000 It's not.

01:36:25.000 It is this medusa of wires that's suspended in a vacuum. 0.96

01:36:29.000 It is a crazy looking thing.

01:36:31.000 And so people should check out what those even look like.

01:36:34.000 Do they have a functional quantum computing situation?

01:36:37.000 Oh, yeah.

01:36:37.000 So this is it right here?

01:36:38.000 Yep.

01:36:39.000 Isn't that crazy?

01:36:39.000 So the quantum computer that you described, how much of that is based on your own creative imagination?

01:36:46.000 How much of that is based on what is actually possible right now?

01:36:51.000 Yeah, well, I looked at these exact pictures right here.

01:36:53.000 That's the Google guy.

01:36:55.000 You should be scared of that guy.

01:36:56.000 Exactly.

01:36:57.000 He's going to be the king of the world someday.

01:36:59.000 Look at him.

01:37:00.000 With this, I will run everything.

01:37:01.000 Look at his fingers clasped together.

01:37:02.000 I will run everything from you.

01:37:03.000 Right there. 0.99

01:37:04.000 And some of the things I saw in interviews with people- Fuck, that looks amazing. 0.99

01:37:07.000 Isn't that crazy? 0.99

01:37:08.000 It's very sci-fi.

01:37:10.000 Yep.

01:37:11.000 And I wanted to keep this book out of the sci-fi section, so I even toned it down a bit to what's probably happening out there.

01:37:16.000 What?

01:37:16.000 Yep.

01:37:17.000 So, what is the woman, you have the name for the- Alice.

01:37:21.000 Alice, yes.

01:37:23.000 How much access do you have for what's possible?

01:37:27.000 It seems like that would be very, very classified.

01:37:29.000 How much are you guessing?

01:37:31.000 Well, I did a lot of research and reading, but once you read something about quantum computing or artificial intelligence, it's way dated by the time you read it.

01:37:38.000 So you read those things so you can ask questions with people that are more current, because it gives you the foundation from which to ask these questions.

01:37:43.000 So same thing like I did with the bioweapons research in the last one. 0.63

01:37:46.000 I talked to a lot of people that are involved in that space, and you get a little sliver, just like a journalist would do, and I take a little bit from each and every one of them to paint that picture and figure out that puzzle.

01:37:55.000 Same thing with this.

01:37:57.000 And the people that I talked to, they all told me that, hey, we could tell you more, but That would for sure put this book in the science fiction category.

01:38:03.000 And that's scary.

01:38:05.000 Jesus Christ.

01:38:06.000 So they could tell you more, meaning what, first of all, what Alice does in the book is insane.

01:38:14.000 Yeah.

01:38:14.000 But that's not even the full capability of what these quantum computers and AI can do now.

01:38:21.000 That's right.

01:38:22.000 That's right.

01:38:23.000 And I was worried because I saw some people talking when I was doing my research, talking about quantum computing on different news channels.

01:38:30.000 And they were talking about China having this edge.

01:38:33.000 And when I went deep down the rabbit hole, my take is that we still have the edge in quantum computing right now.

01:38:42.000 I don't know if we will tomorrow, but right now we do.

01:38:46.000 What did you just pull up, Jamie?

01:38:48.000 I saw this a few weeks ago.

01:38:50.000 This company called Anomaly 6, they were showing what they could do.

01:38:55.000 So in this demonstration, they showed tracing cell phones, you know, anonymous cell phones.

01:39:01.000 And they unveiled two people that were watching this at that event.

01:39:04.000 Like, they worked for the CIA or FBI or something.

01:39:07.000 They kind of like, look, we'll tell you who in this building we followed.

01:39:10.000 Oh, man.

01:39:11.000 Specifically to show you what we can do.

01:39:13.000 So they spied on the CIA and the NSA. So American phone tracking firm demoed their surveillance powers by spying on the spies and saying, hey, we can spy on you.

01:39:25.000 So if this is an American company...

01:39:28.000 See, this is what I was getting at before when I was talking about China and the government, is that...

01:39:32.000 Reluctantly I say this, but I think I might be right.

01:39:36.000 The only way to compete with a country that has the government And the businesses inexorably entangled, where the government and the businesses work hand in hand, is for the governments and the businesses of this country to work hand in hand.

01:39:50.000 That scares the shit out of me, because what's involved in that is full compliance by the population.

01:39:55.000 The only way you get full compliance by the population is you have to be able to control everything they do, including money.

01:40:02.000 So some sort of a centralized digital currency where they have in China where they can tell you what you can and cannot buy based on your social credit score, which is something that everybody was very terrified of during this COVID thing when they were starting to at least suggest the possibility of implementing a passport.

01:40:21.000 Some sort of a passport of what you can and can't do.

01:40:24.000 And the initial suspicion was that if you started off by saying, you know, you have a vaccine passport, and if you do not comply, you will not be able to do these things.

01:40:34.000 You won't be able to have access to goods and services and transportation and all these different things based on your compliance with some government regulation that's implemented reluctantly but necessarily because of a crisis.

01:40:50.000 Now, once that's in play, then that becomes the norm.

01:40:54.000 We get accustomed to it, it becomes a way of life, and then they can implement that and keep pushing that envelope further and further down.

01:41:01.000 Yep, yep.

01:41:01.000 You don't get rights back once you give them up to the government.

01:41:06.000 They're not in a rush to give them back to you once they take that power.

01:41:09.000 We know this, right?

01:41:10.000 Everyone knows this.

01:41:11.000 We know this.

01:41:12.000 So why are people so reluctant to not just admit that, but why do they push back on it so hard?

01:41:18.000 Civilians.

01:41:19.000 Is it because they don't want to believe that it's true?

01:41:22.000 I think we're comfortable.

01:41:23.000 Way too comfortable.

01:41:24.000 But is that it?

01:41:24.000 Or is it that they were scared of COVID and they felt like this is the only way to keep people safe?

01:41:28.000 And because of that, because people are scared, and they felt like this is the only way to keep people safe, we've got to get everybody vaccinated, we've got to get everybody saved, we've got to get back to normal.

01:41:37.000 But they're reluctant to look at the general history of what happens when people do this.

01:41:44.000 Yep, yep.

01:41:45.000 And that's why every chance I get, I like to talk about going back into the pages of history and reading about why we have these freedoms that we have today.

01:41:54.000 Why were they in place from the beginning?

01:41:55.000 Why are they so important?

01:41:56.000 Why did they give us this opportunity?

01:41:57.000 Why did they allow us to build this into the greatest country on the face of the earth?

01:42:01.000 And this marketplace of ideas and this debate and letting the best ideas rise to the surface.

01:42:07.000 And now that's all going away.

01:42:09.000 These rights are slowly being eroded over time.

01:42:12.000 And we have these crises where we then take a little more.

01:42:15.000 The government takes a little more power.

01:42:16.000 And you have career politicians in there now.

01:42:19.000 So they're not...

01:42:20.000 I keep going back to Eisenhower, but he had a great quote about farming.

01:42:23.000 And he said, hey, farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from a cornfield.

01:42:30.000 So you have people in Washington who, you know, they're called to service as politicians, and they also happen to be very savvy investors, if you haven't noticed that.

01:42:37.000 They're very savvy investors somehow.

01:42:39.000 They make a lot of money in politics as politicians.

01:42:42.000 Their family members make a lot of wise investments.

01:42:44.000 They make a lot of wise investments.

01:42:46.000 Very interesting.

01:42:47.000 But they're career politicians, and that's not how this was set up.

01:42:50.000 I had a great conversation with Bill Barr, former Attorney General.

01:42:52.000 He was on my podcast a couple weeks ago, and he'll come out here in a little bit.

