The Megyn Kelly Show - Robert O'Neill and Dakota Meyer on Trust and Humility, Hard Work, and Uniting Behind Ukraine

00:00:00.460 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:11.800 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:15.280 Wow, what a day we have for you.

00:00:18.020 The news cycle and the guests, you're going to love today's show.

00:00:23.540 We are witnessing the citizens of Ukraine right now rise up

00:00:26.660 and fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country, Russia,

00:00:32.420 which may or may not be behind him.

00:00:34.480 We're seeing extraordinary events inside of Russia as people by the thousands take to the streets there

00:00:39.300 to protest what he is doing to Ukraine in a country, Russia, in which one is not allowed to protest.

00:00:45.620 I've got with me today two guys you already love and two guys who have sacrificed so much for our country.

00:00:52.980 They know firsthand about the sacrifice of war.

00:00:56.740 They know about what it's like to put country above self when freedom and democracy are on the line.

00:01:02.200 Rob O'Neill is a U.S. Navy SEAL combat veteran.

00:01:05.940 He has been a part of some of the biggest SEAL missions ever conducted.

00:01:10.840 He is best known, of course, for being the SEAL Team 6 member who shot and killed Osama bin Laden.

00:01:16.480 But he also helped rescue fellow SEAL Marcus Luttrell in Afghanistan,

00:01:21.860 and he was the lead paratrooper in the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from the Marisc, Alabama.

00:01:27.540 The hijacking became the basis for the movie Captain Phillips featuring Tom Hanks.

00:01:33.260 I mean, I joked with him last time he was on or the first time.

00:01:35.500 He's like he's like the Waldo, you know, of of military.

00:01:40.060 He's been on everything and everything he touches turns into a Hollywood movie.

00:01:43.540 You've got you've got Captain Phillips, you've got Lone Survivor, and then, of course, Zero Dark Thirty,

00:01:51.520 all of which feature some of his heroism.

00:01:54.400 And speaking of heroes, Dakota Meyer is also with us today.

00:01:58.420 He is our country's second youngest living Medal of Honor recipient, our nation's highest military decoration.

00:02:05.220 In 2009, under heavy enemy fire from the Taliban, Dakota disobeyed direct orders and repeatedly went back into the fight,

00:02:14.720 into the ambush area to find his fallen brothers and to retrieve the bodies of those who had died,

00:02:20.980 as well as rescue those who are still fighting and needed his help.

00:02:24.680 He received his Medal of Honor from President Obama at the White House in 2011.

00:02:29.700 And when they finally got to those trapped Americans, Dakota jumped out and he ran toward them,

00:02:36.900 drawing all those enemy guns on himself, bullets kicking up the dirt all around him.

00:02:42.320 He kept going until he came upon those four Americans, laying where they fell, together as one team.

00:02:49.480 Dakota and the others who had joined him knelt down, picked up their comrades,

00:02:53.180 and through all those bullets, all the smoke, all the chaos, carry them out one by one.

00:02:59.820 Because, as Dakota says, that's what you do for a brother.

00:03:02.880 A former Marine who read about your story said that you showed how, in the most desperate final hours,

00:03:09.160 our brothers and God will not forsake us.

00:03:12.240 And because of your humble example, our kids, especially back in Columbia, Kentucky,

00:03:16.880 and in small towns all across America, they'll know that no matter who you are or where you come from,

00:03:23.320 you can do great things as a citizen and as a member of the American family.

00:03:29.440 In the end, Dakota is credited with saving the lives of at least 36 U.S. and Afghan troops that day.

00:03:36.280 These two men have gone to hell and back for our country.

00:03:38.660 And when they returned home, civilian life led to a new host of challenges,

00:03:43.200 which we will also discuss over the next two hours.

00:03:46.160 It's my honor to have them here today.

00:03:48.240 They've written a new book titled The Way Forward,

00:03:52.280 Master Life's Toughest Battles and Create Your Own Lasting Legacy.

00:03:56.960 It is a book they hope will help you learn to tackle obstacles in your own life

00:04:01.920 and shows a bit of how they got to become these extraordinary human beings.

00:04:08.040 This is their first interview ahead of the book's release tomorrow.

00:04:11.880 Rob, Dakota, welcome to the show.

00:04:13.900 It's so great to have you back again.

00:04:15.060 Thank you for having us, Megan.

00:04:16.600 Great to be here.

00:04:17.340 Thank you.

00:04:17.920 I'm so glad you guys did this.

00:04:19.840 I'm glad as a human that I get to read this and that you've taken the time to sort of put your thoughts down on paper.

00:04:26.820 You've both talked about, you know, your missions before and written books about your missions.

00:04:30.520 But this is like, okay, who is Rob O'Neill as a kid?

00:04:33.900 I love the part about, you know, I wasn't really like a mixed martial arts kid.

00:04:38.900 I wasn't the bully and I wasn't on the football team.

00:04:41.660 I was more likely to be the one getting beat up than doing the beating up.

00:04:45.580 And Dakota, like your stories too about like, you know, your, your cow Tinkerbell and just kind of like puts a real, the SEAL team guys don't start off totally grizzled in all cases.

00:04:58.720 So if you're hoping to be a Navy SEAL or a Marine in Dakota's case, and you're, you know, maybe you're hoping for your son or whatever.

00:05:05.540 Maybe they're like looking a little weak to you right now.

00:05:07.620 Fear not.

00:05:08.520 Fear not.

00:05:09.300 Because they could one day wind up with two silver stars and three bronze stars like Rob or the Medal of Honor like Dakota.

00:05:15.200 Okay.

00:05:15.460 So we're going to get to all of this.

00:05:16.660 I love, love, love the book and your backstories.

00:05:18.280 But let's just start with the latest news, because unlike most of the people on Twitter right now, you guys actually know what it's like to be in a firefight, to actually, you know, be in the middle of a war, try to figure out what's real and what's not.

00:05:32.440 And I want to tell you, this past weekend was extraordinary, extraordinary in Ukraine.

00:05:38.540 To me, I'll give you my layperson's assessment and you tell me whether I'm onto something.

00:05:42.800 But I think this guy Zelensky, you know, the president of Ukraine, is single handedly turning this thing around.

00:05:48.960 He refuses to leave.

00:05:50.840 We went in and said, they're going to kill you.

00:05:53.420 Let us give you a transport out.

00:05:54.700 And he said, I don't need a ride.

00:05:56.220 I need ammo.

00:05:57.300 I'm not going anywhere.

00:05:58.100 This guy's former actor.

00:05:59.560 Nobody knew what he was going to be.

00:06:01.180 He won't leave.

00:06:02.320 He's inspiring all the Ukrainians not to leave.

00:06:04.660 You're not supposed to leave if you're a fighting age male, but they're not trying to leave.

00:06:07.700 According to all reports, they're staying.

00:06:09.080 They they're making Molotov cocktails when they can't get their arms, their hands on arms.

00:06:14.620 And so he's been inspirational and the Ukrainians have been inspirational fighting, not giving up, you know, doing whatever they can to preserve their homeland, which is under invasion right now by 200000 Russian troops.

00:06:27.360 So that's sort of where we were going into the weekend.

00:06:29.780 It was like, well, they're going to fall because they're outmanned and they're outmatched.

00:06:33.700 But wow, crazy fight and inspirational resolve.

00:06:39.260 Then over the weekend, finally, Europe found its spine.

00:06:43.400 Europe found its backbone after all these years.

00:06:46.800 And what we're seeing today, I'll give you guys some of the highlights, OK, because I've been looking for somebody who would just list for me everything that that was going down.

00:06:55.320 And here's some examples, OK, the UK sending light anti-armor defensive weapons system, France, more military equipment as well as fuel, Netherlands, air defense rockets and anti-tank systems to Ukraine.

00:07:09.300 Germany now planning on devoting two percent of its budget to its own military, which it hasn't been doing.

00:07:14.620 It's it's gone totally soft.

00:07:15.820 Now it's finding a new resolve, sending a thousand anti-tank weapons, 500 stringer surface to air missiles.

00:07:21.840 Canada sending lethal military weaponry, Canada, Justin Trudeau, Sweden, Sweden, 5,000 anti-tank rockets to Ukraine, as well as field rations and body armor.

00:07:33.620 Belgium, 3000 more automatic rifles, 200 anti-tank weapons, 3,800 tons of fuel for Portugal.

00:07:40.240 Nike vision goggles, bulletproof vests, helmets, grenades and ammo, automatic G3 rifles.

00:07:47.060 Romania, fuel, bulletproof vests, helmets, other military material.

00:07:50.940 So Czech Republic, 30,000 pistols, 7,000 assault rifles and so on.

00:07:56.600 The U.S. anti-armor, small arms, body armor, various munitions in support of Ukraine.

00:08:00.420 Now it gets crazier.

00:08:02.600 EU will shut down EU airspace to Russian aircraft.

00:08:06.100 We'll seek to ban Russian state on media.

00:08:08.160 We'll target Russian ally Belarus with sanctions.

00:08:10.640 Japan will join a group of seven nations in the EU.

00:08:14.760 We'll freeze the Russian central bank's foreign exchange assets.

00:08:18.340 We'll prevent Vladimir Putin's government from accessing tens of billions.

00:08:21.720 South Korea will ban exports of strategic items and go on.

00:08:25.620 Singapore imposing appropriate sanctions and restrictions.

00:08:28.080 Australia sending lethal aid.

00:08:29.640 Germany, I mentioned.

00:08:30.960 But they're also pushing aside a long-held government policy not to send weapons to conflict zones.

00:08:36.260 They hadn't been doing that.

00:08:37.020 Now they will.

00:08:38.220 And they're also allowing the Dutch to send 400 German-made anti-tank weapons and Estonia to send cold-era howitzers, transfers it had been blocking for months.

00:08:49.120 Turkey.

00:08:50.020 Turkey calls it a war, which could pave the way for the NATO member, Turkey, to enact an international pact limiting Russian naval passage through the Black Sea.

00:08:59.280 Turkey, Switzerland, you guys.

00:09:02.240 Switzerland.

00:09:03.060 That's the one we're always like, I'm Switzerland.

00:09:05.160 You know, like your brother and sister are fighting.

00:09:07.220 I'm Switzerland.

00:09:08.140 Switzerland is getting into this, adopting the EU sanctions against Russia.

00:09:12.880 I was like, who knew?

00:09:14.680 Hungary and so on.

00:09:16.480 This is extraordinary.

00:09:17.860 And the way my pal Noah Rothman put it over on commentary was the Europe that existed last week no longer exists.

00:09:26.720 It looks very, very different today than it did.

00:09:29.420 So, sorry for the long windup, but that's an extraordinary series of events.

00:09:33.800 What do you guys make of it?

00:09:35.200 No, that's a great windup, and I appreciate that.

00:09:38.540 It is, I mean, even a week ago, I was personally talking about Germany as far as NATO.

00:09:43.620 They'd never paid their 2% GDP, which they were, I mean, they said they weren't going to be ready to pay that until 2031.

00:09:50.880 And I thought that was kind of rude of Germany because if you think about it, there's kind of the reason we needed NATO 100 years ago.

00:09:56.180 But now with this turnaround, and it comes back to President Zelensky.

00:10:00.140 And again, on social media, you're going to get people here and there, and it's propaganda, this propaganda, whatever.

00:10:06.660 He's the face of it, and he's part of the reason a lot of people are coming together because whether or not he is exactly where he says he is, fighting.

00:10:14.540 He is there, along with the mayor of Kiev, and all the men and women, the shop owners that are making Molotov cocktails.

00:10:23.820 I mean, I wouldn't personally want to be throwing burning booze at a tank, but if you have that in you to defend your country.

00:10:30.540 And I love the way they're saying, we're doing this because we don't want to go anywhere else.

00:10:33.900 This is our home.

00:10:34.820 And, I mean, Putin's lost his marbles.

00:10:37.400 And he did say once he got the stiff resistance from Ukraine, well, hey, Finland and Sweden, you better not do this.

00:10:43.920 And those two, they're not in NATO, but they've really not done much.

00:10:47.540 They're getting involved.

00:10:48.800 And I love, well, obviously, the Baltic states, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, they're involved, Hungary, Poland.

00:10:54.480 But it's almost, this is Europe uniting.

00:10:58.060 And I was saying at first, I don't want American troops on the ground.

00:11:00.720 But I was even saying, you know, this is a European problem.

00:11:04.000 Europe's stepping up and they're talking about paying more than they need for NATO, even though Ukraine's not a NATO country.

00:11:09.700 They're defending innocent people because a lot, I mean, this is something that should almost unite everybody.

00:11:14.900 Nobody really wants this war except that crazy person in Moscow.

00:11:18.340 Yeah.

00:11:18.780 I mean, Dakota, it's like the, they're making military munitions there with these Molotov cocktails.

00:11:24.320 You're seeing grandmas in the street go up to Russian soldiers and yell at them.

00:11:27.640 I mean, like the Ukrainian people feel what we're all seeing, which is this is a sovereign nation under attack for no reason, right?

00:11:35.480 Putin's propaganda war isn't winning.

00:11:38.920 He's, you know, bellying on about how there are neo-Nazis in there and how they're torturing Russian speaking Ukrainians in these sort of more separatist regions.

00:11:48.180 No one's believing it.

00:11:49.100 Even the Russians aren't believing it.

00:11:50.540 The Ukrainian resolve to fight this and get them out of Ukraine and to live a peaceful life has been extraordinary.

00:11:57.920 Usually we see these countries just collapse when you see a stronger country, like a big bully, like Russia go in.

00:12:03.520 They just collapse like they don't.

00:12:05.240 Not so.

00:12:07.440 Yeah.

00:12:07.580 I mean, look, I think you would have seen this collapse had the president left.

00:12:11.960 I think that, you know, he's obviously not doing all, you know, everything, but I do think he is the keystone of this arch that's keeping that entire country fighting.

00:12:22.560 And I think that, you know, that's what's going to be held on.

00:12:24.700 You know, you see the media who's putting all this attention.

00:12:27.660 Everybody wants these like the winds or like how far is it going to go or, you know, everybody's trying to get get their tagline in there.

00:12:34.020 And they keep talking about, well, you know, Putin taking Kiev.

00:12:37.640 Right.

00:12:38.000 And even if he takes it, even if he runs his troops through it and he puts people inside of the city buildings, he's still going to have 20 years of insurgency across it.

00:12:49.760 It doesn't mean anything.

00:12:51.460 I mean, Putin better be ready for a long, long war.

00:12:55.380 Because if not, I mean, look, we know what it's like to walk in somewhere with air superiority and we know what it's like to walk in with the money and the troops and the training and and then have to fight for 20 years.

00:13:09.300 You know what I mean?

00:13:09.960 And I don't think that we can over underestimate the over complexity of street fighting.

00:13:16.080 Right.

00:13:16.500 I mean, it is a complex deal.

00:13:18.180 It took the United States, which is by far the best fighters on the face of the planet that ever existed.

00:13:24.360 And it took us over three weeks to take over Fallujah that had, what, 300,000 people in it.

00:13:31.220 You're talking about a city that has is the size of Chicago.