01:42:56.000 But he's so in tune with that side of the House, with these career politicians, because he was in government, he was in private practice, got called back to service, did it, and...

01:43:06.000 And what he saw were careerists and people that aren't going to Washington just for a year or two and then going back to the farm.

01:43:14.000 I mean, I think we'd be a lot better off if we had some more farmers rather than some attorneys who maybe never even really practiced law in Congress.

01:43:21.000 And it's just career politicians.

01:43:23.000 So it's a business, essentially.

01:43:25.000 And this is that term that people don't like because it's kind of like almost like fictional, but the deep state.

01:43:32.000 People don't like that term.

01:43:33.000 Oh, come on with this deep state talk. 0.99

01:43:35.000 Because it was kind of connected to what Trump was saying when he got into office and that the deep state is after Trump and people go, oh, shut the fuck up with all this. 0.98

01:43:45.000 But it seems like that's what the deep state is, right? 0.95

01:43:48.000 It's career politicians that are inexorably intertwined with business.

01:43:53.000 And they have as much...

01:43:55.000 And today, this is what my fear was during the election when I was talking about Biden.

01:44:01.000 I was like, do you really think that that guy's in charge of anything or going to be in charge of anything?

01:44:06.000 No judgment about who he is as a politician, but just as a biological entity.

01:44:15.000 He's not gonna last.

01:44:16.000 He's not competent.

01:44:18.000 He's not aware of a lot of things.

01:44:20.000 It's clear he's not good at forming sentences.

01:44:23.000 Right?

01:44:24.000 It's clear he's not aware.

01:44:25.000 When he starts rattling off numbers, I clench up. 0.99

01:44:29.000 I go, oh Jesus, he's gonna fuck this up. 0.97

01:44:30.000 The numbers is rough. 0.99

01:44:31.000 It's horrible.

01:44:32.000 It's clearly he's compromised.

01:44:34.000 So it's obvious that he's not the guy that's the puppet master. 1.00

01:44:38.000 So who the fuck is? 0.99

01:44:39.000 Who's controlling all the strings? 0.99

01:44:40.000 And if this quantum computer stuff is real, and obviously it is, and is Google going to be the master of our domain?

01:44:48.000 Who's going to be responsible for controlling the access to that?

01:44:52.000 Who gets to decide what gets spied on, what gets controlled, what doesn't?

01:44:57.000 And how do you turn this back?

01:44:59.000 It seems like you can't.

01:45:01.000 Because it seems like technology always moves further and further forward at an exponentially increasing rate.

01:45:06.000 Yeah, and it's worse than that almost in that now they can control behaviors.

01:45:10.000 Yes.

01:45:10.000 And I don't think that was the goal right off the bat.

01:45:12.000 You know, the goal right off the bat is to sell some advertising and get people to take a, hey, look at that.

01:45:17.000 Jamie threw me a perfect pass and I bobbled it.

01:45:21.000 So now you're controlling behaviors and worse than that, the next step is you're controlling thoughts.

01:45:26.000 Based off what you're fed on these social media platforms that we're all tied to.

01:45:30.000 And now a lot of us are tied to them for business.

01:45:32.000 And then they switch it up on you.

01:45:34.000 And now they're controlling your thoughts.

01:45:38.000 And that is scarier than anything.

01:45:39.000 And they're censoring stuff for weird...

01:45:41.000 I mean, I don't even understand why they censor some of the stuff they censor.

01:45:44.000 It's almost like they're trying to get you accustomed to censorship, like random censorship.

01:45:50.000 That is the craziest part of all this, is that our stalwart defenders of the First Amendment used to be lawyers, used to be publishing houses, used to be magazine editors, used to be newspapers, used to be politicians.

01:46:06.000 Yeah.

01:46:06.000 We're in defense of that First Amendment.

01:46:08.000 And all of us as citizens, we would say growing up, hey, I will fight and die for your right to say something, especially if I disagree with you because we're Americans.

01:46:16.000 That used to be, no matter what you thought of the Second Amendment or what you thought of anything else, that First Amendment bound us all together.

01:46:22.000 And now we have those same people that used to defend that First Amendment Now, actively calling for censorship.

01:46:28.000 So instead of having that debate and having the best ideas rise to the top in this marketplace of ideas, now if I disagree with you, I just want to censor you and cancel you.

01:46:36.000 How did we get so short-sighted?

01:46:38.000 Like, what caused that in your eyes?

01:46:40.000 I think we lost that appreciation for why we have that first amendment.

01:46:44.000 Well, how did we lose it?

01:46:45.000 Comfort.

01:46:46.000 I think we got so comfortable.

01:46:48.000 Really, society's fragile.

01:46:49.000 And we had a glimpse of it at the beginning of COVID, where people were like, oh my gosh, is there going to be some food on the shelves at the grocery store?

01:46:55.000 Hey, if I call 911, will someone show up?

01:46:58.000 And then we got back to normal-ish, as far as that stuff goes.

01:47:03.000 So we had a little bit of a scare.

01:47:05.000 But even if you saw some of the interviews on the streets of Odessa, of Kiev, you saw people not thinking that the Russians were going to invade.

01:47:13.000 And they had these on the street.

01:47:15.000 And then the next day, boom, society is fragile.

01:47:18.000 For most of human history, society has been fragile.

01:47:20.000 And you used to have to be good at the fighting and good at the hunting.

01:47:23.000 If you were going to survive.

01:47:24.000 So we all have ancestors that were good at those two things, or we would not be here today.

01:47:29.000 And society can collapse pretty dang quickly.

01:47:31.000 And if you've been to Iraq and been to Afghanistan, you can see that.

01:47:34.000 I know you have a little glimpse here and there, but we have had so, from the end of World War II up to today, we've had relative peace in our country.

01:47:41.000 It's been relatively stable in our country.

01:47:42.000 We've got very comfortable, and we've lost this sense of why we have these freedoms.

01:47:47.000 And instead, we have this entitlement culture that plays into it.

01:47:50.000 And we have this just This comfort that, hey, if I call 911, someone's going to show up.

01:47:57.000 Well, guess what?

01:47:58.000 Probably not.

01:47:59.000 They're going to come up after most of the time.

01:48:00.000 They'll be a few minutes late to save the day, unless you're a politician with taxpayer-funded security surrounding you at all times.

01:48:07.000 But you have to be good at defending yourself, your family, your community, and you have to be good at putting meat on that table.

01:48:13.000 Otherwise, your lineage is not going to be around that much longer.

01:48:18.000 Isn't there also a thing that happens with people where the way things are now, we just assume they're going to stay this way?

01:48:24.000 Yeah.

01:48:24.000 And that it's too complicated to think about all the possibilities for the average person.

01:48:30.000 The average person's plate is so full with job, family, business, all the stuff that you're obligated to, bills, all the problems you have.

01:48:41.000 There's so much going on, so many activities that for you to stop and say, hey, we have to really concentrate on the First Amendment.

01:48:47.000 We have to concentrate on freedom of speech and The ability to communicate and express yourself.

01:48:51.000 We have to be concerned with other countries that aren't concentrating on those things.

01:48:54.000 We have to be concerned with the fact that we could get invaded.

01:48:56.000 We have to be concerned that someone could kill our power grid.

01:48:58.000 We have to be concerned with all these different things, and it's too much for people.

01:49:01.000 So they just choose to dismiss it.

01:49:04.000 And we're so distracted.

01:49:05.000 We have our work with us constantly.

01:49:06.000 It's in our hand, constantly.

01:49:08.000 Tick-tocking.

01:49:09.000 15 seconds.