00:13:35.100 I mean, you know, this is going to be no small undertaking.

00:13:37.720 And then what does he do after he gets it?

00:13:39.980 Right.

00:13:40.720 It's just incredible to see these people, their willingness to rise up and fight for their own country, to fight for what they believe in.

00:13:49.300 And, you know, there's all this stuff coming out now about, you know, who's supporting who and all this, you know, trying to look at, you know, well, what can we believe and what what can we not at the end of the day?

00:14:00.000 You know, you have to humanize this aspect of it.

00:14:04.960 And that's what we did in the way forward.

00:14:06.260 Right.

00:14:06.480 Is obviously our first books came out.

00:14:08.100 We were talking more about, you know, about the the war and the black and white side of it of, you know, who's wrong and right.

00:14:14.640 And but there's just a humanization factor to this that we cannot miss.

00:14:18.600 And you're seeing this across the globe right now of what hope can do.

00:14:22.460 And these people hope and they believe so much that they can win and in their country that they're willing to take multiple cocktails and throw them at tanks.

00:14:31.180 Yeah.

00:14:31.580 I mean, they're at the point now where reportedly Putin's people are going to meet with senior Ukrainian diplomats.

00:14:39.620 I guess they had to agree to go meet in Belarus, which is Putin's puppet.

00:14:42.900 And they've been doing whatever Putin wants, this country sort of in between the two.

00:14:47.420 And but the Ukrainian officials agreed to do it.

00:14:51.100 It's not going to be Putin and it's not going to be Zelensky, but it's going to be, you know, underlings that are going to go meet.

00:14:56.700 And no, there are no preconditions.

00:14:58.320 And Putin last week had been saying, you will agree, you will agree to neutrality and you will agree not to join NATO.

00:15:04.220 And then we will meet.

00:15:05.540 And now here they are, no preconditions meeting.

00:15:07.380 I mean, who knows?

00:15:08.040 You know, Zelensky saying, I don't think it's going to amount to much.

00:15:10.220 And they haven't stopped the fighting in the meantime.

00:15:11.740 But it's something.

00:15:14.040 Meanwhile, can I ask you guys about this?

00:15:15.560 Because the most concerning headline has been about Putin saber rattling with his nukes.

00:15:22.460 He's like, that's not really what you want to hear.

00:15:24.840 But and, you know, who knows whether it's true, but there are reports that he he seems unstable to those who are around him.

00:15:30.720 People have been watching him for a long time, think he's Putin might be losing it.

00:15:34.420 You know that he he changed during the pandemic was the reporting.

00:15:37.600 And now he's putting their nuclear arsenal and those who oversee it on alert.

00:15:44.300 That's concerning.

00:15:45.260 And it's especially concerning because.

00:15:48.060 Of all the things I listed at the top, he's he's got to be feeling concerned about Europe uniting against him.

00:15:55.860 This is his worst nightmare.

00:15:56.740 I mean, you've got you've got you've got like Kosovo applying now openly for NATO membership.

00:16:02.120 You've got these other countries, you know, who had been like considering it.

00:16:06.640 I'm trying to see who it was.

00:16:07.920 It was Finland and Sweden at least making noises about it.

00:16:11.200 And this is the last thing he wanted.

00:16:13.420 Right.

00:16:13.680 He hates a united Europe.

00:16:15.080 He does not like to be seen as the universal bad guy.

00:16:18.120 So that combined with the threat of nukes makes you wonder what his next move is.

00:16:23.460 Well, his his issue was he was saying that NATO's against him.

00:16:26.660 NATO wasn't against him.

00:16:27.520 And Ukraine was not a threat.

00:16:28.960 And he's gotten exactly the opposite of what he wanted.

00:16:31.480 Now, like you said, with Kosovo, they want in.

00:16:33.500 And you mentioned Belarus.

00:16:35.260 Putin thought Ukraine was going to be like Belarus, where there's kind of rolling.

00:16:38.520 No one fights.

00:16:39.080 And all of a sudden, bam, you're part of Russia.

00:16:41.420 Ukraine.

00:16:41.960 You know, you mentioned Fallujah.

00:16:43.440 We were fighting with 300000, a city of 300000.

00:16:46.180 But not everyone was fighting.

00:16:47.380 There's several million in Kiev and they all want to fight.

00:16:50.600 And then, of course, Putin's going to you know, I think he went crazy during the pandemic.

00:16:54.500 There were reports that his family had covid.

00:16:56.500 He never wanted to admit it.

00:16:57.780 But even Condoleezza Rice was saying he looks like he's a little crazy, like his face is chubbier and he's not quite making sense.

00:17:02.560 So he's saber rattling.

00:17:03.720 The nuclear threats there.

00:17:05.280 That's scary.

00:17:05.980 I mean, that's that's something we can't even imagine.

00:17:08.420 But I think the first option is a little bit worse.

00:17:11.700 There's a bomb that he has about 22000 pounds.

00:17:14.200 It's a thermal barrack charge.

00:17:15.260 We have one that we dropped actually on the Taliban.

00:17:18.420 It's called a massive ordnance air burst.

00:17:20.120 We call it the mother of all bombs, the Moab.

00:17:22.180 But he's got one that it's it's it's a thermal barrack charge.

00:17:24.640 It's about six feet off the ground and it'll make a crater three football fields and it'll liquefy anyone inside.

00:17:31.220 And if he dropped that on a populace, it's devastating.

00:17:35.780 But he can say he didn't go nuclear.

00:17:37.320 That's as close you can get.

00:17:38.620 And everyone knows that we've done it.

00:17:39.940 And Russia made one, I'm assuming, because China steals everything from us.

00:17:43.140 They have one, too.

00:17:44.140 But that's like the next step in how serious are we?

00:17:47.260 And it's scary when you get someone that maniacal, a little bit senile, but his back's against the wall.

00:17:53.060 Finger on the trigger.

00:17:54.340 I don't care how many times they're in treaties.

00:17:56.200 They say, well, we have them, but they're not aimed at anyone.

00:17:58.200 That's a that's a bunch of bull.

00:17:59.840 They're aimed at something.

00:18:00.820 And he's got access to stuff.

00:18:02.420 And I'm not sure going into Belarus is going to do anything.

00:18:05.800 And Putin wants to save face.

00:18:06.760 But, you know, it's going to come down to something really, really graphic or it's going to turn into like a Julius Caesar thing.

00:18:12.060 It's back in a coup.

00:18:13.760 You know, before I went over there to interview him, one of the I had briefings with former FBI, former CIA folks,

00:18:19.800 you know, who've spent their lives studying Russia and Putin.

00:18:22.900 And one of the things that I learned was that, you know, Russia is basically a kleptocracy.

00:18:27.680 And whoever's in charge is totally corrupt and has tons of money and houses and assets stationed all over Russia.

00:18:34.180 And the sort of way it works is you just have to stay in power.

00:18:38.560 Like the way of preventing oneself from winding up dead or in jail is you have to stay in power.

00:18:45.220 And that's what he's been doing.

00:18:47.160 Right.

00:18:47.360 I mean, he's effectively just an authoritarian leader there now.

00:18:50.420 He went through the sort of the motions of pretending that Medvedev was president for a while, but he took back over and hasn't given it up since.

00:18:59.980 And there is a real worry if he feels trapped, if he feels in a corner where he feels like, OK, not only is Russia losing face and compromising positions that they've worked 75 years to not compromise.

00:19:11.360 What if he's what if the Russian people and even, you know, his underlings start turning on him and the solution within Russia is Putin needs to go.

00:19:21.740 Right. I mean, I know, Dakota, you write in the book a lot about like and of course, this is this led to your Medal of Honor.

00:19:27.020 There's there are times in which soldiers need to disobey orders and understand what's what's right might not line up with what's what you've been told to do.

00:19:37.480 Yeah, I mean, look, and I totally agree with that.

00:19:39.880 I truly think that the you know, the results of of Ukraine is going to come down to how far Putin will take this.

00:19:47.880 Right. I mean, how far is he willing to go? Is he willing to go nuclear? Right.

00:19:51.140 But I think on the backside of that is there's going to have to be someone under him push the button to go nuclear.

00:19:58.380 And you can't ever pull out that. I call it the humanization factor. Right.

00:20:03.360 Like the the factor that I have to push this and I have to know that my family is going to pay for this because they know that as soon as the nuke comes out,

00:20:11.160 they know that the wrath of the world is going to be unleashed on on Russia.

00:20:16.080 They know that the wrath of the world is just going to come out and there are going to be nukes dropped.

00:20:20.360 And whatever he does in Ukraine will be 100 times worse on him.

00:20:24.580 So Putin's kind of in this position, though, that it sucks for Putin.

00:20:29.320 Maybe we should send him a book because he's going to he's going to he's going to he's going to need a way forward right after this.

00:20:36.780 But I think he thought that he was going to run through this, like like Rob said, be over in a couple of days.

00:20:41.480 Nobody was going to fight. He was going to have it. He's going to go back.

00:20:44.580 But, you know, for our generation, you know, Putin's kind of been like this guy that we've all been warned about.

00:20:50.800 Right. He's kind of like the guy in the bar of of, hey, you know,

00:20:54.400 that that guy can fight, you know, don't mess with him.

00:20:56.860 You know, don't don't ever get you know, don't ever mess with him.

00:20:59.560 So now he comes out and we're watching him fight for the first time that I can remember in my life.

00:21:04.620 And he's and he's he's losing. He's losing. He's not good at it. Right.

00:21:08.440 So if Putin goes back and he's going to be the leader of Russia and they want to be powerful.

00:21:12.360 I mean, he's really who's the laughing stock of of the world right now.

00:21:15.980 Well, he's put himself in a bad spot, too, because he's been quoting Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev.

00:21:23.620 And, you know, he's he's he's talking legacy talk now and he's pushing 70.

00:21:28.480 Another scary part is you're realizing that he's not tough.

00:21:31.980 What if he needs to go out with the bank? And there's all this, like we said, the human element parts of the legacy elements.

00:21:37.620 How does he because he wants his own legacy, but he also wants Mother Russia.

00:21:41.260 And if he makes it look weak, who knows what he'll do?

00:21:43.520 So, you know, there's not you know, yeah.

00:21:45.640 I mean, it's scary. There's a lot of a lot of ins and outs.

00:21:48.160 And, you know, it's one of those things where you don't want to believe something bad will happen because it never has.

00:21:54.200 Here's a guy that said, if you interfere, you'll see a response you've never seen in the history of your nation.

00:21:59.740 He's talking to us. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:22:02.660 But I just think that, look, no matter how this goes,

00:22:07.620 whether he takes Ukraine or whether he backs out, like I my prediction is this is the end of Putin.

00:22:15.540 It very well could be. I mean, all the things that we were saying that they should do,

00:22:19.640 they're now doing, except for cutting off the oil and gas access to, you know, to Russia, that that no one's giving up yet.

00:22:25.880 Although Germany has now made the Nord Stream 2 disconnection and sort of they've said we're done and we're permanently done.

00:22:33.360 It's crazy what happened in Germany.

00:22:35.080 They totally underestimated the new chancellor of Germany.

00:22:37.400 They thought they had another Angela Merkel on their hands who wanted to appease Russia and be more dovish and not build up the military and not be confrontational.

00:22:45.520 And this new guy is like, how you like me now?

00:22:47.620 It is crazy. It's really worth reading what happened in Germany over the over the weekend.

00:22:52.500 So we'll see that the actual line was that Putin has his nuclear deterrent forces on high alert amid the spiraling tensions that the defense minister and the chief of the military's general staff have been ordered to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a special regime of combat duty.

00:23:16.000 They could absolutely just be saber rattling.

00:23:18.440 But then that's what people said about the 200,000 troops around Ukraine.

00:23:23.720 There's so much more to go over with the two greatest guys.

00:23:26.600 We're so lucky that they're Americans, that they decided to risk their own lives and fight for us and now are continuing to share their wisdom with us.

00:23:33.780 Now, Rob O'Neill, Dakota Meyer coming right back on their book.

00:23:37.240 Their lives have been fascinating and they're going to share some of the lessons of heroism and strength and resilience right after this.

00:23:45.080 Don't go away.

00:23:52.800 All right.

00:23:53.420 So let's let's go back to some of the lessons of childhood, because I love the stories and sort of how you got there.

00:24:00.280 Rob, I mentioned you not so great necessarily on the football field, not kicking people's ass, more likely to be getting the ass kicked.

00:24:06.940 Which seems hard to believe, but OK.

00:24:09.800 And you write in the book about one of the important lessons you took away from your time with your dad on the basketball court.

00:24:17.980 And I have a little aspiring basketball player.

00:24:21.080 He's 12.

00:24:21.720 And so I appreciate what you write in the book about this competition you had where you couldn't go inside at night unless one of you hit 20 free throws in a row.

00:24:30.260 And you write in the book, that's effing hard.

00:24:33.160 And that is hard.

00:24:34.340 That is hard.

00:24:34.940 I can see it just with my own son.

00:24:36.300 But tell us about where that went and what you learned from the experience.

00:24:43.080 Well, that's that's that is hard.

00:24:44.440 But when I was I was actually learning stuff that would help me in life is do everything like you do anything.

00:24:50.000 And if you want to be good at something, do it a thousand times.

00:24:52.880 You want to be really good, do it ten thousand.

00:24:54.160 You want to be great.

00:24:54.940 Do it a hundred thousand times.

00:24:56.060 And a free throw to me, that's just a great analogy for life, a free throw.

00:25:01.320 It's, you know, bounce the ball three times, backspin, bend the knees, release.

00:25:05.920 And like the only argument my father, Tom and I, well, dad, I had was do you look at the ball as you release or do you keep your eyes on the rim?

00:25:12.840 I was a big believer.

00:25:13.720 You keep your eyes on the rim.

00:25:14.660 He would keep his eyes on the ball.

00:25:16.760 But, yeah, it was it was one of our things where you start with a make.

00:25:19.760 Always start with a make because, you know, you're aligned.

00:25:23.140 Your your your feet are on the free throw line.

00:25:25.040 Start with the make and then keep going from there.

00:25:26.640 Like I was even when I watch college and pro basketball, they make their free throw and they go shake everyone's hands.

00:25:30.740 Knock it off. Keep your feet on the line.

00:25:32.140 Make the second one.

00:25:32.860 Then we can all talk about how cool you are.

00:25:34.560 But we got to a point where it was 20 in a row, no matter what, to leave the gym.

00:25:40.180 And it didn't matter if it took us the first try or five hours.

00:25:43.180 But the cool thing was we also had at the beginning of our season, which ended after my season, it was 20 to leave the gym, but then 20 to go get a steak at the derby.

00:25:53.520 So it stayed 20 to leave.

00:25:55.300 But once we hit the steak, then it goes up by five.

00:25:57.120 So now it's 20 and 25 to get a steak, then 30 to get a steak, then 40, 45.

00:26:00.320 And we got to a point my senior year where my father made 91 free throws in a row and it was awesome.

00:26:06.940 And that was a family record that lasted for less than a week because the next week I made 105 in a row.

00:26:12.680 But what we were learning is that's the same thing with shooting.