01:49:10.000 Wall Street Journal had a thing called TikTok Brain the other day, and I actually printed it out for our 11-year-old, and I took out the ads, took out everything that was in there when I printed it, and I gave it to him to read, because TikTok Brain, 15 seconds, and then you're ready for the next one.

01:49:23.000 You're ready for that next distraction.

01:49:25.000 And you're getting all these inputs all the time, and most of them maybe are not that healthy.

01:49:31.000 And what are you not doing when you're distracted by those things?

01:49:34.000 You're not focused on what you need to do to move forward, to be a prepared citizen, a good citizen of this country.

01:49:40.000 Moving that ball forward, being a good inheritor of these freedoms, and then defending them for that next generation so they can then move the ball forward for the following generation.

01:49:49.000 And I don't know if we get this back.

01:49:50.000 I'm not sure.

01:49:51.000 I don't know either, and it scares the shit out of me because I'm not...

01:49:54.000 I mean, I'm not sure how it ever...

01:49:59.000 how we get rational, how we get objective, how we stop this and say we have to preserve some aspects.

01:50:06.000 And even if we did have the inclination to do so, when you see something like quantum computing, when you see this AI that can spy on anyone at any time, and when people do tell you that if we told you everything, it would essentially be science fiction.

01:50:21.000 So what is science fiction today, and what is it like in five years?

01:50:24.000 Because it's going to be way more invasive.

01:50:27.000 Oh, yeah.

01:50:28.000 I mean, this next decade, I think, is a pivotal decade for the country when it comes to freedoms and what it's like going forward and what opportunities our kids are going to have going forward.

01:50:37.000 What's not controlled by the government, what thoughts and behaviors aren't controlled by a government business tech type of an entity.

01:50:43.000 What's encouraged by the government, what's encouraged as far as censorship goes by these tech platforms that have so much power concentrated in such a small number of people.

01:50:52.000 So these are real decisions and real issues that they need to be contended with, and we haven't had to deal with them.

01:50:58.000 And it's such a perfect storm.

01:50:59.000 It is.

01:51:00.000 That's the other part.

01:51:01.000 Especially like the tech companies, right?

01:51:04.000 Tech companies are...

01:51:08.000 Overwhelmingly run by ideologically driven left-wing people who believe in a very specific way of thinking and behaving and living.

01:51:16.000 And they're diametrically opposed to people that have a different perspective.

01:51:20.000 And they don't welcome free debate and speech and will actively censor and shadow ban and do all sorts of things to people, even if these people are Highly intelligent, articulate, conservative people that aren't outrageous.

01:51:36.000 Don't say wild things.

01:51:38.000 They're not, you know, QAnon folks.

01:51:40.000 They're regular human beings who happen to have a conservative perspective.

01:51:45.000 And those people are demonized.

01:51:47.000 Yep.

01:51:48.000 We're normalizing censorship.

01:51:50.000 And rather than having a debate and being open to, hey, yeah, well, interesting.

01:51:54.000 I had not thought about that before.

01:51:55.000 And making friends and having a drink or having coffee.

01:51:57.000 I mean, there's a picture of Ronald Reagan going out with the leader of the other party and they're out there with their tuxedos and they're at a show and they're laughing with their wives and all that stuff with Tip O'Neill.

01:52:08.000 And would you see that today?

01:52:10.000 No.

01:52:11.000 Well, you kind of see it at the White House press conference or the correspondence dinner with Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump.

01:52:19.000 That's probably the last time where they're joking around.

01:52:21.000 Remember those things?

01:52:23.000 I know those things, but I'm going to have to go back to that one in particular.

01:52:26.000 But going out to dinner just with them together as a couple to enjoy an evening on the town and having a nice steak dinner and then watching a show, like, that doesn't happen.

01:52:35.000 No, it doesn't happen.

01:52:36.000 No chance.

01:52:37.000 So, yeah, sitting down to have a beer with somebody?

01:52:39.000 Yeah.

01:52:40.000 I mean, yeah.

01:52:41.000 It's normal.

01:52:42.000 Yeah.

01:52:42.000 I mean, look, I have a lot of friends that think very differently than I do.

01:52:45.000 Very good friends that oppose a lot of the things that I think are important.

01:52:49.000 But we can talk, you know, and I don't know how much that's going to be in the younger generations.

01:52:54.000 The younger generations seem to think of people that are ideologically, that differ from them ideologically as the enemy.

01:53:01.000 Yeah.

01:53:01.000 Which is crazy.

01:53:02.000 It's because, like, that's Civil War talk.

01:53:04.000 That's like, you're looking at it like these...

01:53:08.000 This sort of absolutist mentality that it's my way or there's no other way.

01:53:14.000 And tech companies have power that's never been wielded by any individual company that is a civilian-based company before.

01:53:28.000 There's never been the kind of power that tech companies have to shape narratives and to...

01:53:34.000 To get people elected or not elected or just to shape how elections run based on what kind of information is distributed or allowed to be distributed or curated.

01:53:43.000 Yep.

01:53:44.000 Yep.

01:53:45.000 What's up?

01:53:45.000 Did newspapers have that power?

01:53:47.000 Yes, they did.

01:53:47.000 Yeah, they definitely did.

01:53:48.000 But back in the day, you used to have to either bribe a newspaper reporter or you had to get blackmail on them or blackmail a spouse or a child or something like that.

01:53:57.000 No, that's a good point, Jamie.

01:53:58.000 They did, but they were...

01:53:59.000 Look, if you go back and read the New York Times from the 1960s, I mean, it was very objective news.

01:54:05.000 It wasn't opinion-based.

01:54:07.000 The difference between what's now is like it's so much editorial and opinion, including, like, television news.

01:54:12.000 Like, the predominant television news today, especially on the left wing and the left side, rather, is, well, no, that's not true.

01:54:18.000 The right side, too.

01:54:19.000 It's so opinion-based.

01:54:20.000 It's so editorialized.

01:54:23.000 It's like, who's the number one guy on the right?

01:54:25.000 It's Tucker Carlson.

01:54:27.000 Who's the number one people on the left?

01:54:28.000 It's like Rachel Maddow.

01:54:29.000 These are very opinionated, editorial-based.

01:54:33.000 It's not like, this is what's happening.

01:54:36.000 These are the casualties in Kyiv.

01:54:38.000 This is why it happened.

01:54:55.000 Mm-hmm.

01:54:58.000 Like, commentary on this stuff.

01:55:00.000 Well, sometimes just asking the question gets you, I mean, gets people crazy.

01:55:04.000 Like, Tucker asks questions and then gets just destroyed for asking the questions that he asks.

01:55:09.000 That's why this is so important, because when you go on the show like that, as you know, it's like two minutes.

01:55:14.000 And you have two minutes to make a point.

01:55:16.000 And you get asked a question.

01:55:17.000 And if you're a politician, you're pretty much going to ignore that question.

01:55:20.000 Just say, get your two minutes in there.

01:55:22.000 Get your two and a half minutes in there, because that's your soundbite.

01:55:24.000 And you get, who benefits from a divisive populace?

01:55:28.000 Well, politicians certainly do.

01:55:30.000 So is there an incentive for them not to keep dividing us?

01:55:34.000 I don't know.

01:55:36.000 It's because they're staying in power.

01:55:37.000 They're staying elected.

01:55:38.000 It gets them another term and gets their families being able to make some wise investments at the same time.

01:55:45.000 So all that plays in there.

01:55:47.000 They just sort of snuck that in there.

01:55:49.000 Well, it's a thing.

01:55:50.000 It's a thing.

01:55:51.000 Well, it's not just a thing.

01:55:52.000 It's a crazy thing, but it's also a crazy thing being done by people that are almost dead.

01:55:56.000 Like, what are you doing?

01:55:58.000 I know.

01:55:58.000 Why are you even trying to make more money now?

01:56:00.000 I don't know. 1.00

01:56:00.000 You're fucking 80 years old. 1.00

01:56:02.000 I think a lot of that stuff is keeping them alive, maybe. 1.00

01:56:04.000 Yes, it's the fun of the game.

01:56:05.000 I think so.

01:56:06.000 I always thought about that in terms of big business people.

01:56:09.000 I always say that about guys like Bill Gates.

01:56:12.000 Why would you even bother trying to make more money?

01:56:14.000 Why wouldn't you just enjoy yourself?

01:56:15.000 If I had that kind of money, I'd be living like Jeff Bezos. 1.00

01:56:19.000 He steps down, he's got this fucking banging hot girlfriend, gets jacked, starts going around the world, balling out of control, wearing tight underwear. 1.00

01:56:28.000 Hey, you're having a good time. 1.00

01:56:29.000 Hey, why not?

01:56:30.000 Yeah, but that's not what some people are doing.

01:56:35.000 They're just trying to make more money, and they're doing it at the expense of the general public.

01:56:38.000 It's strange.

01:56:39.000 They're making decisions that directly impact the population, and they're doing it for their own benefit.

01:56:46.000 Especially they're vampires, though, because they're not producing anything.

01:56:48.000 There's not a product I can point to that any one of them created that makes our society better.

01:56:53.000 Like Larry Ellison of Oracle, and I love what he says.

01:56:56.000 He says he had all the disadvantages necessary for success.

01:57:01.000 And so he came from nothing and became one of the richest men in the world.

01:57:05.000 And people have no idea all the things that he does, that cancer research and all the things that he funds that are helping society.

01:57:11.000 He just does it all kind of behind the scenes, doesn't need the celebrity status side of things.

01:57:18.000 But he's doing so much.

01:57:19.000 But he came from nothing.

01:57:21.000 And I love that he says, I had all the disadvantages necessary for success.

01:57:25.000 Never complained about it.

01:57:27.000 He just worked.

01:57:28.000 And he built this amazing thing called Oracle that we all use today, whether we know it or not.

01:57:32.000 Essentially created cloud-based computing and so many things that we use today.

01:57:36.000 He created something.

01:57:37.000 He created something that we all use.

01:57:39.000 What do the politicians create? 0.99

01:57:40.000 Not much.

01:57:41.000 Just divisiveness.

01:57:42.000 Well, yeah, especially the politicians that are heavily invested into insider trading in the stock market.

01:57:47.000 What do you think that Larry Ellison thinks about all this quantum computing stuff?

01:57:52.000 When a guy has his whole business is based on cloud computing and the use of technology, I wonder what his perspective is.

01:58:01.000 Oh yeah.

01:58:02.000 He's a genius.

01:58:04.000 You know when you meet certain people and you're like, that person is different.

01:58:09.000 He's one of those guys that's thinking at another level.

01:58:12.000 I wonder if he's terrified.

01:58:14.000 Doesn't seem like it.

01:58:16.000 He'll be protected.

01:58:17.000 He's one of the elites.

01:58:18.000 He's got an island.

01:58:19.000 He does.

01:58:20.000 Very nice island.

01:58:21.000 We should go there and hunt.

01:58:23.000 I love it there.

01:58:24.000 It's a great place.

01:58:25.000 Yeah, we were just there, actually.

01:58:26.000 Got the kids out there a couple weeks ago.

01:58:28.000 Got to go hang out with Bob the Butcher again.

01:58:31.000 My daughter and little guy.

01:58:32.000 Well, we should tell everybody, you're a part of that hunting operation.

01:58:35.000 Yeah, Pineapple Brothers.

01:58:36.000 Yeah, Pineapple Brothers.

01:58:37.000 My buddy John Dubin invited me to be a part of it.

01:58:40.000 Shout out to John.

01:58:40.000 Yep, yep, such a great guy.

01:58:41.000 Great guy.

01:58:42.000 Beautiful island out there.

01:58:43.000 It was so nice to get out there and just take a breath and get the kids out hunting.

01:58:45.000 It's one of my favorite places to go.

01:58:47.000 It's so relaxed.

01:58:48.000 So relaxing.

01:58:49.000 So relaxing.

01:58:50.000 I heard there's a large die-off of the axis deer out there.

01:58:53.000 Ooh, you know, I'm gonna have to ask about that.

01:58:56.000 I heard it from a hunter, so I'm not sure of the accuracy of the information.

01:59:00.000 I'm gonna get back to you.

01:59:01.000 They said the population was reduced quite a bit from drought and from quite a few other things, but I'm like, by how much?

01:59:09.000 Exactly, we needed it.

01:59:09.000 There's so many.

01:59:10.000 Yeah, we kind of needed that.

01:59:11.000 What they really need is predators. 1.00

01:59:13.000 But then you have another fucking disaster. 1.00

01:59:16.000 You got wolves running around, lanai. 0.99

01:59:17.000 Introduce the lion.

01:59:18.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:59:19.000 Put some mountain lions out there.

01:59:20.000 It would have to be a cat because nothing else is going to catch them.

01:59:23.000 Those are pretty fast.

01:59:24.000 Yeah, those things are pretty fast.

01:59:25.000 Axis tier are the fastest thing I've ever seen in my life.

01:59:27.000 Yeah, they're beautiful.

01:59:28.000 For a mammal, when they get away from an arrow that's going 290 feet per second and it's within like 10 yards of them and they're like, they're out of there, they move like they're defying time.

01:59:39.000 Yeah.

01:59:39.000 Yeah, they're pretty quick.

01:59:42.000 But great meat, obviously.

01:59:43.000 Delicious.

01:59:44.000 And you get out there and you can practice because there are so many.

01:59:47.000 So you can take that shot and if you mess it up or mess up that stalk or the wind changes, guess what?

01:59:50.000 Well, you can do it again in 10 minutes and start another stalk.

01:59:54.000 Well, we always loved it.

01:59:55.000 In June, we would go there to get ready for hunting season for elk.

02:00:00.000 Because elk would just...

02:00:02.000 Hang out a lot more.

02:00:04.000 I mean, obviously, you've got to climb mountains to get to them.

02:00:07.000 And that's not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

02:00:10.000 But in terms of getting close to them, it's so much easier than an animal that evolved to get away from tigers.

02:00:15.000 Oh, yeah.

02:00:16.000 Those things are alert.

02:00:17.000 Because they're switched on.

02:00:17.000 They are switched on out there for sure.

02:00:20.000 There can be a lot of pressure depending on what's going on.

02:00:23.000 COVID, they took a little break, though, because there was a lockdown, so they got to take a little breath.

02:00:27.000 So that was kind of interesting to see them a little more relaxed than they have been in the past when people are just out there constantly because you can do it all year because it's exotic.

02:00:38.000 But yeah, what a fantastic spot to go and have the kids have that experience.

02:00:44.000 And then bring home the meat, and we're eating it right now.

02:00:47.000 It's amazing meat, too.

02:00:48.000 It's so delicious.

02:00:49.000 And isn't it interesting that the animals that are the most difficult to get are the most delicious?

02:00:54.000 I'm trying to think of some that aren't.

02:00:56.000 I mean, I love it all.

02:00:57.000 I love elk.

02:00:57.000 I love moose.

02:00:58.000 I love the axis, of course.

02:01:00.000 I love whitetail.

02:01:01.000 And even like fish, like salmon.

02:01:02.000 Hard to get.

02:01:03.000 Very delicious.

02:01:04.000 Delicious.

02:01:05.000 Halibut up there.

02:01:06.000 I love going up to Northern British Columbia, going to Alaska and bringing all that down.

02:01:10.000 There's something about that.