00:26:16.160 It's the same thing with your follow through.

00:26:17.700 Do the same thing.

00:26:18.440 Front sight focus.

00:26:19.440 How are your knees?

00:26:20.300 What's your position?

00:26:21.360 And just shooting free throws like that is like it's as simple as people like aspiring Navy SEALs are like, I'm not good at pull ups.

00:26:28.820 How do I get better at pull ups?

00:26:29.900 It's like, oh, that's simple.

00:26:30.800 You do pull ups.

00:26:32.000 Simple.

00:26:32.500 Yeah, right.

00:26:33.220 Do more pull ups.

00:26:34.020 I want to go to the derby.

00:26:35.520 Does it still exist?

00:26:36.420 Is it still in Montana?

00:26:37.160 Oh yeah, the derby's there in Montana.

00:26:38.540 I know you've been to Butte and the derby.

00:26:40.480 And my buddy owns it.

00:26:41.980 He's actually the principal at a school in Chicago.

00:26:44.580 And I've dropped the derby.

00:26:45.720 That's three times.

00:26:46.340 I better get something out of this.

00:26:48.280 All right.

00:26:48.740 I'm just going to go there.

00:26:50.320 They don't even know how good they are.

00:26:51.580 They don't even know they're that good because it's, you know, it's beat Montana.

00:26:53.600 They just expect everything to be delicious.

00:26:55.580 Derby's incredible.

00:26:55.920 So I'm not going to put anything like that sort of challenge in front of myself to get

00:27:00.620 there.

00:27:00.780 I'm just going to go and eat.

00:27:01.620 I'm not going to go get 106.

00:27:03.440 Three throws and beat the Rob O'Neill record.

00:27:05.800 That's what's funny about that story, too, is I was I was OK with 105 in a row, but I

00:27:11.400 was so angry at missing 106.

00:27:13.960 It's crazy talk.

00:27:15.300 You realize that, right?

00:27:16.440 OK, that's how that's how you become Rob O'Neill.

00:27:18.560 I get it.

00:27:20.140 But, you know, Dakota, it reminded me you wrote something in the book.

00:27:23.060 Forgive me.

00:27:23.320 I don't have his name right in front of me, but it was about one of your commanding officers

00:27:27.300 who kept saying, what was it?

00:27:29.780 Hold the line or nine, nine.

00:27:31.300 What was what was the he kept?

00:27:33.100 It was like the lesson that he kept drilling into you and you hated it at the time.

00:27:36.380 Couldn't understand why you had to keep doing it.

00:27:37.840 Well, you know, so like when I when I got to the fleet, I came to a group of Marines that

00:27:44.880 had just came back from Haditha, the triad.

00:27:48.220 And one of my seniors, he'd lost they'd lost quite a few of our unit.

00:27:53.080 And yeah, his name was Dan Daniel Kreitzer.

00:27:56.000 I'll never forget him.

00:27:57.180 Just an incredible guy.

00:27:58.680 He always he always just like ran into us nine lines, like nine line medevac.

00:28:03.000 It's a it's a it's a format that we use to medevac out wounded, wounded Marines or, you

00:28:10.480 know, wounded service members on the battlefield.

00:28:12.840 And it's so critical, right?

00:28:14.220 I mean, he just drilled it into us while a lot of other Marines, their team leaders were

00:28:18.240 messing with them and were, you know, playing games and and doing all these other things.

00:28:22.640 You know, ours was always just making sure that that was something that we could do with

00:28:27.520 their eyes closed at any point in time under any piece of stress, because at the end of

00:28:31.780 the day, that was ultimately what was going to take care of, you know, to get our whoever

00:28:37.360 one of our brothers or or us or whatever to to safety to where they can get help.

00:28:43.520 And that was why, you know, that was the core to everything that we did, whether we were

00:28:46.960 out training for IEDs or whether we were out, you know, shooting, you know, our nine line

00:28:52.600 was the very basic, the minimum that we had to be proficient at in order to to go out

00:28:59.100 and everything's habitual, right?

00:29:00.640 Like everything in life is is is habitual.

00:29:03.560 You can't don't ever think that you can do the, you know, do it when it matters if you

00:29:09.160 can't do it when it doesn't matter.

00:29:11.180 Exactly.

00:29:11.860 And that's kind of what Rob was saying about the basketball in the book is saying it's

00:29:15.120 not about becoming a great basketball player.

00:29:17.100 It's about getting muscle memory and getting to the point where you're you don't even have

00:29:21.100 to think about it.

00:29:21.800 You just keep doing it over and over and over.

00:29:23.740 It becomes second nature, whether it's basketball or it's shooting or it's the nine lines, you

00:29:29.020 know, and in the military, they get that.

00:29:31.480 And but it applies, as you point out in the book, to regular life.

00:29:34.780 I mean, a lot of people have goals that they want to achieve.

00:29:37.500 And it's like if you've got to think about it in the moment when the stress is on, you're

00:29:41.920 already in trouble.

00:29:44.060 Yeah, I truly believe that, you know, I truly believe and I speak on this a lot is that,

00:29:48.320 you know, the the the results of of the time, like, look, all of us are going to be tested.

00:29:53.880 We're all tested at some point.

00:29:56.120 And the results of that test, when it comes up, are already decided.

00:30:02.040 They're already decided by the micro decisions that you made all the way up to that point.

00:30:06.320 Right.

00:30:06.900 The results, whether you're going to succeed or fail, are already decided at that moment.

00:30:11.820 And so it matters.

00:30:13.380 It matters what you put in your body.

00:30:14.900 It matters every little aspect of it.

00:30:16.900 You can't expect to be a good person, but only be a good person in parts of your life.

00:30:23.500 You can't expect to, you know, like it's just it's either one way or the other.

00:30:27.440 You can't be both.

00:30:28.420 And I truly believe that.

00:30:30.680 Now, Dakota, you you write in the book about your own personal background, born and raised

00:30:34.340 in Kentucky.

00:30:36.220 Yeah.

00:30:37.040 OK.

00:30:37.300 And you tell us a little bit about Big Mike and the role that he played in.

00:30:43.660 And I don't want to be too dramatic and say saving you, but kind of in a little in a way

00:30:49.400 saving you.

00:30:50.160 Yeah, I mean, you know, my dad is my dad's probably the greatest man that's that, you

00:30:59.440 know, I've ever met that walks the face of planet.

00:31:01.960 My dad's very simple, man.

00:31:03.980 My dad is principally based.

00:31:06.800 You know, my dad didn't he never you know, he was all about you know, he never cares what

00:31:11.480 anybody else thinks.

00:31:12.420 Right.

00:31:13.220 But with that, you know, my dad's very direct.

00:31:15.360 My dad is very straightforward.

00:31:17.560 But my dad does that not because he's trying to be controlling or not because he's trying

00:31:23.200 to do it out of convenience for for himself or to make things easier.

00:31:27.380 My dad was that way because he cared about you.

00:31:30.020 Right.

00:31:30.320 My dad was that way because he he he wanted you to be better and he was going to hold you

00:31:35.080 to a standard that that that would accept nothing less than you being the best that you

00:31:39.420 can be.

00:31:39.820 And, you know, my dad was all about people, right, about taking care of yourself, taking

00:31:44.080 care of the things around you and and and, you know, taking care of the people around

00:31:47.800 you, not not, you know, dishonoring your name.

00:31:50.020 Right.

00:31:50.460 There's a lot of people that have the same last name.

00:31:53.080 And when you disrespect that or you make that look bad, that that that's a spill factor for

00:31:57.960 everybody.

00:31:59.100 Yeah.

00:31:59.520 You know, and what's incredible was is I didn't know it until I was 13, you know, but but

00:32:05.260 but my dad, Big Mike, he adopted me.

00:32:09.520 And so, you know, as a father, I didn't know that until you were 13.

00:32:13.880 Yeah.

00:32:14.440 Yeah.

00:32:15.320 My my mother gave me up when I was like nine or 10.

00:32:18.860 And I honestly, I don't even know the whole story about how they got together.

00:32:24.280 I've asked.

00:32:25.160 I mean, like if you want to talk about you want to put an investigator and you should

00:32:29.520 go try to figure out where I was born, because if I asked my mom where I was born, she tells

00:32:33.860 me one place.

00:32:34.660 My dad tells me another place.

00:32:36.200 And my birth certificate says an entirely different place.

00:32:39.120 Oh, boy.

00:32:39.520 So, you know, yeah.

00:32:41.180 So just to go ahead and give you a little bit of coordination on that.

00:32:45.040 So so, you know, I I found out I was I was adopted when I was 13.

00:32:49.300 My mom kind of gave me up when I was nine or 10.

00:32:51.240 Let me go live with my dad, whatever she's got to say to justify it.

00:32:55.780 But, you know, I I went to live with my dad.

00:32:59.040 My dad took me in and just, you know, full time dad, you know, working 40 to 60 hours a

00:33:04.740 week on his job and then living on the farm and working.

00:33:07.160 And he's just you know, he was an example.

00:33:09.380 And, you know, I found out when I was 13 and this is this will give you a true perspective

00:33:13.880 of just how my dad is.

00:33:16.380 You know, my mom brought me in on my 13th birthday and laid these papers down in front

00:33:20.160 of me because she wanted me to move back in with her.

00:33:22.280 And she said, hey, you know, this is you're you know, you're you're adopted.

00:33:27.900 And I was like, what?

00:33:29.540 Like, yeah, she's like, you're you're adopted.

00:33:32.100 Your dad adopted.

00:33:32.880 He's not your real dad.

00:33:33.960 And I just I'll never forget just being like so lost is like, what do you what do you

00:33:41.680 mean?

00:33:42.120 Like, like this, this is like, what do you mean?

00:33:45.080 And so I went back, got dropped off at my dad's house.

00:33:48.080 My dad had no clue she did this.

00:33:50.120 And I was so mad.

00:33:51.600 And I'll never forget.

00:33:52.460 My dad could tell I was upset, obviously.

00:33:54.600 And my dad came in and he looked at me, he heard me out.

00:33:57.820 And I was like, I was really mad at him.

00:33:59.440 Like, why didn't you tell me you've been lying to me?

00:34:01.460 And he looked at me and he goes, Dakota, what does it change?

00:34:07.620 What does it change?

00:34:09.020 What does it change between us?

00:34:10.960 He goes, I'm still your dad.

00:34:13.060 You know, we don't have the same blood running through us.

00:34:15.260 You know, I'm still your dad.

00:34:16.600 And it doesn't change how much I love you.

00:34:18.400 It doesn't change, you know, anything about our relationship, does it?

00:34:21.560 And so at a young age, my dad taught me that, you know, blood, just because your blood doesn't

00:34:25.960 mean your family.

00:34:26.620 And just because you're not blood doesn't mean your family.

00:34:29.000 And, you know, that's just the type of man that he is.

00:34:31.000 I mean, he is the I mean, he's just an incredible human being.

00:34:36.720 That's an amazing story.

00:34:38.000 And he comes as one of the heroes of the book, for sure.

00:34:41.480 I mean, the way and he got you when you came home.

00:34:43.660 And I want to know Big Mike.

00:34:45.720 Big Mike sounds like an extraordinary person.

00:34:48.540 And, you know, it's good because to me, it's like a it's just a reminder of the importance

00:34:52.140 of a strong in particular male role model for little boys, you know, and the importance

00:34:56.740 of a dad in one's life.

00:34:58.400 A strong father figure or father can teach you all sorts of lessons that, you know, you

00:35:03.960 may not see common.

00:35:05.860 And over on the front in in Butte, Montana, Rob, you had great parents.

00:35:11.280 But you write about a story I hadn't yet heard about you about there.

00:35:14.340 There was a guy in town named Ben who turned out to be pretty much a badass.

00:35:21.220 And little Rob O'Neill wanted to be just like him.

00:35:23.980 Now, he wasn't a SEAL.

00:35:25.220 But tell us about Ben and the lesson you learned, in particular, when you walked into I think

00:35:28.800 it was a bar or something.

00:35:29.740 You were like, OK, I see a difference here.

00:35:32.280 Yeah.

00:35:32.900 So I grew up with Ben.

00:35:34.640 We went to the same school and he was always, you know, he was always lifting weights,

00:35:39.040 always working out.

00:35:39.740 Huge guy on the football team.

00:35:42.280 And ever since I knew him, he wanted to be a Marine.

00:35:44.620 And that was his thing.

00:35:45.560 Like, he was going to be a Marine.

00:35:46.440 He always had a great haircut.

00:35:48.400 As soon as he got a truck, like 15 years old, he had the Marine Corps sticker on there.

00:35:52.140 And as soon as he as soon as he graduated the next day, like he was going.

00:35:56.240 It's not like he was from a military family.

00:35:57.700 Ben was just going to do that.

00:35:58.560 He was a monster when he left.

00:36:00.420 And when he came back, now we were talking about there's tough guys in Butte and then there

00:36:03.860 was me.

00:36:04.860 I was working.

00:36:05.860 I was delivering pizza.

00:36:08.100 And it was a pizza joint and a bar at night.

00:36:11.080 Um, and it was called the Voo Villa.

00:36:13.500 And I was in the Voo one night and Ben, Ben, Ben came in and he just looked like a Marine

00:36:18.780 now.

00:36:19.140 That's him.

00:36:19.520 He, he kind of, he walked in and, uh, he almost, he was so cool.

00:36:24.220 He almost looked like he didn't recognize anybody because he knew everyone was staring

00:36:29.140 at him.

00:36:29.860 And it's like the whole, uh, you know, yes, I will go home with that girl, but I'm going

00:36:33.120 to beat up her boyfriend first type guy.

00:36:34.580 Um, but I mean, he obviously didn't do that.

00:36:36.440 Just a great guy, but he looked like that.

00:36:37.680 And it was, it was impressive that, uh, that got my interest in the Marine Corps.

00:36:40.560 I still wasn't quite going to go yet, but I was like, if I ever decide to, that's what

00:36:43.740 I, that's what I want to aspire to be.

00:36:45.420 I want to look like, and like you'd be, but it's not a big place and you'd be driving around

00:36:48.820 town and he's out there getting his PT on, you know, his physical training, running

00:36:52.140 down black tail lane with no, you know, Marine Corps shorts and no shirt on.

00:36:55.760 Just like, that's a Marine.

00:36:57.140 That's what Marines look like.

00:36:58.200 God help the enemy.

00:36:59.880 Yeah.

00:36:59.940 Right.

00:37:00.240 And you're like, I'll do it.

00:37:01.180 I'll do it.

00:37:01.660 And then you told us in our last interview about, you got a little sidetracked by the

00:37:05.160 Navy recruiter who was like, well, yeah, when I, when I decided to join, I went into, cause

00:37:09.520 it was a time to get out of town and the quickest way out of Butte, Montana is to join the military.

00:37:14.120 And because of hunting, um, you know, my dad and I thought we were the best shots in the

00:37:18.000 world.

00:37:18.140 I'll go be a Marine sniper.

00:37:19.260 Cause, uh, after, you know, I saw Ben and then I watched full metal jacket and, uh, I read

00:37:23.960 Carlos Hathcock's book, who was, uh, uh, the greatest Marine Corps sniper.