02:01:12.000 So I just love doing that.

02:01:14.000 Wild food.

02:01:15.000 There's something about it.

02:01:15.000 We ate wild game for, gosh, so many years in a row.

02:01:18.000 Now there's a bunch of different companies out there that do, and there's some veteran-owned ones as well, that send out...

02:01:24.000 Send out tenderloin or whatever else from their farm-raised and all that stuff that have social media presence so you can see how they're running things, which is kind of cool.

02:01:32.000 So we eat more beef these days than we did for a number of years where it was just all axis, all moose, all elk, and that's all the kids ate as well.

02:01:39.000 That was just normal for them.

02:01:41.000 That's the healthiest food you can get.

02:01:43.000 It is.

02:01:43.000 It is, man.

02:01:45.000 How did you get involved in that Pineapple Brothers organization?

02:01:48.000 Yeah, so John Dubin, former FBI agent, and so we got to be friends, had a mutual friend.

02:01:54.000 And when he got it out of the FBI, he's connected to Larry Ellison, and that's what he wanted to do, is he wanted to run the hunting operation out there on Lanai, so put together that business.

02:02:05.000 Does Larry hunt?

02:02:07.000 No.

02:02:07.000 No?

02:02:09.000 He does not.

02:02:10.000 He's too busy.

02:02:11.000 He's got a lot going on.

02:02:12.000 Yeah.

02:02:13.000 A lot going on.

02:02:13.000 But he's got things going on that are, I don't even know if I'm allowed to talk about too much of it, but Like, next-level stuff.

02:02:19.000 Like, hey, wanted to move this world forward in a better way, and he's thinking on other levels.

02:02:24.000 Anyway, it'd be fascinating to sit down with him and Elon Musk.

02:02:29.000 Does he ever do interviews?

02:02:30.000 Could you have him on a podcast?

02:02:32.000 He does very few.

02:02:33.000 Very few interviews.

02:02:34.000 Would he do one with you?

02:02:35.000 I don't know.

02:02:36.000 You never thought about asking him?

02:02:37.000 I've thought about it.

02:02:38.000 Yeah?

02:02:38.000 I don't know.

02:02:39.000 But you know, sometimes you don't ask.

02:02:40.000 Right, right, right.

02:02:41.000 Yeah, you don't ask.

02:02:42.000 You want almost him to bring it up.

02:02:44.000 Yeah.

02:02:44.000 So a lot of things, you know how that goes.

02:02:46.000 I do.

02:02:47.000 Yeah.

02:02:48.000 Yeah.

02:02:49.000 I get a little taste of it, which is great.

02:02:50.000 It's a great problem to have.

02:02:52.000 But yeah, he did interviews for a number of years, and then I think I remember that there was some point where someone's like, why are you doing these interviews?

02:02:58.000 And he's like, oh yeah, why am I doing these interviews?

02:03:00.000 But he'll do one every now and again, and that's where I heard him say about the disadvantages necessary for success.

02:03:07.000 But there's a great book called The Billionaire and the Mechanic about how he got the America's Cup, and it's so fun, so fantastic to read, but he's playing tennis in part of this story with Rafael Nadal,

02:03:22.000 and they're playing tennis, and And they're talking.

02:03:24.000 He asks, hey, Rafa, do you like to win?

02:03:27.000 And Rafa says, I love the game.

02:03:30.000 And if you love the game, then you're going to win.

02:03:33.000 You're going to love it.

02:03:34.000 You've got to love what you're doing.

02:03:35.000 And I thought that was pretty cool.

02:03:36.000 Yeah, because Rafa's obviously amazing, and so is Larry.

02:03:39.000 That's pretty simplistic, though.

02:03:40.000 What if you love the game and your knees are bad?

02:03:43.000 You're not going to win.

02:03:44.000 Yeah, that's a good point.

02:03:45.000 That's a good point.

02:03:47.000 Yeah, work on those knees. 0.97

02:03:48.000 Yeah, take some aspirin.

02:03:49.000 There's a lot going on.

02:03:51.000 That's a funny way of saying it.

02:03:53.000 I mean, I'm sure it's accurate if everything else is equal.

02:03:56.000 And your genetics and all the other, you know, factors.

02:03:59.000 You gotta put in the work.

02:03:59.000 I mean, those guys put in some work.

02:04:00.000 Especially now, these athletes are working from, like, day one.

02:04:03.000 That's why it's always so interesting when someone's like, ah...

02:04:06.000 I just found this sport two years ago and now you're crushing it like it's some obscure sport like biathlon like you have people in Europe that are just growing up and they're doing the biathlon so the cross-country skiing and the shooting and that's amazing what incredible athletes and then someone in this country like finds it a couple years ago and just puts in the work and now they're they're up there you know near the top Right.

02:04:22.000 I love stories like that.

02:04:23.000 That's kind of cool, too, because so many people are growing up with tennis balls in the crib type of a thing and kind of just bred for it almost, which is a crazy way to think about it.

02:04:32.000 It is crazy.

02:04:34.000 But look at the difference in performance.

02:04:35.000 Look at a rugby team in the 60s and 70s compared to today.

02:04:38.000 Different group.

02:04:39.000 Well, mixed martial artists, I mean, that's obviously my focus is looking at the difference between fighters from the 1990s when the UFC first came around versus guys like Charles Oliveira of today, which is like they're on such a different level.

02:04:54.000 Remember the Tough Man Contest before UFC? Remember those guys in there?

02:04:57.000 That was awesome.

02:04:58.000 It was on some sort of pay-per-view-ish type thing, I remember, in the early 90s.

02:05:01.000 And seeing those guys get in there and just, like, bang it.

02:05:03.000 Oh, man, that was kind of cool.

02:05:05.000 And then, of course, things evolved.

02:05:06.000 But, yeah, I think I'm going to my first UFC, I think, on June 2nd.

02:05:11.000 Are you going to be on that one?

02:05:12.000 Which one is that?

02:05:12.000 Vegas.

02:05:14.000 July, sorry, July 2nd.

02:05:15.000 Yeah, I'm there for sure.

02:05:17.000 Awesome, something.

02:05:18.000 100%.

02:05:18.000 Hey, brother, anytime you want to go to the UFC, you got an open invitation.

02:05:21.000 Oh, I appreciate that.

02:05:22.000 You just reach out.

02:05:22.000 Thank you.

02:05:23.000 I'll hook it up.

02:05:23.000 I appreciate that.

02:05:24.000 That's a good one, though.

02:05:25.000 The July 4th weekend one is always madness.

02:05:28.000 Oh, nice.

02:05:28.000 And that's Israel Adesanya.

02:05:30.000 Nice! 0.94

02:05:31.000 Yeah.

02:05:32.000 Yeah, the last style band.

02:05:33.000 He's one of the greatest of all time.

02:05:35.000 He's fighting, one of the absolute greatest middleweights of all time. 0.99

02:05:39.000 And he's fighting Jared Cannoneer, who's a bad motherfucker. 0.98

02:05:42.000 That's a great fight. 0.99

02:05:43.000 The whole card is great.

02:05:44.000 Cool.

02:05:45.000 That is that fight, right?

02:05:46.000 That is the July fight.

02:05:47.000 Oh, that's also Alex Pereira.

02:05:50.000 There it is.

02:05:51.000 There's the card.

02:05:53.000 Volkanovski versus Max Holloway 3. Woo!

02:05:56.000 And Sean Strickland versus Alex Pereira. 0.99

02:05:58.000 That is a fucking phenomenal fight. 0.98

02:06:00.000 Pedro Munoz and Sean O'Malley. 0.99

02:06:03.000 Giant fight.

02:06:03.000 Uriah Hall and Andre Muniz.

02:06:05.000 Andre Muniz is one of the scariest fucking submission artists in the game. 0.97

02:06:09.000 This is a great card. 0.98

02:06:11.000 Nice.

02:06:11.000 Great card.

02:06:12.000 Oh, I'm fired up.

02:06:13.000 I'm fired up.

02:06:14.000 Woo! 0.99

02:06:14.000 A lot of action. 0.99

02:06:15.000 Yeah.

02:06:16.000 But that'll be good.

02:06:16.000 So that's 4th of July weekend, and that's a day after The Terminalist comes out.

02:06:20.000 Is that the whole fight card, Jamie?

02:06:21.000 Do they have the undercard and everything?

02:06:23.000 That's all that's announced so far?

02:06:24.000 Nice.

02:06:25.000 That's a very good fight.

02:06:26.000 Cannoneer actually started off his career as a heavyweight, and then he got down to light heavyweight, and now he's a middleweight, and he's a big, big middleweight. 0.97

02:06:35.000 He's a big middleweight and strong as fuck. 0.98

02:06:37.000 Nice. 0.99

02:06:38.000 Nice.

02:06:39.000 And Stylebender's probably the most sophisticated striker that's ever fought in the sport.

02:06:43.000 Nice.

02:06:44.000 Oh, man.

02:06:45.000 Hey, there we go.

02:06:46.000 Good cards.

02:06:47.000 Those are future cards.

02:06:48.000 Those are different cards, too.

02:06:50.000 There's Glover and Ira Prohaska.

02:06:54.000 Yeah, man.

02:06:54.000 A lot of great fights.

02:06:56.000 That'd be cool.

02:06:56.000 The UFC is awesome.

02:06:57.000 It's just on so often.

02:06:59.000 Like, it's so...

02:07:01.000 There's so much...

02:07:03.000 There's so much talent and there's so many events.

02:07:05.000 How crazy was it to do with no audience?

02:07:07.000 I loved it.

02:07:08.000 Oh, you did?

02:07:09.000 I loved it.

02:07:10.000 Really?

02:07:10.000 Yeah, because you could hear everything.

02:07:12.000 You could hear all the impact of the shots.

02:07:15.000 You could hear the breathing heavy. 1.00

02:07:16.000 You could hear the shit talking. 1.00

02:07:17.000 You could hear the coaches cornering. 1.00

02:07:20.000 Because the first ones we did were literally no audiences.

02:07:23.000 And then the UFC, as time went on, they allowed more people into the Apex Center as everything sort of relaxed a little bit.

02:07:32.000 But the initial days, everybody had to be tested.

02:07:34.000 Everybody was in a COVID bubble.

02:07:36.000 And we would get to the events.

02:07:37.000 And it was just like...

02:07:39.000 You know, me, Daniel Cormier, John Anik, we would sit there.

02:07:43.000 We had to wear masks whenever we got up, and then when we'd sit down, we'd take our masks off.

02:07:46.000 It was all weirdness, right?

02:07:48.000 But it was just like, that was the rules.

02:07:49.000 And then when the fights went on, you were essentially so fortunate to be in this room where there's only 30 or 40 other people in the whole room watching these world-class, world championship fights.

02:08:03.000 It was incredible.

02:08:04.000 It was like if you were some sultan and you had your own private arena and you paid the best fighters to come and fight for you.

02:08:10.000 Yeah, that's a little freaky.

02:08:11.000 What did the fighters think?

02:08:13.000 Did most of them like it or not?

02:08:14.000 Some loved it.

02:08:15.000 Some hated it.

02:08:17.000 Some guys fight off the crowd.

02:08:19.000 They feel the vibe of the crowd.

02:08:21.000 But when we first came back and we had the first events with a full crowd, I believe the first one we had was Jacksonville.

02:08:27.000 I think that's the case. 0.99

02:08:29.000 The first one we did that was live, of course it's Florida, they don't give a fuck. 0.99

02:08:33.000 They're just like, go ahead. 0.99

02:08:34.000 It was an amazing event because it was like everyone was so enthusiastic and happy.

02:08:40.000 And then I was like, okay, I love this better.

02:08:42.000 But I don't.

02:08:43.000 I love them both.

02:08:45.000 It's different.

02:08:45.000 I loved the ones where there was no crowd like when Francis Ngannou beat Stipe Miocic.

02:08:52.000 No crowd.

02:08:53.000 Won the heavyweight title with no crowd.

02:08:55.000 A very small amount of people in the crowd.

02:08:58.000 Maybe at that point it was like a hundred.

02:09:00.000 Cool to hear that.

02:09:01.000 To have both experiences and to have that all quiet around you and hear that fight going on with no distractions out there.

02:09:08.000 That's wild, like fighting in a vacuum almost.

02:09:10.000 I felt very, very fortunate.

02:09:12.000 That's one thing that I thought of.

02:09:13.000 Because also, it almost kind of went away.

02:09:15.000 Almost everything went away.

02:09:17.000 And then it's back.

02:09:18.000 And then at those times, it was back for a very small amount of people.

02:09:22.000 I mean, people got to watch it at home.

02:09:24.000 And credit to Dana White and the UFC for having the courage to put on those events in the middle of such extreme criticism.

02:09:30.000 There was a lot of people that didn't want anybody to do anything.

02:09:33.000 Oh, wow.

02:09:33.000 They wanted everybody to just hide.

02:09:35.000 And with a respiratory virus that's spreading, like, if you talk to virologists, you talk to people that are, especially if they weren't on camera, especially, they would tell you, like, there is no way to stop this.

02:09:46.000 They were like, the best thing you can do is stay healthy, take care of yourself.

02:09:49.000 And that's actually initially what even Fauci said.

02:09:52.000 He's like, don't drink, take care of yourself, exercise.

02:09:55.000 You know, like, this is what you really have to concentrate on.

02:09:57.000 Whiskey doesn't kill it?

02:09:57.000 The things you can control.

02:09:59.000 I don't think so.

02:10:00.000 Maybe if you poured it on it, but I don't think you can get it in there.

02:10:02.000 Yeah.

02:10:03.000 Dang it.

02:10:03.000 Imagine if whiskey did kill it.

02:10:04.000 That was the way to get better?

02:10:06.000 That's what I've been going with.

02:10:07.000 People ask me the secret to writing and I say, you know, coffee in the morning and whiskey at night.

02:10:10.000 Just don't mix those two up.

02:10:12.000 You know, when you start doing the whiskey in the morning and coffee at night, there's an issue.

02:10:15.000 How does the whiskey at night help?

02:10:16.000 Because, well, you get to take a breath.

02:10:18.000 Kids are in bed.

02:10:19.000 You have quiet, uninterrupted time and you just get to sit there.

02:10:23.000 And think and just kind of sip something nice and maybe it's worked into the story like a veteran owned whiskey like Horse Soldier and put in this last one.

02:10:29.000 We put Hooten Young by these Delta guys that's in the show and it's just you just kind of sipping and typing and alone in your world.

02:10:36.000 So what is your process?

02:10:38.000 Like do you wake up in the morning and write immediately or do you have like a routine that you follow?

02:10:44.000 I wish I did, and I hope that I can get to a routine at some point, but with all the chaos, it's just crazy working on scripts and juggling the kids and then all the other projects that are going on, the podcast, reading people's books for the podcast, like all those things.

02:10:55.000 It's just constant chaos.

02:10:57.000 So what I did this last time was I rented Airbnbs around Park City.

02:11:01.000 And I found this amazing cabin.

02:11:02.000 I probably shouldn't even say it, but this really cool cabin, super small, wood outside.

02:11:07.000 I'd go chop wood, throw it in the wood-burning stove, and everything was right there.