00:37:27.100 And I went to join the Marine Corps and I, I walked down there right in the

00:37:31.100 office and the Marine recruiter was not in the office, uh, but the Navy guy's office

00:37:34.600 right next door.

00:37:35.380 And Ben had actually been the guy that told me, like he was, he, he was a guy that would

00:37:39.400 mess with you, but he's messing with you and he's joking, but he looks like he could

00:37:43.340 just squash you.

00:37:44.300 He said, the Marine Corps is actually part of the department of the Navy.

00:37:47.320 It's just the men's department.

00:37:48.980 And that's why I went into the Navy guy's office.

00:37:51.140 Dakota's shaking his head.

00:37:52.180 Yes.

00:37:52.400 For our listening audience, Dakota, the Marine likes this story.

00:37:55.220 Yeah.

00:37:55.640 I'm trying not to brag too much about the Marine Corps.

00:37:57.720 Cause the war heroes.

00:38:00.600 And, uh, so I went in there and, um, the Navy now, and I didn't know about the Navy is

00:38:04.700 if you wear khakis and have anchors, you're a chief and chiefs are very, very clever.

00:38:09.740 And, uh, I said, Hey, if anyone knows where the Marine is, you will, cause you're part

00:38:13.780 of the Navy.

00:38:14.180 And he goes, why do you want the Marine?

00:38:15.280 I said, I want to be a sniper.

00:38:16.860 Marines have the best snipers in the world.

00:38:18.700 He said, look no further.

00:38:19.800 We have snipers here in the Navy.

00:38:21.020 You need to be a Navy SEAL first.

00:38:22.500 No big deal.

00:38:22.960 Then we'll send you to sniper school kind of brushed over that part.

00:38:25.900 And, um, and I'm looking at this guy and he's kind of, you know, he looks like a Navy

00:38:30.680 guy, got some coffee stain on his shirt.

00:38:32.840 And I said, you know, I'm naive.

00:38:35.140 I'm 18, but this guy's a professional recruiter.

00:38:37.360 Why is he going to lie to me?

00:38:39.460 And that's how I became a Navy guy.

00:38:42.860 Way before going to secret training, but that was, that's, you know, they, they, they signed,

00:38:46.380 I signed the government contract and then he showed me videos of Navy SEALs.

00:38:50.080 I was like, Oh, I guess they swim a little.

00:38:52.560 I didn't really know how to swim.

00:38:53.640 We don't swim in Butte, Montana very much.

00:38:55.420 We shoot free throws.

00:38:56.780 It's so crazy to think about that guy sitting out there in the middle of what ocean was

00:39:01.240 it when you rescued captain Phillips?

00:39:03.180 That was in the Indian ocean.

00:39:04.740 Um, that, yes.

00:39:05.460 So that was, uh, fly from Virginia beach, jump in, I think we, you know, just below 10,000

00:39:09.680 feet with four boats.

00:39:10.480 And then, uh, we're in the Indian ocean.

00:39:12.460 I was good at that point.

00:39:13.540 I learned how to swim the hard way.

00:39:14.580 I think so.

00:39:15.100 I think we, we know that by that point, can you tell a story?

00:39:17.300 We never actually got to this.

00:39:18.280 I'm one, if you want to listen, this is literally my favorite interview I've done since I

00:39:21.540 launched the show.

00:39:22.540 It was my Memorial day interview with Rob O'Neill.

00:39:24.400 It was unbelievable.

00:39:25.660 I have so I have people stopped me on the street.

00:39:27.940 Dakota's rolling his eyes.

00:39:28.880 He's like, don't feed his ego too, too late.

00:39:31.480 Um, but seriously, to be fair, I think you should go ahead and say it's only because

00:39:35.660 you haven't had a one-on-one interview with me.

00:39:38.200 Definitely.

00:39:38.840 Like we need to get into hello medal of honor.

00:39:41.200 I was like reading all of Rob's like awards, his many, I mean like a silver, the double silver

00:39:46.080 star and the, and the triple bronze star and all this stuff.

00:39:48.300 And I was, I was floored until I got to Dakota's resume.

00:39:51.720 Yeah, I know.

00:39:52.200 I know.

00:39:52.920 Bring that up.

00:39:54.600 Sorry.

00:39:55.600 No, but I was just going to say, if you don't like my May 31st, my Memorial day interview

00:40:00.320 with Rob O'Neill, I can't please you.

00:40:01.840 I'm not for you.

00:40:03.020 You, you were spectacular.

00:40:05.440 The way you told the story of just riveting.

00:40:07.800 Um, so if you got two hours, you got a nice long car, car ride, put it on, listen, you're

00:40:11.700 welcome.

00:40:11.980 But one of the things we didn't get to in that interview that I wanted to ask you about

00:40:15.760 was the moment before you went off to rescue captain Phillips and you, you wrote a story,

00:40:21.440 I don't know if it was your first book, I can't remember, but it was about how you were

00:40:25.020 training back Stateside and they gave you the call.

00:40:28.100 You got to go.

00:40:28.980 And you went into like the, the place where you buy the food and you were in line and some

00:40:33.400 guy was looking at the newspaper.

00:40:34.500 Yeah, we, um, well, we had never, we had never done this.

00:40:38.320 Like scale team six was designed to rescue Americans at sea.

00:40:41.440 And we, we'd been announcing since not, well, not me, but like the team since 1980, we can

00:40:45.880 be anywhere within 24 hours, never done it.

00:40:48.600 Um, and we got the calls like, you know, kidding.

00:40:50.520 Get the call.

00:40:50.900 Like gets on, we know where we're going.

00:40:52.220 And I had a set amount of time to get to where I was going, but I was ahead of schedule

00:40:55.760 and there's a seven 11 right outside the base.

00:40:58.360 So I stopped there with a plan.

00:41:00.660 I'm going to get as much cash as I can out of the ATM.

00:41:04.020 And for any six in the Navy, that's a lot of cash.

00:41:05.760 Um, um, uh, a log of Copenhagen and a carton of cigarettes.

00:41:11.320 And the reason I'm doing this is because we are going to be jumping today.

00:41:14.720 We'll be on the East coast of Africa, but there's never a perfect plan.

00:41:18.180 And we might not end up where we want.

00:41:20.940 Um, but if I land in a semi-permissive environment, I might be able to buy my way to safety with

00:41:26.140 the cash.

00:41:26.780 I might be able to, to barter with the tobacco.

00:41:30.180 I do have a gun and I used to call my gun, the M4 charge card.

00:41:34.020 Like a credit card, like the way that works is you have a car.

00:41:36.360 I have a gun.

00:41:37.100 Now I have a car and a gun, but I'm in line to get my stuff.

00:41:41.160 And there's a dude in front of me who I'm assuming was like a lineman up on the power

00:41:45.460 poles or whatever.

00:41:46.240 And he's working all night, night shift.

00:41:48.040 Now he's off no hurry whatsoever.

00:41:50.500 And he's one dude in front of me.

00:41:52.020 And one of the things is do it other than a big thing of coffee is buying was a USA today.

00:41:56.680 And the headline on the newspaper I could see over his shoulder, um, was about the mission

00:42:02.700 we're trying to go do.

00:42:04.000 And very patriotically, he slammed it on the counter and kind of announced to the entire

00:42:07.800 store, you know, whomever would listen, man, I sure wish someone would do something

00:42:11.860 about this.

00:42:14.020 And I, I'm recognizing the irony and I tap him on the shoulder and I go, buddy, pay for

00:42:19.180 your shit.

00:42:19.580 And we will.

00:42:20.460 And now he's looking at me and I'm looking at this blue color worker.

00:42:25.820 And I'm like, I'm not even kidding, bro.

00:42:27.380 Like the national security timeline is squarely on your very broad shoulders.

00:42:31.460 My man.

00:42:32.220 And then like, and he was nice.

00:42:33.820 He kind of realized he's right in front of where we're supposed to go.

00:42:35.900 And he was cordial and he, and he got out of the way.

00:42:37.620 And, um, you know, we got to work on time and, uh, everyone got to work on time and

00:42:43.540 what was, I mean, you got to figure, so there's Navy SEALs, but now there's boats that needed

00:42:47.240 to be ready, gassed up their parachute rigors had to have them already rigged the, the parachutes

00:42:51.260 for us to jump to tandem rings, the pilots were on the way, the air crew, everyone had

00:42:54.320 to be ready.

00:42:54.860 By the time we all got the call 15 hours and 46 minutes later, we had a full head count

00:42:58.940 in the Indian ocean.

00:42:59.620 We rescued Richard Phillips a day and a half later.

00:43:01.280 It was amazing.

00:43:01.840 Oh my God.

00:43:02.660 It's so crazy.

00:43:03.780 This is reminding me of like your story and your story, Dakota.

00:43:07.180 I'll take you back many years ago when I was in law school and, uh, I was, we were

00:43:11.840 applying for like the law school or the law review.

00:43:14.820 I think it was law.

00:43:15.640 Oh no, no, no.

00:43:16.180 Oh, actually I take it back.

00:43:17.580 We were applying for a jobs for jobs for out of law school.

00:43:20.480 And I was on the law review with this guy who I went to school with.

00:43:23.660 His name was Brian and, and Brian had served in the first Gulf war and Brian had received

00:43:28.420 a bronze star and Brian had received the bronze star because he got to a minefield and, um,

00:43:34.740 his job was to refuel the tanks at the front line and the tanks had almost no gas and he

00:43:41.360 was going to refuel.

00:43:42.180 So he had the fuel.

00:43:43.400 And so, as he said, you know, you know, we call it tank with no gas, a target.

00:43:48.380 So he's like, I've got to get there.

00:43:51.180 He's like, I got to get the fuel up there.

00:43:53.560 But so he comes up to a big minefield and there's no way around it.

00:43:57.580 And he's realized it's like, I'm not, if I try to go left or go right, I'm not going

00:44:01.380 to make it in time.

00:44:02.040 But his commanding officer said, go left or go right, because you're not going to try,

00:44:05.540 try to drive these refueling trucks over this minefield of all these guys.

00:44:08.660 And Brian said, this is a Dakota Meyer move where you just totally disregard the orders

00:44:12.640 you've been given.

00:44:13.440 This is how you get a star, by the way.

00:44:14.680 That's apparently how you get a medal.

00:44:15.920 You just got to disregard our orders and then live.

00:44:18.080 Um, so he got out of his truck and he personally, even though he was in charge of the unit,

00:44:24.400 he walked personally and, and you could see the mines, you know?

00:44:27.300 So he picked them up and moved them and created a path for the trucks to go through to refuel

00:44:32.980 the tanks at the front line.

00:44:34.920 And they made it.

00:44:35.940 And his commanding officer knew he made it because they got there in far too fast a time

00:44:39.840 for him to have been compliant with the orders.

00:44:41.960 And he reamed them out on the spot for disobeying the orders.

00:44:45.460 But that's how he got the bronze star.

00:44:46.900 And let me just flash forward to you.

00:44:48.720 So if Brian was applying for the same job I was, he was in the one, in the one office

00:44:53.140 talking about leadership and so on.

00:44:54.600 And I was in the other office talking about law review and how I used to be the head cheerleader.

00:45:02.700 Well, hey, it's like Theo Vaughn says, uh, you know, everyone has their own Vietnam.

00:45:11.180 That's right.

00:45:11.780 For Trump, it was, what was like syphilis?

00:45:14.020 I don't know.

00:45:15.880 Oh my God.

00:45:16.900 This is the thing about leadership.

00:45:20.660 You really do have to do it in order to learn and put yourself out there and do not, do

00:45:25.660 not put yourself up against somebody who's won a bronze star, a silver star, medal of

00:45:29.520 honor.

00:45:29.880 You'll lose.

00:45:30.840 All right.

00:45:30.960 There's so much more to go over with these guys, Rob and Dakota.

00:45:33.400 They're sticking around for the whole show, loving the interview.

00:45:36.260 And remember, if you are loving the interview, would like to hear that Rob O'Neill interview

00:45:39.520 or any interview just like it.

00:45:41.140 Check us out.

00:45:41.860 We are, in addition to being live on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at noon

00:45:46.380 east.

00:45:47.420 We're a podcast too.

00:45:48.680 And so you can go ahead and subscribe to Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, subscribe

00:45:54.260 to our show on those platforms.

00:45:55.900 And you'll get the podcast for free.

00:45:58.180 The Rob O'Neill interview you need to listen to is episode 109.

00:46:03.220 And check us out on YouTube as well.

00:46:04.940 If you want to watch the episode instead, listen, youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.

00:46:09.080 Go ahead and subscribe to that too, if you would.

00:46:10.920 Dakota, you, I can't skip past my, my cheerleader story without talking about your cheerleader

00:46:22.980 story.

00:46:23.520 And it's not what the audience is thinking.

00:46:25.220 It's not like the young, hot Dakota Meyer and the cheerleaders.

00:46:29.520 It's a lesson about learning to trust and how important it is and staying humble, which

00:46:37.660 you, I understand, were taught firsthand while in high school.

00:46:40.240 Absolutely.

00:46:41.260 Yeah.

00:46:41.460 I, you know, I was a football, I was a football player.

00:46:43.760 I'm like Rob.

00:46:44.780 I wasn't getting beat up.

00:46:46.320 I'm like Rob.

00:46:46.940 I got to bring up.

00:46:48.280 But yeah, you know, like I was your typical, I ran track, played football, played some basketball.

00:46:55.700 You know, and that was kind of, that's what I did.

00:46:57.720 And so there was these, you know, they're like sisters, these girls and Mary McKenzie and

00:47:04.520 they were cheerleaders.

00:47:06.840 And so, you know, I was always have, we were at that, you know, brother, sister kind of

00:47:10.980 like lingo, your conversation, whatever you want to call it, picking on each other.

00:47:15.240 And I was like, you guys are cheerleaders.

00:47:16.780 Like that's not even a real sport.

00:47:19.160 And so then they're, you know, they're like, well, well, you should come with us.

00:47:23.320 And I was like, I'll come, I'll come one day.

00:47:25.280 Yeah.

00:47:25.500 I'll come to your cheerleading gymnastics or whatever it was.

00:47:28.940 And so we went over and it was a, I guess it was like a travel team or, or whatever.

00:47:33.300 And so I got over there and I did their, their gymnastics and we did, you know, where you

00:47:38.420 do back tucks and things, back handsprings and whatever.

00:47:41.960 And afterwards they were going to do like some stunt stuff.

00:47:45.520 Well, they had this great idea that in a basket toss, you know, the back is, is like really

00:47:50.940 the person that, you know, catches the head of, of the person that you're tossing.

00:47:55.360 They're the person that, you know, is throwing, throwing, you get, you get probably the most

00:47:59.180 leverage on throwing.

00:48:00.140 So I, um, we had this girl, her, her name was Keisha.

00:48:03.260 She was tiny.

00:48:04.420 And so like, come over here and do this basket toss.

00:48:06.700 And I'm not going to lie.

00:48:07.920 Like, uh, hanging out with a bunch of girls was not so bad.

00:48:11.400 Um, and went over there and threw up, you know, got, got under it.

00:48:16.420 And I was like, I'm going to show, I got to show off.

00:48:17.980 There's all these girls watching.

00:48:19.300 So I threw Keisha and the ceiling in this place was not, was not the highest.

00:48:25.800 And, uh, I'll never forget.

00:48:27.360 Like Keisha went up in the basket toss.

00:48:29.100 She had to lay flat so that she didn't slam into the ceiling and came back down and I

00:48:34.460 caught her.

00:48:34.980 And, you know, and there was just, it was really humbling for me to, you know, see just

00:48:39.000 what it took to be a cheerleader.

00:48:40.760 And so obviously I had to join, uh, you know, I was forced to join.

00:48:44.800 It wasn't that I liked it or anything.

00:48:46.160 Um, but just like being, you know, understanding and just seeing like, you know, just the

00:48:51.480 athleticism that it took for those girls to do that and to be part of it was something

00:48:55.540 that, yeah, I, I got taught and to be humble about it.

00:48:58.440 Um, I got taught real early and to, and to trust the people that they're going to catch

00:49:02.860 you, you know what I mean?

00:49:03.380 That's, that's like the military summed up in a line or two, right?

00:49:06.300 Like you got to, nothing's going to happen unless you trust each other to have each other's

00:49:09.480 back.

00:49:09.720 You, you get thrown up in the air or you go out first on the mission, uh, it doesn't

00:49:13.940 happen unless you've got this brotherhood or sisterhood.

00:49:17.060 Yeah.

00:49:17.520 And it's, it's the same thing in life, right?

00:49:19.140 You know, everything I've done, whether it's played football, whether it's work on a farm,

00:49:23.180 um, whether it's, uh, be a firefighter, whether it's be a cheerleader, whatever it is, you know,

00:49:28.480 uh, everything's been a team sport for me and life's a team sport.

00:49:32.820 The, the need to maintain calm in stressful situations, whether it's being tossed up as a,

00:49:39.580 with the ceiling coming towards your face, like Keisha did, um, but not panic has been

00:49:45.200 a central theme really.

00:49:46.860 I mean, of your, both of your stories, really.

00:49:49.400 I mean, in extreme circumstances, the ability not to panic cannot be overstated, but not everyone

00:49:54.580 has it.

00:49:55.500 And it's one of the things they try to train you when you're getting ready for these

00:49:58.700 missions.

00:49:59.000 And I know Rob, you've talked about how fear, like when people say like, how do you not

00:50:03.280 get afraid?

00:50:03.680 And you're like, I don't know.

00:50:04.760 I don't ask me.

00:50:05.680 I'm, I'm afraid every time.

00:50:06.820 But there's a, there's a line between fear and panic.

00:50:10.460 Not everyone can find it.

00:50:12.560 Talk about it and how you mastered it.

00:50:15.440 That's a, that's a tough one to teach.

00:50:17.860 It needs to be learned through observation.

00:50:20.180 And I remember the, like, even the first time I went to war, I was assuming the worst

00:50:24.620 suicide bombers everywhere, gunfights everywhere.

00:50:26.980 And, um, as I'm creeping around, waste, wasting energy, trying to hide behind everything.

00:50:31.020 Every step I take, I look at my boss and he just looked really cool.

00:50:34.060 He was calm.

00:50:36.320 And I just remember thinking, I want to be like that.

00:50:38.560 I want to be cool like that.

00:50:40.340 And what I've learned is, uh, um, calm can be contagious.

00:50:43.620 No one can tell what you're feeling inside, but if you portray calm, everyone around you

00:50:48.340 will be calm.

00:50:49.100 And, and, and that'll, that, that, that will happen.

00:50:51.660 But the, like fear is fine.

00:50:53.120 Fear makes you think more clearly fears when you're watching a movie and you can hear everything

00:50:56.880 in your house, that's fear working for you.

00:50:58.580 But it's when you start to freak out that it's dangerous.

00:51:01.600 Like, like, uh, panic is very, very contagious.

00:51:04.160 The, uh, the proof proof is recent.

00:51:05.880 I will prove that panic is contagious.

00:51:08.180 It's called, I call it the great, uh, toilet paper debacle of 2020.

00:51:12.180 The reason that happened, as far as I know, and as far as most people should know, using

00:51:17.120 toilet paper is not a survival necessity.

00:51:19.800 It's just nice to have, you can, you can get on with it without toilet paper, but someone

00:51:24.680 freaked out at a, at a store and bought all the toilet paper and some asshole watched

00:51:29.240 him do that.

00:51:29.900 And he sprinted to the next door and he bought it all.

00:51:32.000 And some other asshole watched him do it.

00:51:33.320 And then everyone started doing it.

00:51:34.520 Bam, we're out of toilet paper because one person panics.

00:51:36.320 We all start to panic.

00:51:37.380 And that's how it is.

00:51:38.120 I mean, you can see it.

00:51:39.420 It's actually fun.

00:51:40.700 Um, I get to go in airports all the time.

00:51:42.960 I flew in here, uh, where I am today.

00:51:44.540 I'm flying out tonight.

00:51:45.360 I get to see people in airports and people are generally nervous in airports.

00:51:50.720 That's why there is no such thing as drinking alcohol too early as a problem in the

00:51:54.220 airport.

00:51:54.840 Um, but watch people as, um, somebody moves anywhere.

00:51:59.020 As soon as they announce, Hey, we'll be boarding this flight in 15 minutes, look around and

00:52:02.700 watch people as one.

00:52:03.700 It's like watching a herd of cattle.

00:52:04.800 They start to move their heads.

00:52:05.720 They start to stand up and God forbid someone from zone five tries to board with zone one.

00:52:10.240 That's when the fight breaks out.

00:52:11.620 And it's, it's that thing where everybody panics, but we talked earlier about muscle

00:52:15.160 memory.

00:52:15.840 Once we get on the plane, muscle memory, how you should be, you know, do everything like

00:52:19.080 you do anything.

00:52:19.560 I guarantee you the guy talking really, really loud on his phone in first class about how

00:52:23.260 important he is in his business trip.

00:52:24.600 He doesn't know where, um, his life vest is that he doesn't know how to open an emergency

00:52:28.180 exit because he's too good for that.

00:52:30.260 But he certainly can be the first one on the plane.

00:52:32.500 And then, you know, once I always said kind of, I don't want to be in a bad one, but like

00:52:36.400 a semi crash.

00:52:37.880 I want to see how people respond on a plane as you need to get out.

00:52:41.740 Who's grabbing their iPads.

00:52:42.940 I heard the flight that went down in the Hudson, uh, when Sully Sullenberger, uh, he said

00:52:48.240 he was the last one in the plane is they're in the Hudson, which I'm assuming has got to

00:52:52.140 be not normal.

00:52:53.620 He said he was walking through the plane.

00:52:55.520 Some dude came out of the bathroom in nothing but his boxer shorts.

00:52:59.140 He went in there, got his boxers and Sully said, what are you doing?

00:53:02.260 And he said, well, we're going to swim, aren't we?

00:53:04.820 Huh?

00:53:06.440 What?

00:53:07.720 What?

00:53:08.460 Yeah.

00:53:08.680 So, uh, that's panic and panic can overtake you.

00:53:11.720 But if you're good enough, uh, if you've done like Dakota said, if you've done everything

00:53:14.760 in your life to get to that point and muscle memory needs to take over, hopefully you shot

00:53:18.580 the free throws like you should have.

00:53:19.580 Hopefully you did everything, every single time.

00:53:21.480 And you're good at it or you're great at it.

00:53:22.840 And, uh, I mean, it's January in the Hudson.

00:53:25.260 I'm not jumping in there in my box.

00:53:27.520 You know, I'm, I have a mild fear of flying.

00:53:29.980 I mean, Rob's been kicked off playing for us, you know what I mean?

00:53:35.960 Oh, I want to, I want to know more.

00:53:37.380 Did that make news?

00:53:38.460 Should I know about this?

00:53:39.420 Okay.

00:53:39.600 But you're in no position.

00:53:40.620 You are in no, no position to cast stones to call you a little medal of honor winner.

00:53:45.200 No, you have not.

00:53:46.720 Because, uh, I teased earlier that one thing that happened at your medal of honor ceremony

00:53:51.780 that we did not know.

00:53:52.760 And I played that moment over and over again.

00:53:54.800 I mean, I interviewed you on the Kelly file and when, when it happened, we watched it

00:53:58.380 with president Obama, the whole bit, very moving.

00:54:01.120 And at Fox news, we take the whole ceremony and put it on wonderful stuff.

00:54:04.760 Dakota wasn't necessarily all there at that, at that appearance.

00:54:09.920 Apparently, um, speaking of drinking booze in the airport, it can happen before a medal

00:54:13.740 of honor ceremony too.

00:54:14.820 Uh, yeah.

00:54:16.540 You know, we, I mean, what do you expect when you invite 200 and some Marines to the white

00:54:22.040 house?

00:54:22.340 Right.

00:54:23.160 Um, you know, we, uh, when we were founded in a bar, just so you know, so we, uh, we got

00:54:30.060 there and they, uh, they were serving drinks and before, and I just, I mean, you know,

00:54:34.200 everybody wants to have a drink with you, right?

00:54:35.560 Oh, you gotta have a drink with me.

00:54:36.880 And we were drinking and drinking.

00:54:38.780 And I'll never forget.

00:54:39.420 Like they put, you know, everybody went in to sit down.

00:54:41.660 They, they actually ran, um, the white house ran out of beer.

00:54:46.300 Uh, they, they ran out of beer at the ceremony and they had to find a way to get more in,

00:54:50.500 which it's not just going down to the seven 11 on the corner.

00:54:54.240 That was very risky by you.

00:54:55.720 Speaking of your big risks.

00:54:56.940 I mean, can you imagine if you would like thrown up in the middle of the medal of honor

00:54:59.960 ceremony would have been awful.

00:55:01.840 No, you know, sometimes I don't really think about those things, uh, you know, I, uh, but

00:55:08.560 I'll never forget.

00:55:09.260 I didn't realize how, so everybody went in to sit down.

00:55:12.220 I didn't realize how drunk I was until, you know, me, the president and, uh, you know,

00:55:19.540 Michelle, we walked in after everybody was in there together and I'll remember walking

00:55:24.940 in and I'm like, hi, I'm wasted.

00:55:27.840 And so I'm standing up on stage and there's this moment, you know, cause like the whole

00:55:32.180 back of the room is lined with cameras.

00:55:34.140 And I promise there was nobody who, uh, didn't want to be there more than, more than me.

00:55:39.240 And so I'm standing up there, you know, my family, they're all fighting already.

00:55:43.080 Well, some of them.

00:55:44.420 Um, and so I'm standing up there on stage and, you know, I'm at, I'm at position of attention.

00:55:49.140 And I hadn't been in a uniform in two years, you know, and I'm up there and I'm standing

00:55:54.040 in position of attention.

00:55:54.720 I know how Marines are like, if you do one thing wrong, uh, you know, they're, they're

00:55:58.900 going to crucify you and you have just, you know, ruined the legacy of the United States

00:56:02.560 Marine Corps.

00:56:03.240 Right.

00:56:03.820 And so I'm standing up there and I'm sweating so bad because these lights from the cameras

00:56:08.860 and I go, and I'm so drunk that I have to go up and I'm just, I'm like, and it's,

00:56:13.700 you don't ever touch your face and I can't do it.

00:56:16.020 So I've got to wipe the sweat off and I think.

00:56:19.140 I thought that I was crying and, uh, all these cameras would start going off like

00:56:23.340 everywhere.

00:56:24.920 And I'm like, yeah, I was just wiping my head off guys.

00:56:26.600 It's all good.

00:56:27.220 Yeah.

00:56:27.500 Not it.

00:56:28.200 Not it.

00:56:28.820 I'm just drunk.

00:56:29.680 I'm just drunk.

00:56:30.960 Well, the other thing is I'm with, you know, respect, you're a little heavier in that particular

00:56:37.140 shot in that video than you are now.

00:56:39.060 And certainly then when you were fighting and you write about that too, in the book and

00:56:41.720 about your friend who gave it to you straight, like everyone needs this friend.

00:56:46.080 I usually think it was just a woman thing, you know, cause we need the friend who will

00:56:49.620 be like, your ass does look fat in those jeans.

00:56:52.060 You should not be wearing those.

00:56:53.800 And you have yet.

00:56:54.700 Your ass looks fat in those jeans.

00:56:56.320 Friend.

00:56:57.400 I did.

00:56:58.500 His name is, uh, his name's Tim Kennedy.

00:57:00.440 I don't know if you ever heard of him.

00:57:01.700 Yes.

00:57:01.720 Yes, of course.

00:57:02.860 Yeah.

00:57:03.120 We had him on.

00:57:04.540 Yeah.

00:57:04.920 Just, just an incredible guy.

00:57:06.500 He's no, he's a no bullshit kind of guy.

00:57:09.240 Um, and you know, I moved to Austin and I was going through, I was going through my divorce,

00:57:13.200 which was just, you know, by far, I would rather go through, you know, five Afghanistans

00:57:18.080 than a, than a divorce.

00:57:19.300 And, um, and, and, you know, I remember coming into the gym, we were working out on it and

00:57:27.160 myself, him and another guy, we're working out just on it and it was kind of on, it was

00:57:30.640 kind of like my, or the gym was my, kind of my, like my, my grounding piece to get me

00:57:36.060 through this, right.

00:57:36.880 Working out and working with Tim and Shane, uh, and, and Juan and they, they, they, it was

00:57:41.240 my getting me through this, right.

00:57:42.780 Like they were literally, um, the people, you know, when you talk about contagious,

00:57:47.180 right.

00:57:47.580 Like they were the people around me that were, were holding the line and I'll never forget.

00:57:51.120 I came in one day and I was just, you know, probably looking for some, maybe a little

00:57:54.520 empathy.

00:57:55.480 Uh, and I came in and I was like, man, um, I said something about like, I'm fat.

00:58:00.940 Yeah.

00:58:01.280 I said, I think I'm fat.

00:58:02.420 And, uh, and Tim kind of like, or I'm weak or something.

00:58:05.380 I can't remember what the exact line was, but Tim looked at me and he goes, Hey, hey,

00:58:08.940 check it out.

00:58:09.520 Um, people look up to you as, as a warrior and, uh, you need to look like one.

00:58:15.880 You understand?

00:58:16.780 And I'll never forget.

00:58:20.260 I'm already down because my whole life is shattering around me.

00:58:23.960 And that was Tim's way of empathy.

00:58:25.920 But, you know, you have to surround yourself with people who tell you what you need to hear,

00:58:30.840 not what you want to hear.

00:58:31.680 That's Richard.

00:58:32.420 Um, you know, it's such a, so many times we surround ourselves in, and I see this a lot.

00:58:38.980 We surround ourselves with people who make us feel good, you know?

00:58:42.380 And that's the same thing that I was doing when I got out of the Marine Corps was I was,

00:58:45.460 I was surrounding myself with people that made me feel good.

00:58:47.820 And I was eating things that made me feel good.

00:58:49.560 And that's why I looked, um, like this fat piece of trash.

00:58:57.180 I think, I think Dakota learned a lesson I learned from my grandma.

00:59:00.200 She said, there's a big difference between a surprise party and an intervention.

00:59:03.180 I needed an intervention, you know, and, and my life didn't really get back on track.

00:59:10.080 You know, it didn't really start going forward, um, until I started surrounding myself with

00:59:15.580 people who would hold me accountable, who would, you know, you know, we, we have this

00:59:19.720 false sense of brotherhood across the globe now.

00:59:23.160 And I see it in a lot of services.

00:59:24.420 I see this in the fire and being a firefighter.

00:59:26.740 I see this in a lot of things and it's, it's, we want people to like us and I see this with

00:59:32.140 people parenting and, and, and it's not about people liking you.

00:59:35.080 It's not about, you know, not hurting someone's feelings.

00:59:37.540 It's about telling them what they need to hear so that they can go ahead and fix it.

00:59:41.200 Right.

00:59:41.460 Could you imagine if you walked in and a doctor just told you, um, you know, what was going

00:59:45.860 to make you feel good?

00:59:46.780 Oh, Oh yeah.

00:59:47.760 You have, you have, you have diabetes, uh, from eating too much sugar and you're, uh, you

00:59:51.960 know, you're morbidly obese, but Hey, Hey, it's okay.

00:59:54.980 There's just more of you to love.

00:59:57.560 Yeah, no, you need somebody who'll give it to you straight.

00:59:59.900 I always, I always talk about my primary care physician on the show.

01:00:02.460 Cause I love him and he really, he's, he's one of those people for me.

01:00:05.420 He's on the radical honesty program, but he definitely does not like it when his patients

01:00:09.580 get too heavy.

01:00:11.220 Cause it's, it's not healthy.

01:00:13.040 It's just not.

01:00:14.400 And, uh, apparently there was a guy who went to see him.

01:00:16.820 You have to pay cash and then you seek reimbursement later.

01:00:19.320 More and more doctors doing it.

01:00:20.600 Anyway, there's a parent, there was a patient who went in with his wife and they each got a physical

01:00:23.780 and they had just moved to the, to the area.

01:00:26.360 So he was paying the, the bill at checkout and his physical costs a thousand dollars

01:00:32.440 more than his wife's physical.

01:00:34.380 And he said to the receptionist, why is my physical a thousand dollars more than my wife's

01:00:38.280 physical?

01:00:38.540 So, and the doctor heard it and he came out and he goes, because you're fat.

01:00:42.560 Oh my God.

01:00:44.940 I was like, Oh, what?

01:00:47.200 But he's like, listen, these are the number of things that are going to go wrong with you

01:00:49.960 that I'm going to have to take care of or the long, long list way longer than your wife's.

01:00:53.400 And so, yeah, you're going to have to pay more, but like, as it may sound mean, it's

01:00:57.620 also good to hear because it can be the wake up call that, that people need, you know,

01:01:01.780 to sort of start changing their lives.

01:01:03.200 And you, you did, I mean, you look great and you got the drinking under control and you

01:01:07.120 know, all the, all the things.

01:01:08.320 So hats off to you.

01:01:10.540 All right.

01:01:10.980 Now I want to talk about sort of the rule breaking part of your lives.

01:01:14.460 Uh, and it's, it's interesting cause you're, you know, you're these decorated military

01:01:18.080 heroes, but you're also kind of rule breakers.

01:01:20.060 By the way, Rob, my team graciously reminded me that you were banned by Delta for an anti-mask

01:01:24.500 tweet.

01:01:25.340 I wasn't going to bring it up.

01:01:26.560 I was going to say something that rhymes with Delta.

01:01:28.640 What'd you do?

01:01:29.540 It is just for a tweet.

01:01:30.940 You got banned.

01:01:31.880 I, you know, I, I, I took a selfie because they look, I had a mask on and they were serving

01:01:39.120 us like stuff.

01:01:40.420 And I said, I could take my mask off to, to eat this.

01:01:43.640 They said, yeah.

01:01:44.360 So I, I took a picture and posted it.

01:01:46.480 That was a bad idea.

01:01:47.340 Don't tweet that.

01:01:48.380 But then what's, what's crazy is as I took off like a two hour flight, I didn't know it

01:01:52.140 went viral and I landed.

01:01:54.180 No one had said a word.

01:01:54.920 I was wearing a mask the whole time when I get off, uh, turn my phone on getting blasted.

01:01:58.880 And my wife called and said, what did you just do?

01:02:01.020 I'm like, I don't know.

01:02:02.300 Yeah.

01:02:02.540 That horrible selfies in the New York times.

01:02:04.360 You idiot.

01:02:04.720 Didn't you say like, did you consider saying, do you know who I like, have you heard of Isama

01:02:08.900 bin Laden?

01:02:09.800 Like, did you try to play that card at all?

01:02:11.920 No, no, I didn't.

01:02:12.620 All I said was, it was amazing on the 20 year anniversary at nine 11.

01:02:15.880 I'm the one on a no fly list.

01:02:18.440 That's something you and him had called me.

01:02:20.400 Oh, geez.

01:02:21.240 It's crazy.

01:02:21.900 They put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on a plane before they put me on.

01:02:23.900 I don't get it.

01:02:24.240 Oh my God.

01:02:24.820 Please tell me they reversed themselves.

01:02:26.580 Did they reverse themselves?

01:02:28.120 Not yet.

01:02:28.600 They're too woke.

01:02:30.140 Oh, Delta.

01:02:31.460 You're going to get a lot of people banning you.

01:02:33.380 You're going to choose.

01:02:34.620 American Airlines.

01:02:35.520 All right.

01:02:37.220 American Airlines.

01:02:37.920 I prefer American to Delta.

01:02:39.640 Anyway, I got to say so.

01:02:40.920 OK, so that that wasn't exactly the thing I was talking about.

01:02:43.380 But let's talk about because we didn't actually get to this last time either.

01:02:47.320 You killed bin Laden.

01:02:49.240 You were the man who actually shot bin Laden.

01:02:51.980 And then there's a reason we know that because you had an interview with.

01:02:57.200 Was it Esquire?

01:02:57.980 Who did you give the anonymous interview to?

01:03:00.440 The anonymous was with Esquire.

01:03:01.860 And that was just more of a proof that a lot of veterans don't know what to do when they

01:03:05.700 get out of the military.

01:03:06.680 That's what that was.

01:03:07.640 That was about.

01:03:08.100 That was an Esquire.

01:03:08.940 And then I remember being at Fox News when you gave the big interview to Peter Doocy,

01:03:12.780 who back then was just known more as like Steve Doocy's son.

01:03:15.960 Now everybody knows him as Biden's chief antagonist in the White House Press Corps.

01:03:19.920 But and I know you knew Brian Kilmeade and all that stuff.

01:03:22.340 But so you came out with it and you'd been out you were outed against your will prior

01:03:25.940 to the revelation on Fox because some magazine got a hold of the fact that it was you and

01:03:30.900 they tried to get ahead of it, which wasn't good because you needed to secure the safety

01:03:34.080 of your family.

01:03:35.040 And you have to take arrangements before you come out with something.

01:03:37.580 So but there was definitely blowback.

01:03:39.380 And you write in this book about how even before that moment, there was jealousy.

01:03:44.120 And I do want to talk about it because I think we revere our military so much.

01:03:47.520 We try to skirt past anything that doesn't reflect so well.

01:03:52.340 But can you just talk about that?

01:03:54.880 Because it was a little bit of a breaking rules to to come out.

01:03:58.460 And, you know, you think you say in the book, don't don't sit in the front row.

01:04:01.800 That was sort of the lesson.

01:04:03.680 And there were people who had negative feelings about you even prior to you outing yourself.

01:04:09.420 Yeah.

01:04:09.680 And I can't blame them.

01:04:11.520 I've seen missions done before where I wasn't part of it.

01:04:13.960 And I was actually why didn't I get to do that type thing.

01:04:15.900 And you have guys so close to doing something and they didn't do it.

01:04:18.500 And at first, I mean, everyone knew what happened.

01:04:21.920 And the first thing that as soon as anyone found out Bin Laden was dead, especially the SEALs, the first question they would ask was who got him.

01:04:29.280 And it was actually kind of funny at first because I was known for like I like morale.

01:04:32.960 I like to tell stories and jokes.

01:04:34.360 I guess the common answer was, yeah, O'Neill got him.

01:04:37.600 They would say, oh, we are never going to hear the end of this.

01:04:40.080 And it was kind of funny about that.

01:04:42.180 But then, you know, the further we get out, it would be a Navy SEAL out in town and they would say, who got him?

01:04:47.040 Like the bartender.

01:04:47.820 Don't tell anybody.

01:04:48.680 But.

01:04:49.040 And so the word got out.

01:04:50.280 My name got out around Virginia Beach, D.C., New York, and then other Navy SEALs in California.

01:04:56.120 And so that right there was it was more of, yeah, he's out there telling everyone, just trying to get, you know, we'd be at lunch somewhere and a shot of tequila would show up and the bartender would say, they don't want to know, but someone sent this to you.

01:05:06.680 You know, it's for and just weird stuff like that.

01:05:08.700 I didn't want the attention.

01:05:09.580 My plan was to be in the Navy for 30 years.

01:05:11.980 I was going to be a SEAL instructor out in Coronado with a mustache and a cigar.

01:05:16.180 Like I had my line ready and everything.

01:05:17.920 All right, gents, today we are going to run 10 miles.

01:05:20.000 And of course, by we, I mean you.

01:05:21.820 Stuff like that.

01:05:22.740 But this happened and it was just sort of, it got uncomfortable in the Navy.

01:05:27.780 And then obviously, you know, it was in May of 2011, the greatest time of our lives.

01:05:33.260 And then in August, the worst time of our lives, we lost extortion, won seven, 31 Americans to include the dog bark.

01:05:38.760 Died.

01:05:39.280 And we went from planning missions to planning funerals.

01:05:41.340 Morale just hit rock bottom.

01:05:44.040 And then, you know, we needed to move guys around.

01:05:45.920 And I decided at that point I was going to get out.

01:05:47.760 It would have been a few months, but I extended for a year to go to Afghanistan one more time.

01:05:52.280 I went, because I want, I kind of told them, look, I'm not telling the story.

01:05:55.440 I came in through the front door.

01:05:56.720 I'm going to leave through the front door after another deployment.

01:05:58.760 And it was just time to get out.

01:06:00.260 And then I went to work in Washington.

01:06:04.880 And a congresswoman, Congressman Carolyn Maloney from New York said, you should probably donate something to the Memorial Museum.

01:06:11.220 I did donate a shirt anonymously and with a flag on it.

01:06:14.940 And it was just, you know, just to have there.

01:06:17.840 And once I gave the shirt, there was 30 people and they wanted to hear the story.

01:06:21.120 I told the story.

01:06:22.020 I did actually, Peter Doocy was there with the camera crew.

01:06:23.940 We were filming it for historic sake.

01:06:27.520 And I told the story and watching their responses.

01:06:29.960 They'd all lost someone in 9-11.

01:06:32.020 And just the way they came up to me and said, putting a face and a name with this, there will never be closure, but this is healing.

01:06:38.540 And, you know, a lot of sitting around with it.

01:06:40.660 I was like, you know what, if I can help them, I've assumed risk before I can do it.

01:06:43.760 And then I came up with a manuscript and I submitted it to the Pentagon.

01:06:47.920 So my book is the only one that was approved by all the agencies and the Department of Defense.

01:06:51.340 And I believe if you have something historical, you know, an American, the world should know it.

01:06:55.760 I'm really happy George Washington had a biographer with him.

01:06:58.980 I did it the right way.

01:06:59.980 And then, well, you know, that was after the Fox News came out.

01:07:04.060 You were actually, I was watching your show.

01:07:05.580 That was the first time I saw my face on television because there was so much bad press and we kind of had to get ahead of it.

01:07:11.040 But I couldn't get on because the special wasn't on for a few days.

01:07:13.440 But, I mean, that was a weird awakening, kind of like the way forward.

01:07:16.980 Here you are launching the limelight.

01:07:18.420 And now what do you do?

01:07:19.700 Right.

01:07:20.500 Right.

01:07:20.780 And you dealt with it.

01:07:21.900 And I know that a lot of a lot of the opinion on you speaking out softened once they saw the piece on Fox and saw how humble you were.

01:07:30.060 You were given the credit away.

01:07:31.480 That's what you always do.

01:07:33.600 Yeah.

01:07:33.800 But that week of sitting alone in a hotel room watching all the horrible stuff, I couldn't even watch the news.

01:07:39.340 Just a horrible.

01:07:40.340 Anyone that ever saw anything was trying to get the exclusive and it was all over the news saying stuff like, I didn't say that.

01:07:45.800 Why would you say that?

01:07:46.560 And then but then the Fox News special came out.

01:07:48.660 It was really good.

01:07:49.140 Peter did a great job.

01:07:49.880 He's still doing a great job.

01:07:51.360 Yeah, he is.

01:07:52.200 Well, you know, it's so crazy about that.

01:07:53.560 And then and then people were like, oh, it wasn't really Rob O'Neill who shot Bin Laden.

01:07:57.200 And of course, you've already been backed up.

01:07:59.020 It was you.

01:07:59.760 And then I know with you, Dakota, Medal of Honor winner, the Vipers came out like, no, he overstated what he did.

01:08:08.720 Not true.

01:08:09.460 And it happened to Marcus to Marcus Luttrell and his story alone.

01:08:12.560 No, he over like what who are these disgusting press people who decide it's time to eat our military heroes to tear down these stories of heroism.

01:08:20.840 I mean, my own personal belief being a member of the media is there are people who hate America and they don't like any story that reflects well on Americans or the American military or this country.

01:08:29.840 They much rather tell a story of like abuse at Abu Ghraib.

01:08:33.360 All right.

01:08:33.580 Hold on.

01:08:34.000 I'm going to get your reaction to that.

01:08:35.140 And I'm going to get more on Dakota's extraordinary story and his rule breaking right after this quick break.

01:08:41.640 Don't go away.

01:08:42.380 Looking forward to more of our conversation with Dakota and Rob in two seconds.

01:08:52.280 Dakota, you write about how when you went for that Medal of Honor ceremony, that President Obama told you that your life was never going to be the same, that that it was going to change forever in the wake of that medal.

01:09:04.960 And you write in the book, Obama was right.

01:09:06.960 Nothing was the same again afterward, not by a long shot.

01:09:09.640 And not in the way that the president and other people praising me intended.

01:09:13.420 After the ceremony, reporters began questioning the whole story of what happened, claiming that parts were embellished or made up, that I had never killed the guy with the rock, reference to your story, and maybe hadn't killed any Taliban at all, that I couldn't have saved as many people as I claimed and so on and so forth.

01:09:28.360 And you say, even before I received the award, I knew I didn't want it.

01:09:33.680 Receiving it made that notion feel even more true.

01:09:37.560 So why, why is that?

01:09:40.300 Why do you think the press, because I just pointed out before the break, has a pattern of doing this to our military heroes?

01:09:46.460 Well, so in my instance, you know, so we started, we started embedding the press.

01:09:51.760 I mean, obviously it's been for a long time, but like, so the one who came out and started talking, started writing this, these narratives.

01:09:59.880 He was actually embedded with us that day.

01:10:02.280 He was on the mission.

01:10:04.000 We were never in the valley at the same time.

01:10:06.220 On my way in, he was on his way out.

01:10:09.540 There was a point at where he wanted to go in with me.

01:10:13.700 And I looked at him and just said no, and he left.

01:10:18.960 He left out, went back to the base where it was safe while I continued to make four more trips in.

01:10:26.360 And so this was kind of his moment to, I don't know.

01:10:30.800 And, you know, he talked to a lot of the guys.

01:10:32.300 There's a lot of guys on the mission that day that, that, that have their own opinions.

01:10:37.300 But all I'll say is, is, you know, I don't, I've never claimed to, I've never claimed that I killed anybody that day other than the guy with the rock.

01:10:48.560 I don't know how many people I killed.

01:10:50.060 I don't know how many people I saved.

01:10:51.340 Just in my mind, I didn't kill enough because the war would be over and I didn't, I didn't save enough because I lost a lot of, a lot of friends that day.

01:10:58.980 And, but when they come back and they start writing these articles and they start saying these things, you know, it used to bother me.

01:11:06.020 I mean, it used to smash me.

01:11:07.000 I'll never forget coming home.

01:11:08.860 I flew in from a speech one day and I drove home and on the front page of the biggest newspaper in the state was my, me on the front of it.

01:11:19.000 And it said medal of dishonor.

01:11:20.260 And I didn't ask for this medal.

01:11:22.560 I didn't ask for the medal.

01:11:23.900 You know, in the whole process of the medal, there's only one statement that's not included and it's mine.

01:11:30.140 So, you know, by, by writing that he's calling all of his friends, a bunch of liars.

01:11:36.340 So, you know, it's just, it was just an incredible, like just such a, a, a contradicting thing, but it really, it just said more about him than me.

01:11:43.860 Right.

01:11:44.800 He could have grabbed a weapon and, and, and got busy too, you know, and everybody's like, oh, they wouldn't let me or they, well, they told me no too.

01:11:52.560 Right.

01:11:52.980 So we, a lot of people were a lot closer to my teammates and the guys in there getting, getting, you know, getting killed than I was.

01:11:59.780 Um, but again, it's back to the individual choice.

01:12:02.820 It goes back to, um, the preparation.

01:12:05.640 And, you know, Rob talked about a little bit earlier about, you know, why do, you know, why do some people, uh, act on chaos and why do some people not?

01:12:13.040 And, and, and I just think it's, I don't think it's a nature thing.

01:12:16.820 I think it's, it's a, um, it's a preparation thing, right?

01:12:19.920 People who aren't prepared don't, don't act.

01:12:22.640 And, um, and I think that that was the case of that day is, is, is most of them should have had no business, um, being in that, in that situation.

01:12:31.320 And, uh, it showed whenever, whenever they were tested.

01:12:34.460 And, um, yeah, I mean, that's another piece of your story is that you, you had the smarts to disobey the authorities when you could see the authorities were wrong and that they, the trust in them was not warranted.

01:12:48.180 As we've seen now, thanks to the investigations into your military commanders who are calling the shots that day have played out that you, you were right, that they were giving you bad orders, that they, they, they were not on the right path.

01:13:00.800 But it, it takes an extraordinary human being to, especially as a soldier to, to understand a Marine, to understand the difference because you're trained the entire time in the military to obey orders.

01:13:11.360 And, you know, it's like, uh, it's like the, from a few good men, oh, do you only get to obey the orders you believe in?

01:13:16.240 Or, you know, do you, it's up to you to, and he's like, no, I have to obey all the orders.

01:13:19.520 Yes, I get it.

01:13:20.100 Right.

01:13:20.800 You, you found a way to disregard what you were being told and you did save three dozen lives at least.

01:13:26.620 And, and took a lot of lives that needed taking that day.

01:13:29.600 And, and I don't want to skip over, retrieve the bodies of, uh, four of your fallen comrades, including First Lieutenant Michael Johnson, Staff Sergeant Aaron Kennefic, Gunnery Sergeant Edward Johnson Jr.

01:13:41.660 And Hospital Corpsman, Third Class James R. Layton, um, including taking the things off of their bodies that you knew that the families would want to make sure that those got back, you know, to the people who loved those guys.

01:13:56.080 I mean, these are extraordinary acts of honor.

01:13:59.360 So I don't know.

01:14:01.260 I mean, when you, how do you describe what, what, what made you see, separate the wheat from the chaff that day and know what to do?

01:14:07.580 Well, you know, so before we move on from, you know, the, the people who criticize or come out, you know, with, with, with what I did that day, um, you know, I was, I was 21 years old.

01:14:18.780 Uh, I left a room that was about the size of the conference room that we live in right now.

01:14:22.960 And I had, uh, you know, three teammates that, that were as close to me as it got right.

01:14:28.660 We stood up, we, we woke up every day next to each other.

01:14:31.280 We ate next to each other.

01:14:32.240 We fought next to each other.

01:14:33.440 And, um, I left, I left there on a Monday and I returned on a Wednesday and I was the only one that came back there.

01:14:42.160 I came back and I, I had to literally every bed that was in that, where I lived in my home at that moment.

01:14:49.520 Um, every guy that I relied on, every guy that I loved, um, I was literally putting their stuff in a bag to send home to their, to their family.

01:14:57.660 Um, and, and so, you know, anybody who criticizes that or what I did and they, they want to dispute seven versus nine or six or whatever it is numbers.

01:15:07.160 I mean, they're, they're, they're cowards themselves.

01:15:09.620 Um, as far as like why I did what I did, um, you know, I, I just, it was a simple, you know, I always talk about what, it's why I don't understand how I got a medal or I got awarded anything because what I did was easy.

01:15:28.080 Um, it was what needed to be done.

01:15:30.280 It was clear.

01:15:30.780 There were, there were human beings who were suffering.

01:15:33.400 Um, they were my brothers.

01:15:35.160 They were my family.

01:15:36.660 Um, it was, it was very clear, very obvious that, that, that they were trapped, that they were hurt, that they were scared, uh, that they needed help.

01:15:44.960 And that was, that was clear across the board.

01:15:47.740 Um, you just described, I mean, I described it at the top of the show as an ambush in which, uh, folks were caught and you kept going back in trying to save people, trying to remove the,

01:15:57.640 the, the bodies of the fallen, trying to save us troops, Afghan troops, fight the enemy.

01:16:02.040 But like, how do you describe it in a few lines?

01:16:04.300 Like what, what happened that day on September 8th, 2009?

01:16:09.620 Yeah.

01:16:09.840 I'll never forget.

01:16:10.600 Like I turned, like we've got the truck close to, uh, Rodriguez Chavez was driving and, uh, we turned in it and it was like a riverbed, uh, going up into this valley.

01:16:18.740 And, and, um, I'll never forget going in there and there were bodies everywhere.

01:16:22.500 I mean, there were bodies everywhere.

01:16:24.000 I mean, you had the Taliban.

01:16:25.260 I mean, like my driver in the truck was literally like, he ran, like, I'll never forget.

01:16:29.020 He was running over the enemy because they were that close to the truck.

01:16:32.820 Um, you know, the, the, it was just, I was always a worst case scenario guy.

01:16:37.320 And this was worse than my worst case scenario.

01:16:40.400 And, um, I didn't think I was going to die.

01:16:42.800 There was a point that I remember that I didn't think I was going to die.

01:16:45.540 I just, I just accepted and knew I was.

01:16:48.020 And all I could think about as each one of these guys were shooting at me, um, was I know I'm going to die.

01:16:55.400 You're going to get me, but you're going to have to earn it.

01:16:58.260 And, um, you know, we came in and like on each trip we came in, um, we would bring in these trucks behind us, these little, these little Afghan, uh, Toyotas.

01:17:07.240 And we would, I would, or Ford Rangers.

01:17:09.620 Yeah.

01:17:09.980 And I don't remember which one it was, but anyways, it was all these trucks and we would throw, uh, I would throw the bodies in the back of the truck.

01:17:17.220 I'd try to put the dead ones on the bottom.

01:17:18.920 And then I would, the ones that had a chance to live on top of that and, and, and just send them out just truckload after truckload.

01:17:25.740 And, um, you know, all I could think about that day was it wasn't about Afghans.

01:17:30.280 It wasn't about, you know, the Afghan soldiers versus us soldiers or Marines.

01:17:34.580 It wasn't anything about that.

01:17:36.120 It was about good versus evil.

01:17:38.440 And it was literally that simple.

01:17:39.960 It was good versus evil.

01:17:42.020 And, um, that's not very hard to, um, distinct between in these types of situations.

01:17:49.000 Wow.

01:17:50.360 You know, I've talked to Rob O'Neill after the Afghanistan withdrawal.

01:17:53.660 I haven't talked to you.

01:17:54.920 This is our first time since that happened.

01:17:57.300 How do you make sense of it?

01:17:59.420 Right.

01:17:59.760 It's been on a lot of minds lately, given what we've seen with Putin.

01:18:02.800 Um, yeah, I mean, look, this is something we all knew, uh, there, I mean, anybody who went

01:18:10.300 over there and thought that we were ever going to put, you know, some type of democracy or

01:18:14.020 we were ever going to have, uh, uh, you know, build a military up in, in Afghanistan that

01:18:18.060 was going to be able to sustain itself as soon as we leave, uh, they were just, they were

01:18:21.920 just kidding themselves.

01:18:22.740 Right.

01:18:23.120 But, but with that being said, you know, how do I justify it?

01:18:27.540 And, and, and I justify this, right.

01:18:29.480 You can, like, if you want to get in, in the rabbit hole, um, you know, of, of why we

01:18:34.560 were there and how we got there.

01:18:35.920 I mean, that, that's a whole other ball game, but, but for me, I leave it at this is I didn't

01:18:41.280 make the decision to go in and none of us who were in that uniform did who wore the nation's

01:18:45.620 cloth.

01:18:46.120 And what I'll tell you is, is for 20 years, um, Afghanistan and Iraq were safer than they'd

01:18:52.700 ever been, uh, in Afghanistan, when there was a U S flag on, on when someone was wearing

01:18:59.280 a United States flag over there and they were going through these places, uh, women

01:19:03.820 were allowed to go to school.

01:19:05.660 Um, it was as safe as it had ever been that they'd ever seen.

01:19:09.240 Um, when America is somewhere, the place is better.

01:19:13.900 Uh, the, the, the, wherever we're at, it's better.

01:19:16.800 And I'll say that while we were in Afghanistan, while our soldiers and Marines and airmen and,

01:19:21.620 and everyone who served wherever they were in these countries, uh, the place was a better

01:19:27.500 place.

01:19:27.820 And we were over there just trying to leave it better than we found it.

01:19:30.660 Right.

01:19:30.960 It's not our fault that the people above us couldn't make the right decisions.

01:19:35.020 What do you make of the, the president Biden?

01:19:38.240 And, you know, we're going to hear from him in the state of the union finally this week,

01:19:40.920 uh, calling it an extraordinary success, not the war, but his, his command of the withdrawal.

01:19:47.600 Oh, I mean, look, I, I think that, I mean, this is, this is his way, right?

01:19:51.440 I mean, you know, it's, it's, um, he sinks the boat and then he rescues three people off

01:19:56.860 of it as, you know, 10 others drowned.

01:19:59.340 And, uh, you know, it's a success that he saved those three people.

01:20:02.700 Don't mind the fact that he sank the boat.

01:20:04.600 Right.

01:20:05.300 Um, I mean, this is, you know, the Biden, Biden, his administration are so incompetent.

01:20:12.000 Um, the, the incompetency has led to, to Russia doing this.

01:20:15.520 I mean, I can tell you right now that, that that is what America is, is on America's shoulders

01:20:19.940 because of, we picked a weak leader.

01:20:21.800 And the fact is, is people don't want to, don't want to hear this, but the fact of the

01:20:26.100 matter is, and you're seeing this firsthand right now is that when America is strong,

01:20:30.380 the world hates us.

01:20:32.800 But when America is weak, the world suffers.

01:20:35.380 And you're seeing that across the globe right now.

01:20:38.740 Do you agree with that, Rob?

01:20:40.060 Do you think that's fair to Biden?

01:20:43.080 Well, I mean, it's, it's scary because like Dakota was saying,

01:20:45.300 they can, they can do anything and say anything because most of the media is going to go with

01:20:49.420 it.

01:20:49.800 You even had Jen Psaki the other day saying that we need to stop relying on, we need to

01:20:54.160 become energy independent without creating more gas.

01:20:57.580 Like, it's like, you know, and I tweeted the windmills going, we can, uh, we can all ride

01:21:02.540 unicorns.

01:21:03.120 That would work, wouldn't it?

01:21:04.140 It's, it's just the, the, the issue is, um, uh, it's a political reason to pull out of

01:21:08.840 Afghanistan because they wanted the 20 year anniversary of look at us, look at us.

01:21:11.940 And they're going to still say it was a success, even though if we, I, you know,

01:21:15.160 I can always resort back to the planning for the Bin Laden raid.

01:21:17.720 We had some of the best tactical minds in the world, come up with the perfect plan.

01:21:20.480 If we took those same 23 guys, um, a year ago and said, uh, come up with the worst way

01:21:25.860 to get out of Afghanistan, we would have come up with exactly what they did the worst way

01:21:29.400 possible.

01:21:29.840 Um, I mean, let's be honest, everything they've touched being the administration has turned

01:21:34.920 to shit.

01:21:36.440 And I should point out to the audience that you, you're not like blindly anti Joe Biden.

01:21:42.000 You write nice things about him, Rob, and say, you know, he was of course, Obama's vice

01:21:45.940 president at the time of the Bin Laden raid.

01:21:48.560 And so it's not like you came in saying he sucks.

01:21:51.080 He's a Democrat.

01:21:51.780 And I know you've said before, and you've said in this book, I, when people ask me if

01:21:55.000 I'm a Democrat or Republican, you would tell them what you say.

01:21:58.080 No, I'm an American and I, I, I, I'm a big believer.

01:22:00.780 I don't need to blindly follow what one party says.

01:22:03.420 I think party politics, I think John Adams thought that too, was the worst thing.

01:22:06.160 Two parties are going to destroy the country.

01:22:07.500 You have people up there on Capitol Hill right now.

01:22:09.320 I love the ones, both sides of the aisle that call themselves war hawks, even though they've

01:22:12.740 never been to war.

01:22:13.500 No one in their family has been to war, but they sure are good at sending us because a lot of

01:22:16.820 these, uh, big time contractors that are huge funders, their reelection campaign, everyone

01:22:20.260 on Capitol Hill.

01:22:21.360 I mean, if you're like Nancy Pelosi, 19th term, because we just need some change.

01:22:25.300 Are you kidding me?

01:22:26.900 Yeah.

01:22:27.220 Um, but I mean, that's, that's, that's where a lot of this nonsense comes from.

01:22:29.920 And, and, uh, I, I think it's okay to go issue by issue.

01:22:33.540 What's best for America first and what's best for the world.

01:22:36.180 And a lot of this, I, I mean, one of my things I've come up with is we're going to get destroyed

01:22:40.980 by climate change regulations long before we get destroyed by climate change, because there's

01:22:46.340 no, there's no, uh, money in the cure.

01:22:49.140 There's just money in the process.

01:22:50.520 When's the last time the government started an agency and a year later said, well, clear

01:22:54.680 that problem up, disband the agency.

01:22:56.200 It doesn't happen.

01:22:56.780 It grows and grows and grows.

01:22:58.020 It's like Bagram airfield.

01:22:59.180 When we had it, we, as guys on the ground, we would call it the self licking ice cream

01:23:03.020 cone.

01:23:03.560 Not sure what the hell you do, but you keep eating.

01:23:06.400 You know, the last time you were on, you made the point about how these, these long wars

01:23:10.540 haven't gone very well in general because the generals aren't making the right calls and they

01:23:14.600 don't really have a finger on the pulse of what's happening with the troops who are actually

01:23:18.520 fighting the wars.

01:23:19.500 And they sit in this conference room and they make these decisions.

01:23:22.040 Yeah, go ahead.

01:23:23.340 Nobody wants to tell their boss the truth in the military because one day they were going

01:23:26.520 to, they're going to be that boss.

01:23:27.900 Uh, you're going to lie in, lie out.

01:23:29.480 Like you ask a four-star general, um, how the Afghan troops were going to do against the

01:23:33.840 Taliban.

01:23:34.400 You're going to get a different answer than the E four on the ground.

01:23:36.480 Not going to happen at all.

01:23:37.580 The thing with the military too, is if you have, if you're in the military and someone else is

01:23:42.520 carrying your bag, you need to retire, carry your stuff.

01:23:46.140 I love it.

01:23:47.280 Well, and Dakota, you realize this firsthand in the fight at 21 years old, that you were

01:23:50.920 being given bad information.

01:23:52.020 They were saying, don't go back in there.

01:23:53.680 And you went back in there and then you went back again and then again and then again and

01:23:57.260 then again.

01:23:58.120 And that's how you got all of the wounded out, not to mention the bodies of the fallen.

01:24:02.560 But I think you may, you raise an interesting point in this book about how what you did that

01:24:07.560 day was what was right, not what was expected.

01:24:10.140 And you make the point that deference to authority is not always what's right.

01:24:15.880 It's not always the right thing to do.

01:24:17.420 It's not always good.

01:24:18.380 And you write that it may actually be the downfall of the United States one day.

01:24:22.320 Just this, this sort of blind knee-jerk deference to authority that we've had for far too often.

01:24:29.920 I mean, I think if there's one good thing about COVID and the restrictions and all that,

01:24:34.240 maybe it's stopping that.

01:24:35.240 Maybe it was the beginning of the end of the American people's knee-jerk deference to

01:24:39.680 authority.

01:24:41.900 Yeah, I mean, well, I don't know.

01:24:44.180 I mean, I think if something else, I mean, look how long it took everyone to stand up

01:24:47.880 to that, right?

01:24:49.740 I don't know.

01:24:50.520 I think there's just too much trust put into people who are in roles, right?

01:24:54.880 And the issue is, is that because like I spoke on earlier, people don't want to tell

01:24:59.340 people what they need to hear.

01:25:01.200 They just want to make people feel good, right?

01:25:02.960 You know, all of our generals are all like, they have to, like, they're, they're selected,

01:25:07.960 like they're, they're in politically to be able to get those stars, right?

01:25:11.680 That's one of the problems.

01:25:13.000 But yeah, I, I seen it.

01:25:14.120 I seen it firsthand.

01:25:15.480 I seen it firsthand that, you know, there was two investigations that were done on our

01:25:20.220 battle that, and they came back and said, and I'll quote a direct loss of life due to

01:25:25.360 leadership.

01:25:26.720 No one was held accountable.

01:25:28.640 No one was held accountable.

01:25:29.740 You know, and that's the issue is the lack of accountability inside of our military, the

01:25:34.780 lack of accountability across the globe.

01:25:37.020 Like we don't, we don't have a, we don't have a military, like I can tell you right

01:25:40.420 now, the guys on the ground, the guys who are the, the lower enlisted, there's no, there's

01:25:46.020 no problem there.

01:25:46.940 Like there's no issue of, of what they believe in.

01:25:50.240 When you start seeing them become, you know, I hear so often, well, you know, our military's

01:25:55.360 becoming weak or, you know, this new generation's weak.

01:25:58.660 Well, let, let me tell you, uh, if they're becoming weak, it's because of their direct

01:26:03.280 reflection of leadership, because the leadership's weak.

01:26:06.060 You want to talk about leadership.

01:26:07.420 You know, we just, we mentioned Jocko, you know, I think we mentioned Jocko earlier, but

01:26:11.020 you know, Jocko talks about how there are no, uh, there are no bad teams.

01:26:15.060 There's only bad leaders.

01:26:16.020 And let me tell you something, we've had quite a few bad leaders, uh, here in the past.

01:26:21.000 Well, since I've been alive and, um, you know, but you're also seeing the power of what a

01:26:25.660 good leader can do over in Ukraine right now, uh, in this, you know, this 21st century

01:26:31.020 David versus Goliath situation.

01:26:32.880 And Jocko, Jocko Willink, he's been on the program.

01:26:35.340 He talks about extreme accountability, right?

01:26:37.160 He's the first one to say, it was my fault.

01:26:39.360 Here's what I did.

01:26:40.220 Here's what I could do differently.

01:26:41.220 That's the mindset you guys have too.

01:26:42.740 And that's exactly the opposite of what we've seen, you know, in the wake of so many of

01:26:47.260 these conflicts.

01:26:48.080 You tell me, Rob, because I think, I think about this, about your point you made the last

01:26:51.840 time, because you made this even before you wrote the book about, you know, the generals

01:26:54.280 and so on.

01:26:55.440 Um, part of this is why people are reluctant to do too much in Ukraine.

01:27:00.420 If we hadn't done Iraq, if we hadn't done Afghanistan for 20 years, nevermind the initial

01:27:05.220 response, but the, that I think everyone would, would agree that was justified except for

01:27:09.260 the truly far left loons.

01:27:11.540 Um, but if we hadn't done those things, I think we know we would have come to Ukraine

01:27:14.880 saying, oh yeah, we need to go do something.

01:27:16.800 This is a, you know, sovereign nation.

01:27:18.160 It's a, it's a democracy.

01:27:19.240 It's not perfect.

01:27:20.460 It's not exactly a democracy like ours, but, um, you can't invade a sovereign nation like

01:27:25.260 Putin's doing.

01:27:25.900 And, you know, the United States is, you know, we're the beacon of freedom in the world

01:27:29.460 and we're the strongest military and the strongest country.

01:27:31.280 And then when so on, we got to go in there, no fly zone or something.

01:27:34.760 The reason we don't want to do it, not only are we war weary, but we don't believe in

01:27:39.280 the people calling the shots anymore.

01:27:40.860 Forget Biden.

01:27:41.820 We don't have the same faith in the generals that we used to.

01:27:45.200 No, we don't.

01:27:46.060 Uh, we haven't won a war since world war II.

01:27:47.700 And even if you look at that, I mean, Russia was on that side too.

01:27:50.820 So they're kind of in there.

01:27:52.140 Uh, you know, we had to drop nuclear weapons on, on Japan to win that thing.

01:27:55.380 Um, but I think part of the issue too, with the leadership, other than wanting their job

01:27:59.060 and not wanting to upset your boss is a lot of these places as far as now.

01:28:02.120 Uh, see, Jack was an exception because he was always the buck starts and stops here.

01:28:06.120 This is my fault.

01:28:06.920 Uh, right now that what they're good at teaching a structure, they think they're teaching leadership,

01:28:12.040 but nobody teaches winning.

01:28:13.920 Uh, you know, we could have pulled out of, um, Afghanistan probably around 2005.

01:28:17.240 We had it, we went in there, we do what military does.

01:28:19.080 We crush people.

01:28:19.960 And then we leave, give them a stern.

01:28:21.500 No, that's a deterrent.

01:28:22.660 Uh, Iraq.

01:28:23.440 I mean, no one, still no one knows what that was all about other than, you know, Dick Cheney

01:28:26.260 was filling his pockets full of money.

01:28:28.300 I personally took like 11 shots of anthrax because he had some stake in that.

01:28:31.840 But I mean, now you look back at, at, at Iraq and all the hundreds of thousands of people

01:28:35.500 dead and we can, I fought there a couple of times and I can literally sit there over

01:28:39.500 a cup of coffee and say, huh, what was that all about?

01:28:42.480 It turns out one guy was pissed that one guy tried to kill the other guy's dad.

01:28:45.480 Let's invade.

01:28:46.100 I think the towers were still smoldering two weeks later and the Pentagon's coming up with

01:28:49.400 plans to invade Iraq.

01:28:50.780 And this is the kind of stuff that's happening.

01:28:52.420 It's, it's, it's poor leadership.

01:28:53.760 A lot of not, you know, personal greed, personal power and no personal responsibility.

01:28:59.000 How does Mark Milley still have a job?

01:29:00.960 And the only one they fired was the colonel that had the, he didn't even, he wasn't even

01:29:04.780 disrespectful.

01:29:05.480 He just said, where's the accountability?

01:29:06.940 Boom, you're fired.

01:29:07.560 Put him in the brig.

01:29:08.540 Yeah, that's exactly right.

01:29:09.600 There's been absolutely no accountability for any of it.

01:29:11.440 Like you say, for Afghanistan in the first place and the way it went south, for the lies

01:29:15.420 that we were told, as we saw in the Afghanistan papers, of course, that came right from the

01:29:19.100 top and, and for the withdrawal.

01:29:21.980 Right.

01:29:22.180 And so it's like, we don't trust them anymore.

01:29:24.260 If we, if you guys were commanding the armed forces and we knew we could send them in under

01:29:28.320 your leadership and it'd be a quick strike and it'd be effective and we'd do something

01:29:31.260 that mattered and not get us into some drawn out conflict that would cost way too much

01:29:35.640 American blood and treasure.

01:29:36.440 I think the American people would be more like, let's, let's go, let's, you know, ball to the

01:29:40.520 wall.

01:29:40.820 But we're weary of a lot of things these days in the United States.

01:29:44.340 And, you know, tomorrow night at the State of the Union, we're going to hear President

01:29:47.280 Biden try to spin this all like it's hugely successful from, from, you know, Afghanistan

01:29:51.880 to, you know, Putin's stance now, like he fought back.

01:29:55.020 It's like, well, how did he get, how did he get to the point where he felt confident

01:29:57.780 enough to do this?

01:29:58.520 How did he get to the point where he actually evade after weeks of being on the border saying he's

01:30:02.740 going to do it and you weren't able to stop?

01:30:04.300 Like, how did any of that happen?

01:30:06.120 And so the accountability, at least with the politicians can happen at the voting box with

01:30:09.460 these generals, not so much.

01:30:12.300 Listen, I'll give you the last word.

01:30:14.020 I'm going to wrap it, but I want to give you guys the last word on like the regular mom

01:30:17.020 and pa sitting out there, sitting in the middle of my imaginary viewer match.

01:30:20.540 She sits in Iowa and she works all day and she comes home.

01:30:23.540 She has a glass of wine.

01:30:24.300 She takes care of her kids, but she, you know, she's tired.

01:30:26.000 She can't pay that much attention to the news.

01:30:28.320 What does she need to know in this book?

01:30:29.740 Like, why should she buy it?

01:30:30.740 Well, first of all, we're all cut from the same cloth and it doesn't matter what you

01:30:35.600 look like or where you're from, you can do anything.

01:30:37.340 And one of the points I've been making recently too, is the 24 hour news cycle in social media

01:30:41.200 is not real.

01:30:42.260 What's real is out that the real person is coming home, taking care of her kids.

01:30:44.900 The real person, you know, the real, I've mentioned before, real America is not the

01:30:48.320 people yelling at each other on who's left or who's right.

01:30:50.780 It's the convoy that starts in Southern California that rolls through Texas.

01:30:53.960 New Mexico picks up people to go to Florida to help the people who are hurting from a hurricane.

01:30:58.100 That's America.

01:30:58.620 And most people are good, believe it or not, face to face.

01:31:01.480 Most people doesn't matter what you do behind closed doors, face to face.

01:31:05.280 Most people get along and, you know, don't, don't live in the, don't live in the past,

01:31:09.100 learn from the past, get over it and move forward.

01:31:11.400 And perfectly said the way forward.

01:31:13.900 Now, Dakota, while I have you here and we've, we've given each other shit about Rob's interview.

01:31:18.940 Will you, will you be my Memorial Day interview this year?

01:31:21.940 I would love to talk to you about your mission and those we lost and, and just get into it

01:31:27.220 in more detail.

01:31:28.620 It'd be such an honor.

01:31:30.200 Oh, the honor would be mine.

01:31:31.860 And that of my viewers and my listeners, I'm sure will love it.

01:31:34.820 I look forward to, I didn't want to give it short shrift, but just trying to figure it,

01:31:38.060 fill it into like one block today.

01:31:39.580 It's worth so much more than that.

01:31:41.540 So honored to know you guys really appreciate you being here.

01:31:44.240 All the best to you both.

01:31:45.080 And thank you for your service.

01:31:47.060 Thanks for having us.

01:31:47.860 Really appreciate it.

01:31:48.880 All right.

01:31:49.140 Don't forget, the book is out tomorrow.

01:31:50.700 You can order it today.

01:31:51.600 It's called The Way Forward.

01:31:53.600 Support these guys, support the military, support our country and buy this book.

01:31:57.660 Take the lessons to heart in it.

01:31:59.300 Don't forget to tune into the show tomorrow because we will have Gary Kasparov, former

01:32:04.020 chess master and political activist.

01:32:06.520 He has incredible insight on Vladimir Putin in Russia, and he's been making predictions

01:32:10.100 for years that appear to be coming true.

01:32:12.780 We'll talk to him.

01:32:13.460 Plus, we will get ready for Biden's first State of the Union tomorrow night.

01:32:17.460 I'll give you a preview of what I expect.

01:32:19.960 And we'll talk about the miraculous change in COVID regulations just in advance of tomorrow

01:32:25.140 night's remarks.

01:32:25.680 I'm sure it's totally coincidental, right?

01:32:27.460 What do you think?

01:32:28.580 Let me know.

01:32:29.440 In the meantime, download The Megyn Kelly Show and check out YouTube.com slash Megyn Kelly.

01:32:33.340 Go ahead and subscribe.

01:32:34.140 Thanks for listening.

01:32:34.860 See you tomorrow.

01:32:36.520 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show.

01:32:39.960 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - February 28, 2022

Robert O'Neill and Dakota Meyer on Trust and Humility, Hard Work, and Uniting Behind Ukraine ｜ Ep. 270

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