02:11:10.000 The whole thing was about as big as this room.

02:11:11.000 And I had a couch, wood-burning stove, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and I could just write, and I could still think about writing if I got up to make a sandwich.

02:11:19.000 Sat back down.

02:11:20.000 I could sip whiskey or wine at night in front of that fire and just work.

02:11:23.000 So I went all in with no interruptions, but I should have a routine where I get up early and I work until whatever time and then I start doing the business side of the house or then I work on the podcast or then I work on scripts or whatever it is.

02:11:35.000 But I'm not quite there yet.

02:11:36.000 I need some of that Jocko discipline to get me into that routine.

02:11:40.000 But right now I feel like it's still a startup where you're in your garage and you're just doing things and you're just building this readership and building these books essentially.

02:11:48.000 Any product, any entrepreneur that starts something in their garage, very similar.

02:11:52.000 But I think now is the time to take a breath and get a routine going.

02:11:55.000 But what I've done for all the books, to include this one and the sixth one that I'm working on now, is I write a one-page executive summary, like what you read on the book jacket.

02:12:02.000 And I ask myself, hey, was this worth spending a year of my life on?

02:12:07.000 And if the answer is yes, then I read it again and I say, if someone read this, would they want to spend time, time they're never going to get back in these pages or listening to this?

02:12:15.000 Because that's something I take very seriously is that time.

02:12:17.000 People have trusted me with it.

02:12:18.000 Yeah.

02:12:19.000 So if the answer to those two is yes, then I'm in.

02:12:21.000 So I have a theme, I have a title right off the bat, I take that one-page executive summary, I turn that into an outline, and then I start writing.

02:12:28.000 And I love every part of the process, and it's just so, I mean, I feel so fortunate to be doing what I love and so thankful to everybody that says, bought a book, took a risk on me, you know, like you did, and then told a friend about it, whether that's one person or 35 million or whatever it might be.

02:12:42.000 I'm just so thankful each and every day that I get to do this.

02:12:46.000 When you write, do you write for a specific amount of time, or do you just write until you're done?

02:12:51.000 Until I'm exhausted, essentially.

02:12:53.000 It's not the best way to go, I don't think.

02:12:55.000 I think you should write for probably a certain amount of time and then switch gears, but I just go.

02:12:59.000 I just go.

02:13:00.000 But if that's the case, if you write for a certain amount of time and then switch gears, what if, like, you just hit your stride?

02:13:04.000 Exactly!

02:13:05.000 I don't know.

02:13:06.000 But some people do that.

02:13:07.000 They get up and they have that routine.

02:13:08.000 I think John Grisham does.

02:13:09.000 He gets up and he starts at 7 and he stops at noon, I believe.

02:13:12.000 And he just goes and he does that for six months.

02:13:14.000 And then he's done and he takes another six months off, I believe, or something along those lines.

02:13:17.000 A friend of mine who's a very straight-laced guy said he would snort Adderall.

02:13:21.000 And I go, what?

02:13:23.000 And he goes, yeah, until my wife told me to stop doing it.

02:13:25.000 I go, what?

02:13:26.000 I go, why'd you snort Adderall? 0.99

02:13:27.000 He goes, well, I didn't want to fucking swallow it, and if you snorted it, it hits you right away. 0.99

02:13:32.000 I'm like, how do you even fucking know this? 0.97

02:13:33.000 And he just keeps him going, what does it do? 0.98

02:13:35.000 I'm telling you, this dude is so straight-laced, you would never imagine that he snorts Adderall.

02:13:39.000 Interesting.

02:13:40.000 I go, why? 0.98

02:13:41.000 And he goes, because I had so much fucking energy. 0.99

02:13:43.000 He goes, I'd snort Adderall, and I could just fucking write and write and write and write, and I'd get so much done. 0.99

02:13:48.000 I get that. 0.97

02:13:49.000 I mean, I totally get that.

02:13:51.000 Many times I have thought about Stephen King in the early days and some of the things that he did to keep writing.

02:13:56.000 You've read on writing?

02:13:56.000 I certainly have.

02:13:57.000 Amazing book.

02:13:58.000 What a great book.

02:13:59.000 And the autobiographical nature of it is even crazier, like getting hit by that van and then waking up and looking up and seeing this person, I think, sitting on a rock that just hit him with this van and thinking, I just got killed by somebody in one of my novels, essentially.

02:14:11.000 Right.

02:14:12.000 Crazy.

02:14:12.000 Yeah, it is like one of his novels.

02:14:14.000 Very much so.

02:14:15.000 Yeah.

02:14:15.000 So I read that, so I understand not just the temptation, but the use of doing that sort of a thing.

02:14:22.000 Just keep going.

02:14:23.000 But I'm doing the coffee and the whiskey thing.

02:14:25.000 Well, the coffee and the whiskey is way more controllable. 0.95

02:14:27.000 But man, that dude with cocaine and beer created some of the fucking greatest books, the greatest fiction horror stories ever. 0.97

02:14:35.000 And some of them he doesn't even remember writing. 0.99

02:14:37.000 Isn't that crazy?

02:14:38.000 Cucho, he said he doesn't remember writing it.

02:14:39.000 Insane.

02:14:40.000 And it's an amazing book.

02:14:41.000 I think in Carrie, he was ready to throw it out, right?

02:14:44.000 Man, I can't remember that part, but I believe it.

02:14:47.000 Crazy.

02:14:47.000 I mean, I don't think it's not the healthiest way to go.

02:14:50.000 No, it's not the healthiest way.

02:14:51.000 His whole family stepped in and said, hey, stop.

02:14:53.000 And I think, look, the guy contributed so much.

02:14:55.000 He's so prolific.

02:14:57.000 No reason to do that.

02:14:58.000 But if he ever wanted to write again, like he did back then, I would say cocaine's the way to go.

02:15:03.000 It seems for him, like there was something about those drugs that gave him this maniacal, sort of explosively savage...

02:15:16.000 Creations. 1.00

02:15:17.000 Like some of those books, you'd read them and you'd go like, holy fuck! 0.99

02:15:21.000 I think he wrote essentially under the stairs against a wall. 0.99

02:15:24.000 And I totally understand that too.

02:15:26.000 Like I don't need a view.

02:15:27.000 I don't need this certain scenario.

02:15:28.000 I just need uninterrupted time.

02:15:30.000 And so I can stare at a wall.

02:15:31.000 I used to go down to the public library and go into one of those little rooms that you could rent there for two hours at a time if no one was waiting.

02:15:37.000 And oftentimes I get bumped by a high school student that's waiting to do a high school history project.

02:15:41.000 But it was just staring at a blank wall and just having my computer right there.

02:15:44.000 I like the cabin idea.

02:15:45.000 The cabin idea was nice.

02:15:46.000 I think that's the best.

02:15:47.000 It fits like the James Reese character.

02:15:51.000 It does.

02:15:52.000 I had elk going by.

02:15:53.000 I had deer going by.

02:15:55.000 It was amazing.

02:15:56.000 And then the beautiful stars at night like this were just incredible.

02:16:00.000 And so that's where most of this one was written, in the blood.

02:16:03.000 So I think I'm going to get a head start on six.

02:16:05.000 I'm already writing it, but I need to lock down ahead of time instead of waiting until the fall and just go and get a couple months in this cabin.

02:16:13.000 Because it's still fairly close to where we live.

02:16:14.000 Well, in the blood, I don't want to give anything away, but the end of it, there's a lot of room.

02:16:19.000 At the end of it, it's not over.

02:16:22.000 That's right.

02:16:23.000 I don't want to give anything away. 0.99

02:16:24.000 But at the end of it, you're like, holy shit. 0.99

02:16:27.000 Nice. 0.98

02:16:28.000 Well, the goal is to have someone get to the end of a chapter and then to turn it and keep them up all night.

02:16:32.000 And then as the art part of it is having enough resolution to the story, but also leaving that little bit out there that they're going to want to get the next book and keep this thing going, keep that journey going.

02:16:42.000 And that's really what...

02:16:42.000 James Reese is on.

02:16:43.000 He's on a journey just like we all are.

02:16:45.000 And hopefully we're all getting wiser as we go forward.

02:16:48.000 Hopefully we're asking questions.

02:16:49.000 Hopefully we're taking past successes and failures and applying them to our future.

02:16:53.000 And that's what he's on.

02:16:54.000 He's not the same guy that's just picked up and dropped in a different scenario every book.

02:16:57.000 He's on this journey just like we all are.

02:17:00.000 So I think that helps resonate with readers because, once again, life is this journey and he's on that same path. 1.00

02:17:05.000 Well, he's also very, very likable, even though he's a fucking savage. 0.99

02:17:11.000 He's a savage, and he can flip that switch. 0.98

02:17:13.000 That was important to me, too, because if you're going to spend that time that you're never going to get back with somebody in the pages of this novel, I think that it should be with somebody that you want to have a beer with, like we talked about.

02:17:22.000 So I wanted him to be someone you'd want to sit down and have a coffee with, sit down and have a beer with, but who could also flip that switch and just put heads on stakes when the time came for it.

02:17:29.000 Well, I'm so glad you got Chris.

02:17:31.000 Yeah.

02:17:32.000 Because...

02:17:33.000 Amazing.

02:17:33.000 He fits that.

02:17:35.000 He does.

02:17:35.000 Because he's so nice.

02:17:37.000 He's such a nice guy.

02:17:38.000 But he could be that guy.

02:17:40.000 Yep.

02:17:40.000 He's got that...

02:17:41.000 There's something inside of him where you're like, I'll buy that.

02:17:44.000 Oh, yeah.

02:17:45.000 For people that think, oh, he's too nice to play this role or that sort of thing.

02:17:49.000 Oh, no.

02:17:50.000 He goes dark.

02:17:51.000 And people are going to be surprised when they see this thing.

02:17:53.000 I can imagine.

02:17:53.000 Because they're used to seeing Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy or Jurassic World.

02:17:56.000 And they're kind of used to that kind of a Chris.

02:17:58.000 Well, when you see this, this is a different guy. 1.00

02:18:01.000 Chris Pat's a bad motherfucker. 0.99

02:18:02.000 Such a great guy. 1.00

02:18:03.000 He loves UFC too, so, you know, he loves being there and watching the fights.

02:18:07.000 He's a sweetheart too.

02:18:08.000 Such a good dude.

02:18:09.000 Yeah, he and I have some hilarious text messages back and forth.

02:18:12.000 That's awesome.

02:18:12.000 He's a big boy too.

02:18:13.000 He's a fucking house. 1.00

02:18:15.000 He is. 1.00

02:18:15.000 He's a fucking house. 1.00

02:18:17.000 He's a big fella. 1.00

02:18:18.000 Yep.

02:18:18.000 And he's also, what a transition, a transformation that guy made from being this, like, sort of overweight guy on Parks and Rec to being this jacked dude in Guardians of the Galaxy.

02:18:28.000 Like, holy shit, what was under there? 0.97

02:18:30.000 Oh, yeah. 0.99

02:18:31.000 And you have Jerry Shaw, my SEAL buddy.

02:18:32.000 Like, they work out together, and that's kind of how they keep each other honest.

02:18:35.000 And he's a good wrestler.

02:18:36.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:18:37.000 He's a high school wrestler.

02:18:38.000 Yeah.

02:18:38.000 And, yeah, I wouldn't want to mess with him.

02:18:40.000 No, he's a big fella.

02:18:41.000 But he's also just like, he's so unusual for like a Hollywood guy.

02:18:47.000 He's very religious and he's very sweet and very humble and personable.

02:18:54.000 Grounded.

02:18:55.000 Yeah, super grounded.

02:18:56.000 Normal guy.

02:18:58.000 And everywhere.

02:18:59.000 I mean, I remember we ran into him just by accident on Lanai when we were there with my family and he couldn't be nicer.

02:19:06.000 So nice.

02:19:06.000 And it's so genuine.

02:19:08.000 Yeah.

02:19:08.000 Yeah, totally.

02:19:10.000 Actually, that was my takeaway from that experience on set was just how many of those actors were totally normal.

02:19:16.000 Like Jean Triplehorn, incredible.

02:19:17.000 I just love her.

02:19:18.000 She's so great and so great in this role also.

02:19:21.000 And she was in Basic Instinct and The Firm and One World.

02:19:23.000 And she's just so, so smart and so wonderful.

02:19:26.000 We had such great conversations.

02:19:28.000 Tyna Rushing, I think she's going to be a breakout star from this thing. 0.93

02:19:31.000 She's just so good as Liz Riley.

02:19:33.000 Like everybody, J.D. Pardo, who's in Mayans, of course, he's so great.

02:19:38.000 LaMonica Garrett, who was just in 1883, crushes in The Terminal List.

02:19:43.000 I mean, he is so good and such a good guy.

02:19:45.000 Now, Terminal List is your first book, and that is eight episodes on Amazon.

02:19:50.000 So will you then go from there to book two, three, four, and five, and then onward?

02:19:55.000 We'll see.

02:19:56.000 That all depends on Amazon and Chris, and see what they can work.

02:19:59.000 Because he's in demand.

02:20:00.000 He has a lot of other options out there.

02:20:02.000 That's a giant commitment, right?

02:20:03.000 It's a big commitment to time.

02:20:04.000 And with all the other options out there, he has to weigh family, weigh these other projects.

02:20:09.000 You can't have someone else play James Reese.

02:20:11.000 I don't think so.

02:20:12.000 But once you start it with Chris, it's got to stay.

02:20:14.000 Yeah, yeah.

02:20:15.000 So we'll see.

02:20:16.000 We'll see.

02:20:16.000 I'm hopeful.

02:20:17.000 Working on the outline for the next season right now.

02:20:20.000 And what's interesting is that that last book, well, the next book, True Believer, it was building towards a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

02:20:26.000 And that was kind of the penultimate thing.

02:20:28.000 And then, well, now that's actually happened.

02:20:30.000 So if we actually stay true to that storyline, well, you can't because now it's actually happened.

02:20:34.000 So you've got to get creative now on that side of things.

02:20:36.000 And that's too bad because I like the way it flowed from the Atlantic to Mozambique up to Morocco and then into Ukraine.

02:20:42.000 Like, I liked how that flow worked with the story.

02:20:45.000 And now I'm like, oh, what are we going to do?

02:20:46.000 So I'm writing out this outline for it right now.

02:20:48.000 And we'll see what Chris's schedule looks like and what Amazon's checkbook looks like for him.

02:20:55.000 So we'll see.

02:20:56.000 Well, I hope it's a gigantic success.

02:20:58.000 Thank you. 0.85

02:20:59.000 And the books are fucking awesome. 0.63

02:21:00.000 I really, really enjoy them. 0.93

02:21:02.000 And this is the latest In the Blood.

02:21:05.000 It's available right now. 0.98

02:21:07.000 And go get it, folks, because it's fucking great. 0.98

02:21:10.000 Thanks, brother. 0.99

02:21:10.000 Thank you, brother. 0.99

02:21:11.000 Thanks for being here.

02:21:11.000 I appreciate it.

02:21:12.000 Appreciate you.

02:21:12.000 Take care.

02:21:13.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 18, 2022

Joe Rogan Experience #1820 - Jack Carr

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript