Sean Ryan is a former U.S. Navy SEAL and CIA contractor with 14 years of service spanning multiple combat operations. He is also the host of the hugely popular The Sean Ryan Show, where he goes in-depth with a host of guests on a whole range of subjects. Sean developed the show to document the untold stories of war, loss, and redemption, and he does that and much more.
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00:01:11.500Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:01:23.660Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly. Welcome to The Megan Kelly Show and today's double feature
00:01:27.700Sunday mega episode. Today we're bringing you the very first conversation I ever had with two
00:01:33.500fascinating people with whom I've developed friendships since these interactions you're
00:01:37.920about to listen to. The first is Sean Ryan. When Sean flew into our studio two years ago,
00:01:44.340I didn't know what to expect, but the two hour conversation we had blew me away. I just love
00:01:48.900this guy. Professionally speaking, I just adore him. He was so open and honest in ways that many
00:01:54.640aren't, and his life story from the Navy SEALs to crime committing, as he put it, to finding God and
00:02:01.340redemption started our beautiful journey together. I recently saw Sean, as you may have seen, when I
00:02:07.640took a trip down to his studio in Nashville last month, which involved three and a half hours of
00:02:12.260conversation and a lot of shooting guns, which was super fun. You can go check that out on his feed
00:02:17.900and enjoy, but you'll listen to our first meeting today, which was very, very deep and insightful
00:02:22.960on his part. Then there's Charlie Sheen. Charlie came in last year for an interview about his life
00:02:28.440and career, and it became very clear why he was, for a time, the biggest star in Hollywood.
00:02:33.640Since this interview, we got a chance to meet in person during the MK Live tour last year,
00:02:37.780and he delighted our entire in auditorium audience and beyond. And I would imagine that
00:02:45.660our conversations will continue in the future. I certainly hope so. Enjoy, and we'll see you Monday.
00:02:51.900On Memorial Day, we remember and honor the men and women who have died while in military service.
00:02:57.220Every year, we welcome a military veteran here on this show to share their story. And today,
00:03:02.700I'm very excited to talk to Sean Ryan for the very first time. Sean's a former U.S. Navy SEAL
00:03:08.340and CIA contractor with 14 years of service, spanning multiple combat operations. He is also
00:03:15.320the host of the hugely popular The Sean Ryan Show, where he has an audience of millions on YouTube,
00:03:21.720podcast platforms, and more. This is where he goes in-depth, and I mean in-depth, with a host of
00:03:28.120guests for fascinating conversations on a whole range of subjects. Sean developed the show to
00:03:33.240document the untold stories of war, loss, and redemption, and he does that and much, much more.
00:03:39.080glad to welcome him here in person for this special episode sean welcome thank you for having
00:03:48.280me thank you for your service to get to get kick it off oh thank you for saying that yeah appreciate
00:03:53.980that no i appreciate it too it's it's it's hard on memorial day because it's it's a solemn day
00:03:58.440right but people are out there trying to get their big tv and i understand that right people
00:04:04.740are like, they work hard and they, but you got to take a moment or an hour or two just to stop
00:04:10.600and think about why you have the freedom to shop where you want and wear what you want and say
00:04:14.160what you want and do what you want. And that boils down to you guys, you and the friends
00:04:17.840you've lost. Well, thank you. So let's talk about you and your background and how you wound up a
00:04:23.960Navy SEAL because it takes a certain kind of person. I know this from my many interviews of
00:04:29.620SEALs over the years. It's not like, you're not normal people. I think that's fair to say. Am I
00:04:35.660wrong? I think that's fair to say. Okay. And so when, tell us what you were like as a child,
00:04:41.100because there are always some signs of a future Navy SEAL in there, whether it's a rebellious kid
00:04:46.120or a leader or obsessive about something. Jocko said his parents wouldn't let him quit anything.
00:04:51.980Like if he took up knitting, they wouldn't let him quit knitting. So looking back at your own
00:04:56.580childhood, were there signs of the future you there? There probably were. I was definitely very
00:05:03.280rebellious, not a great student, not a great listener, very creative, and just not very
00:05:14.780academic at all. So the teams, the SEAL teams were kind of came on my radar. I don't remember
00:05:24.400exactly but i was always infatuated with the military uh i was when i was growing up the
00:05:29.080gulf war was going on and and uh i remember picking up all the magazines and all that stuff
00:05:35.340and just and just looking at all the pictures really into gi joes and uh and it got to the
00:05:44.220point where when i got to high school i just like i said i wasn't an academics guy i didn't
00:05:50.600I wasn't interested in school, and I definitely wasn't going to do well in college, so I decided to look into the military.
00:06:07.200He was a pharmacist in the Army, so definitely a totally different role, different direction.
00:06:15.560Had no interest in the medical field at all.
00:06:17.520So, so I started looking at the Marine Corps. I wanted to be a recon guy. They wouldn't let me in. I went to the Army, wanted to be a Green Beret, wouldn't let me in. And the Navy recruiter kind of stuck his head out and asked if I'd ever heard of the SEAL teams, and I hadn't at the time.
00:06:37.460So he gave me endless material to pick through, and so I did that very fast.
00:06:47.180And when I realized what it was, it just captivated me.
00:06:52.540So how does a guy who's not devoted to his academics, which does require the kind of tenacity and hard work you put in to become a SEAL,
00:07:00.600find it in order to go through Bud's training and actually perform that elite level as a soldier?
00:07:07.460I mean, I don't, it's just the only thing that caught my interest, you know?
00:07:11.540And so nothing really in school caught my interest.
00:07:15.340And I didn't, I never really felt challenged, I don't think.
00:07:19.520And so, I mean, there was a multitude of things.
00:07:22.460I wasn't the top performer out of my three siblings in sports or in academics.
00:12:44.140Mm-hmm. Now knowing what you know, does that come from combat or just the grueling nature
00:12:52.880of SEAL training? Like guys who are going through it today, can they get that without
00:12:57.020actually going into combat like you have? Oh, I think so. I mean, I do believe that.
00:13:02.660So the Navy will get it into you? They will. They'll figure out a way.
00:13:07.920I'm thrilled and impressed and want to do it. A secret version of myself would love to try this.
00:13:12.640I don't think I can. I can't really even make it through 10 minutes of jumping jacks in my hit
00:13:17.900class. But in my mind, this could happen for me someday. And we've had lots of tough guys come on
00:13:25.360here and talk about how the toughest guys they knew didn't make it through training, just couldn't
00:13:30.200make it through. It's just a mind over matter kind of situation. But you're telling me you didn't
00:13:34.820have anything in your past that told you you could put mind over matter and accomplish this.
00:13:40.640no i didn't i didn't and um so it was i mean i was an 18 year old kid at buds and uh i it was
00:13:48.760it was i mean it's scary to see who quits you know i mean you're seeing people that you look up to
00:13:57.020people that i mean you you're constantly measuring up to somebody else and comparing yourself to
00:14:03.280somebody else and going oh you know if that guy if that guy didn't make it i i don't i don't think
00:14:09.700I have a chance. And so you just put your head down and drive on and try to make it to the next
00:14:15.980meal, try to make it to the next day and, and, uh, and just keep driving on. And, and, and it,
00:14:22.400it, I get to the point where I did, I wanted to quit, but, um, but I, I could not, I could not
00:14:29.900face calling my parents and tell them that I, I had failed again. Oh, wow. So yeah, I've had guys
00:14:37.920say there's no way I was going to see my father's name on that hat and ring that bell. Nope, not me.
00:14:45.440So you, you talked a little bit about your upbringing. Was it a modest upbringing? Like
00:14:50.760what kind of childhood did you have? Yeah. Uh, I mean, I would say upper middle class, uh,
00:14:58.080upbringing and small town. We moved around a lot, probably moved over 10 times, um, in my childhood,
00:15:05.280But we finally settled in Missouri in a small farm town known as Chillicothe, Missouri, and haven't been back there in several years.
00:15:15.140But I liked full contact sports, tried football, was too small, couldn't make it, got into wrestling, was a mediocre wrestler, nothing, no state championships or anything like that.
00:15:29.160Just kind of an average kid, troublemaker, really into booze and partying.
00:15:36.900And, yeah, I mean, that was my childhood.
00:18:37.420Yeah, but it's doing those little time hacks and just breaking it down and making it to the next meal, making it to the next med check, checking your buddies.
00:18:49.540By Wednesday, it's a pretty tight group.
00:18:52.500everybody's pretty much gone. And you kind of just go into maybe this flow state, you know,
00:19:00.140and you're just moving. Yeah, it sounds kind of transcendent in a way. So then you have to
00:19:07.560actually be a Navy SEAL, which is no easier. And especially when you complete your training in July
00:19:13.500of 2001, all hell breaks loose in the country, in the world. And how many combat deployments did
00:19:21.340you have? With the SEAL teams I had two combat deployments. To Iraq and Afghanistan? Yep. Okay
00:19:27.720and two different SEAL teams? Yeah so there was so when I got into the SEAL teams it was around
00:19:36.0602003 and the first deployment we went to Germany which was a really boring deployment and then we
00:19:45.260We went to Afghanistan in the late summer of 05, I believe.
00:22:27.960I was in Baghdad for about four months. And so we got there. The operational tempo was pretty slow at first. There was an election going on, if I remember. And then we were on the hook to do protection for the Iraqi government officials.
00:22:54.140So we wound up, the lieutenant threw our name in the hat to just help conventional units who were getting blown up on their reconnaissance routes, supply routes, whatever the routes were.
00:23:08.240I mean, they had these bombs called EFPs over there, which were, I don't know if you remember, maybe you covered this.
00:23:15.160But they would basically put them on the side of the road, and they could be triggered by IR lasers.
00:23:22.060So they would pick up heat sensitivity to engine blocks, and they had the timing down perfectly to where the projectile would go through the passenger or driver's side door of the Humvees,
00:23:36.620and basically it would vaporize everything in the vehicle, and you'd just get sucked out of a little hole on the back end.
00:23:43.620and um so that was that was chewing a lot of our guys up and uh we just got tired of seeing these
00:23:53.020conventional guys just get crushed by these efps and so so we started attaching ourselves to these
00:24:00.840conventional units uh that didn't have the knowledge or know-how on how to kind of combat
00:24:05.480this set up a targeting package to get these guys and so what we would do is we would we would
00:24:11.920get in with them in bed with them train them for a couple of weeks uh bring them out teach them how
00:24:17.700to set up sniper hides teach them how to do a targeting package teach them how to conduct
00:24:22.980surveillance teach them how to start running assets uh within the local population to to try
00:24:29.460figure out who's doing this and teach them how to shoot taught them everything um um gave them a lot
00:24:37.240of stuff we really kind of like took these guys under our wings and then we would take them out
00:24:42.260on operations and um so we would go out find all the places they were getting hit and set up sniper
00:24:50.000teams along all of those different routes all those uh points of interest and we would take
00:24:58.000each sniper observation team would take maybe one or two conventional guys with them on the actual
00:25:04.780operation and uh and we started killing bad guys started turning things the other way
00:25:12.880you must have lost a lot of friends every guy who serves does and you're one of the lucky ones if
00:25:19.620nothing happens to you uh to take a limb or a traumatic brain injury as you're going through
00:25:27.040it there's no time to deal with any of that right it's just forward like we talked about in the
00:26:43.000If when you have massive crises, especially repeated and ongoing sustained crises, there's only one way, like you have to compartmentalize.
00:26:50.520How could you possibly function if you were dealing with any of it?
00:26:54.700I mean, you're not, you actually are human despite all appearances of our SEALs and our
00:27:00.220Rangers and all those guys. So was it right after your service in Iraq that you decided to join the
00:27:05.980agency? No, honestly, I didn't want to, I never wanted to go back and I wanted to pursue some
00:27:14.020type of a career in business. And so I tried a lot of things, civilian life. I just, I wasn't
00:27:21.340ready for it yet. And, uh, I decided that I'd missed the brotherhood, the camaraderie, the,
00:27:29.840the obnoxiousness of being on a team. And so I, I decided I would try to get into a fire academy
00:27:39.160and, uh, and I did wasn't, it wasn't what it wasn't. What do you mean? Fire academy is a
00:27:46.600firefighter firefighter okay yeah i wanted to be i just thought well that seems like the the next
00:27:51.760best thing to what i was a part of and um it just wasn't going to work for me uh a lot of family
00:27:57.800ties help in the fire service and i had none so i had a friend and um that was in afghanistan with
00:28:06.920me another seal and he said hey i'm working for blackwater and i think you should come work with
00:28:15.780us and i had seen a lot of the blackwater contractors and heard a lot of the stuff that
00:28:20.400was going on over there at the time some of it was true some of it wound up not being true
00:28:24.800but uh i decided while i was over there and i saw how those guys operated i just i didn't want to
00:28:31.020be a part of the contracting career and uh especially at blackwater and so i'd express
00:28:37.000that to him and he said this is different this is a different project the qualifications
00:28:44.120operations all have to be at least six years in special operations or above.
00:29:42.920They have probably all kinds of government contracts.
00:29:47.440And then in the very back of the compound, which the Blackwater compound was, I don't know how many thousands of acres, is the black sites.0.70
00:31:04.320They'll put you in these situations, and they want to just see how you react, how you can lead a team, how you can integrate in with a team, all kinds of different scenarios, scenarios that you're never going to fight your way out of, lots of civilians.
00:31:21.240They would plant lots of, like, role players with simunition rounds, which is basically kind of like a paintball gun but more realistic.
00:31:30.580And they would put you in all these scenarios to see if you could keep your cool under pressure, not shooting any innocent civilians.
00:31:55.040And then at the very end, there was also driving, surveillance, all kinds of stuff that they wanted to just kind of see how you were in all these different scenarios.
00:32:05.920And at the end, they give you the brief and say, hey, you know, this is the OGA, other government agency, CIA contract.
00:32:14.720And they start looking for dates to go overseas.
00:32:21.880You just know that you've been selected as this elite kind of service member and whatever it is is going to be very high level and complicated and complex, right?
00:32:32.860So you're in, but you don't know what you're in for.
00:34:38.540maybe you're coming in from the rooftop doesn't matter but once you enter that house and training
00:34:43.900every every move you make is critiqued and it can make it seem like and purposely that that
00:34:53.640they're picking on you that you're not any good that that they don't want you there
00:34:57.860and you just have to get to the point where you can't let that stuff affect you it just got to
00:35:04.400the point in the teams where i i i had hit this mental switch where i i don't care anymore i i
00:35:13.740had like tricked myself into thinking i don't care how this run this house run ends i don't care
00:35:20.720what these guys think of me i'm just going to do the best i can do and that's that's all i can do
00:35:25.660do you know the the free solo movie and that the story about that mountain climber who refused to
00:35:31.120use any lines and supports and he wound up dying no but they talk about these guys who climb these
00:35:36.520mountains and they're they're nuts they do it with no support you know there's there's nothing
00:35:40.960to you know and a lot of them do die uh but they identify with a lot of these guys that they've
00:35:47.640lost their ability to get an adrenaline surge and that's actually one of the reasons why they do it
00:35:52.040the way they do it without all the belts and suspenders can you relate to that at all oh yeah
00:35:58.440Yeah. Do you lose adrenaline? Yeah. And then maybe crossing over to it's gone. Like, where is it? How can I get it again?
00:36:05.360Yeah. You find it through. I mean, that's why so many guys honestly wind back up in the in the contracting arena is especially like these guys, you know, that spend 30 plus years at the SEAL teams or a SF team or Delta or wherever, Rangers, MARSOC.
00:37:28.440I can't imagine, you know, just the other night I was at a dinner party at a friend's house in
00:37:35.560Connecticut and it was absolutely lovely. The hostess knew all the right things to do. We had
00:37:41.200a lovely cocktail hour. We sat down for dinner. There was even some dancing after the fact,
00:37:45.020which was a successful cocktail party, a dinner party by any measure. I can't imagine a Sean Ryan
00:37:51.340having lived the life you've lived, right? Coming back from all of that and even participating in
00:37:58.420such. I mean, I just feel like your whole life must, must have been, you know, when this was
00:38:03.300done, like, what is this? Who are these people? What is, does, this is just absolute drivel around
00:38:11.180me everywhere. None of this matters. Did you go through that? Oh yeah. It created a lot of anxiety,
00:38:19.400a lot of anxiety. I had really bad social anxiety when I, when I left the agency. And, uh, I just,
00:38:26.240I mean, you are thrown into a world that you thought you knew, and it's just, it's hard.
00:38:41.120I mean, it's really hard to relate to anybody who has not lived the kind of life that you've lived.
00:38:47.700It takes a long time, you know, and it takes a lot of self-work.
00:38:52.780It's like you were on Mars for 14 years.
00:38:54.620Pretty much. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Right. And you come back and earth has changed a lot. You know, now there's an internet, internet, GPS and iPhones and social media. So it's like the dramatic changes.
00:39:06.140And a lot of different opinions on what we're doing over there.
00:39:09.260So can you help me understand, because we talked about leaving seal, the seals and going to Blackwater and then, but that, and that, do you count that as CIA time? I don't totally understand.
00:39:18.380Yeah, so I spent a very brief time at Blackwater as well.
00:39:22.500So I did two deployments, I think, with Blackwater.
00:39:29.280So basically, if you're going to get your housework done, right, you're going to use a general contractor.
00:39:35.640And then he's going to subcontract out the plumbing, the drywall, the air conditioning.
00:39:41.880So think of Blackwater as the general contractor for the U.S. government.
00:39:48.380And so then Department of State says, hey, we need 500 guys in Baghdad to protect all of our state diplomats.
00:40:00.360Okay, so Blackwater goes and they, what kind of guys do you want?
00:41:09.060So after that happened, all these contracts spun up and it was, all right, we need we need seals on ships to kill pirates that are trying to, you know, kidnap the crew and take over the ship.
00:41:33.860But, yeah, so I did that for two deployments, and then the agency got back in touch with me, and then they wanted me to come work direct for them as a contractor, but not through any companies.
00:45:32.020And, um, so I kind of started at street level and built a network out and went to clubs and met people and, and, and found my guys and started testing cocaine and finding the best stuff.
00:45:48.500And, and, and I found it and, um, and that lasted for, for a couple of years.
00:45:55.040And I would bounce. I would just bounce. I mean, it was really I got a lot of satisfaction out of the adrenaline and seeing and just seeing how much I could have been my and bed myself into these different cultures.
00:46:09.100And so then I started flying all over the all over South America. I started going to Peru and starting to build network there and Dominican Republic and Panama, all over Colombia, all over the country.
00:46:24.280and uh costa rica and then i started looking up the most dangerous places you could go in the
00:46:30.600world and at the time it was san pedro sulla honduras so i went there and started uh i didn't
00:46:38.160get very far there but uh but um that was that was my life for several years wow and the the
00:46:48.020part was cocaine and you would find what like would be dealers people to distribute it i would
00:46:52.500find dealers and then I would find their dealers and then I would find where their dealers get
00:46:58.160their stuff. And, and I got to a pretty high level. It's a miracle. You weren't killed.
00:47:04.120It is a miracle. It was, I mean, it was, I mean, this is what I do for a living though,
00:47:09.440you know? And so that's true. You had some pretty superior training. I was, I was pretty good at it
00:47:14.240and pretty fearless at the time. So when you're talking to your old Navy seal buds or, you know,
00:47:21.860Blackwater buds and you're down there and they're saying, what are you up to?
00:49:31.160What made you establish residency in Colombia and go all over these countries, the most dangerous countries on earth, to mess with other people's drug rings?
00:50:15.680And truth be told, I mean, that was kind of an awakening, but I wasn't 100% ready to shut it down.
00:50:21.040And then I had, you know, I had built quite the network down there and I got tipped off that the federal police in Columbia were surveilling me and people that I was with.
00:50:37.880And so I had, I E&E'd out of the country.
00:50:44.540I mean, I just, I abruptly left. And I did kind of a, we call them an SDR, but surveillance detection route. And I wanted to see if they were surveilling me if I was walking around town.
00:50:58.540and um so i got rid of everything cleaned everything up and uh went to an internet cafe
00:51:07.140booked myself some tickets uh to a couple different places jumped on one and and uh
00:51:13.740and left the country came back stateside yeah do we extradite to columbia
00:51:18.880just asking for a friend yeah yeah um but uh but yeah no i got out of there and uh
00:51:28.720went home home to missouri talked to my parents they knew some you told them was really everything
00:51:37.180yeah i don't remember telling them anything and uh woke up the next day after telling them with
00:51:42.980a hangover and my dad was, I could just tell by the look on his face that I must have spilled
00:51:52.580probably just about everything. What did the look say? Very concerned and worried.
00:55:32.960But I got to be honest, you know, that woman is like an angel.0.99
00:55:39.420And I don't care what her political beliefs are.
00:55:44.640That woman has saved more special ops guys from suicide than anybody saved in combat, than anybody I know.
00:55:57.840And she still does it to this day, and that was back in probably 2015, 2016 timeframe.
00:56:07.560And it was me, and when I left the agency, I was also trying to save my best friend's life who had a terrible heroin addiction.
00:56:18.880And I talked him into going in to meet her, and then I just started telling everybody.
00:56:26.300And I remember my best friend's name was Gabe, and we gave her a SEAL team plaque just to say thank you because she was helping us out.
00:56:41.060She had dubbed her prices down, and just an amazing woman.
00:56:47.880And now you go in there, and her entire office is just plaque after plaque after plaque after plaque.
00:56:55.780Pretty soon you're going to see a Trump banner.
00:56:58.000She's going to be wearing the MAGA hat.
00:57:01.540Yeah, but that would be a sight to see.
00:57:04.640But, I mean, you know, the reason I say that is because there are some things that can, you know, political agendas don't, they don't get in the way.
00:57:24.380I have very strong political views on a number of issues, but pretty much 80% of the people around me who I love in my life, the woman who raised me, all my best friends, my best friends growing up, are liberal.
00:57:39.000They're not woke, but they're liberal.
00:57:42.940So I have tons of love in my heart for all of them, even though they don't vote the way I vote and they don't feel the way I do about the issues that are really important to me.
01:05:57.440And so when me and Katie got serious, it didn't take long.
01:06:01.820And, you know, Katie has been sober for 15 years now, and I was on a path to get, it was on my radar.
01:06:15.340And so I had asked her a couple of questions that really resonated with me.
01:06:22.440And, you know, there's a lot of fake people in South Florida, at least in my experience.
01:06:29.260And so with Katie, I remember asking her a question, and it was something along the lines of, you know, now that, you know, how do you find real hobbies once you're sober?
01:06:44.140Because I don't, I had zero hobbies other than boozing.
01:06:50.500And she had a real answer, and it was just, that's a great question.
01:10:28.260And I don't want to, you know, I'm glad that I waited until after service for kids.
01:10:33.620Because it sounds like you've listened to at least a couple of my interviews.
01:10:37.340And, man, you know, I'm just I'm glad that I never had to put my I will never have to put my kids through what that was like, what what it turned to be into being gone all the time.
01:10:51.960And I'm a lot better now than than than back then.
01:10:56.480And you don't have to live with the regret of having missed it.
01:11:04.280I've talked to enough people who have made a different choice.
01:11:06.740you can just hear the regret in their voice and see it on their face and it's not recapturable
01:11:11.960once it's gone. Very true. Very true. But, um, you know, I think in Tennessee, you'll do better
01:11:19.700in instilling values into your kids that reflect your own, right? That's one of the challenges
01:11:25.060here in the Northeast. It's really, well, yeah. I mean, these woke schools, we fled our New York
01:11:30.240city schools because of that here in Connecticut, we got it made. We did our homework this time
01:11:34.660since we were fleeing and, um, we found two great ones, but it's important, right? Because you'll
01:11:41.040find out when you're, how old is your oldest, your boy? Two and a half. Yeah. So you'll find
01:11:45.380out when they start to go to school that the schools are, they're your partners. I mean,
01:11:49.600you need to find a partner. They're the ones who are going to spend the most waking hours with your
01:11:54.080kids every day. Yeah. So if you're not on the same page about how we're raising a boy or how
01:11:59.820we're raising a girl how we're creating a good human being and future citizen you know current
01:12:05.540citizen but like you know responsible citizen things can go south quickly that is a constant
01:12:13.440topic of discussion at our house is well how we're going to do that are we going to homeschool
01:12:17.580we're going to do private school what are we going to do and uh turns out we live in a like
01:12:23.760a homeschool Mecca. That's good. Yeah. So we're looking into possibly doing that. I love the
01:12:30.540homeschooling communities. I have a dear friend who's doing that. He swears by it. So what does
01:12:35.300life look like now? You do the podcast like 25 hours a day. Honestly, how do you do these five
01:12:40.420hour podcasts? Man, I just, I just listen, you know, and, and, uh, you know, I, I get people
01:12:52.240to open up about things they've never talked about before and go to places that they probably
01:12:58.360have not been in their mind in, in years. And, um, and you can't do that on a time,
01:13:08.420on a timeline you can't you can't do that in a condensed timeline and so
01:13:13.300you know my longest one i think is nine hours is that right yeah who is that with this this guy
01:13:20.940cody alford who was a marsoc guy okay but um marine but um and so you know in and i think
01:13:30.300the first one i did was right about two hours and um but then i kept getting longer and i noticed
01:13:36.940the more time i spend on the more time i give them the more they open up and and what it kind
01:13:43.880of developed into is is i remember i don't remember who the first guy was it might have
01:13:50.040been this guy prime hall but do you have any idea how many people have been through like child
01:13:55.720trauma sexual trauma abusive uh parents whatever it is and it's like everybody and so our the first
01:14:06.320time that happened I I was like all right I got to start diving more into childhood and and I'll
01:14:14.700bet 75 percent of the people have come on uh have experienced some type of abuse as a child and
01:14:22.320and I dig into kind of what's happening today with trafficking and pedophilia and and and all of that
01:14:30.960kind of stuff and so I think it's really important to dive into the to the childhood stuff because
01:14:37.000it gives people that have been abused that are trying to process that still into their adult
01:14:42.300life and kids that are going through right now I mean it it shows them like man no matter what
01:14:48.700I'm going through right now like I can still find success and and and find happiness in life and
01:14:56.960And, you know, there's just not a lot of people doing that right now.
01:15:00.160And so when somebody goes into their childhood experience and they're going to get descriptive about it, you know, that when they're done and we're done with that section, I always ask, you know, for a kid that's in your position right now, you know, looking back, what could you have done or what would you advise, you know, other kids that are in your position or are there?
01:15:50.840And when they did, it was a 30-second blurb.
01:15:55.580And, you know, so why are we having talking heads in the media documenting what happened over there with a bunch of people that weren't there that thought they knew?
01:16:08.280And so I wanted to it kind of started with I wanted to just document history the way it actually happened with people that were at the events.
01:16:17.840And so now we've got, you know, just about every major operation that has happened.
01:22:53.580I mean, I think it has to do with a lot of things. I think it had to do with the forced vaxes. I think it has to do with the woke agenda. I mean, nobody – I mean, talk about miscalculating your body of work.
01:23:09.300I mean, it is not liberal Democrat families that sign up for the military.
01:23:17.640It is middle class to low class conservative families, and you just alienated your entire base.
01:23:27.420Nobody wants to go to become a SEAL, to be going to gender ideology crash courses and pronoun training or whatever the hell else they're doing in there, how not to be a right-wing extremist.0.94
01:26:03.940Halliburton built the chow hall. Halliburton cooked the food. Halliburton did, they did everything, the mail, everything. It was KBR Halliburton. He was the CEO of that. So all infrastructure in the entire Iraq war was Halliburton, who is the former CEO, is the vice president of the United States.
01:26:29.400mm-hmm that's what we're getting at you know there's then there's there's you know there's
01:26:37.420Boeing Lockheed Martin Raytheon Northrop Grumman and all of these they make a lot of the tech and
01:26:45.900the missiles and the planes and all of these sorts of things guns um communications equipment
01:26:53.820And everything that is new that's being developed, it's not the government developing it.
01:27:00.700It's these companies that get paid ungodly amounts of money to fund, to develop things you would use in war.
01:27:14.420And then they put people like Nikki Haley on their boards.
01:33:04.200I mean look at all the angles they have on us1.00
01:33:08.060You know, they they are behind the fentanyl crisis. They're sending in all the supplies. They're trading the cartels how to make the world's most potent fentanyl.
01:33:19.380Actually, now now they're teaching them how to make Nidison, which so went from what heroin to fentanyl to Nidison.
01:33:27.720They're behind they're behind that. They're buying all our farmland. They're capturing all of our elites, politicians and just tech gurus.
01:33:37.240I mean, I have to mention the spying this.
01:33:41.020Yeah, I mean, we have our I mean, yeah, that's that's out there, right?
01:33:44.960What's his name was sleeping with a Chinese spy.
01:33:49.620Is that I get I get my far left Democrats confused.
01:33:52.820I can't remember his name, but that's who it was.
01:33:55.580But I mean, they have they have so I mean, look at California.
01:34:00.200From what I understand, all the real estate signs now are all in Chinese.
01:34:03.800And I've always wondered, I mean, you see this massive migration happening all across the country with red states being inundated with people fleeing California, New York, Chicago.
01:34:19.800And I've always wondered, you know, who's buying all this real estate over there?
01:34:24.640If everybody's leaving, who's buying all this real estate?
01:39:01.900in case you haven't noticed, everybody's dying of cancer. Cancer from shit in our foods,1.00
01:39:09.240cancer from shit in the air, cancer from everything. It might be good for us to1.00
01:39:15.740improve the planet a little bit, but that's just my take.
01:39:19.080What if we had a RFKJ in there saying, don't eat that, don't do that, that's not getting a blessing
01:39:24.500anymore, this is a problem over here, that he spent his whole life filing lawsuits against
01:39:29.900people who are polluting our environment in one way, shape, or form. I love that. I realize,
01:39:34.940I mean, he said he would allow abortion until the ninth month, then he walked it back. He's
01:39:40.800not good on my issue, which is women's rights against the crazy trans lobby, but I have more1.00
01:39:47.400issues than just that. So I definitely could vote for RRKJ. I just asked him about the full-term
01:39:53.480abortion thing. I just interviewed him last week, and he told me that the only reason that he would
01:39:59.860go full term would be for the mother if she was going to die. If she, if she, if there was a
01:40:05.560life threatening. So he's arrived at that a little late. Yeah. He told Sage Steele, it's up to the
01:40:10.980mom. Okay. Whatever she wants all the way through ninth month. And then Sage, who's amazing, was
01:40:16.140like, a lot of us get uncomfortable when you say it's okay for a mother just based on her own
01:40:22.320desire to abort a baby at full term. And he answered it again saying, well, I would. Oh,
01:40:27.260really but then all the shit storm came and he walked it back it was like oh never mind gotcha0.95
01:40:33.120i mean i understand if that's your biggest issue and it is for a lot of you know deeply faithful0.84
01:40:38.120people in particular he's out yeah but anyway it all depends on your hierarchy of you know
01:40:45.520principles and i just i love how anti-establishment he is me too man me too so speaking of faith
01:40:53.440you are you've had a bit of a metamorphosis in your own life on this front is that because
01:41:00.520of Katie or is that your own journey that's my own journey and um do you want me to go into it
01:41:08.060yeah okay um well so I interview some really I have some really heavy interviews uh Tyler
01:41:19.320Andrew Vargas was one of them and I mean I it's been a long time since I've seen that and to see
01:41:26.820a 24 year old you know my studios on the second floor and to watch him hobble up there with one
01:41:34.560leg one arm you know it's just it's it got to me and the the day before I interviewed him I
01:41:43.960I interviewed a hacker who had hacked into all these websites and kind of pedophilia websites and downloaded all the user lists, got it to the FBI.
01:41:57.180The FBI did nothing with it until I interviewed him.
01:43:22.000And so we went to Sedona and there was also, what else was happening?
01:43:28.020The Chinese spy balloon just flew over.
01:43:32.500The, I saw, I think it was, was it Reba came out saying,1.00
01:43:38.660I know I think it's freedom of speech that that drag queens should be able to, you know, show up at your town library kids.0.97
01:43:47.000And I'm just and I got to this point where I was like, man, am I the only person that like gives a shit about this stuff that actually cares about kids?0.95
01:43:56.500And like why we just abandoned our allies in Afghanistan and why is there a 24 year old that was blown up unnecessarily?0.97
01:44:05.320I mean, they had the guy P.I.D. in his sights.
01:44:07.800They could have killed that bomber, you know, and now all of his friends are dead.
01:44:13.620And so these are all the things that are going through my head.
01:54:05.160And but then turns out, as it turns out, my entire team, I'm really close with my team, my podcast team, the guys that work for me and make it what it is.
01:54:19.800And it turns out one guy was raised Southern Baptist, super well-versed in the Bible.
01:54:25.320My editor, Darren, grew up a Jehovah's Witness and escaped it, but knows that book from front to back.0.70
01:54:38.120My IT guy, Adam, devout Catholic, knows it all.
01:54:44.940Everything, Elijah, my production manager, he's the Southern Baptist guy.
01:54:49.760And they kind of started pouring into me.
01:54:52.360and a lot of my buddies that were in the SEAL teams,
01:54:57.720Eddie Penny really kind of paved the way for all of this, I think.
01:55:02.420Eddie Penny was a, we were a team two together,
01:55:46.760and uh he goes who he was like oh man he's like a lot of us have been praying for this to happen
01:55:53.680wow and that kind of freaked me i was like well what do you mean and uh he's like we've been
01:55:59.620waiting for this he's like you have a big voice and and this needs to happen and so that was at
01:56:08.100about midnight i'm now i'm getting into some other kind of weird synchronicity uh coincidences
01:56:14.380And so about 12 hours later, I had a meeting that Adam, my IT guy, had scheduled with me at noon.
01:56:24.860And Eddie was telling me during the conversation, he was talking about guardian angels and all this other stuff that was spiritual warfare, stuff that I'd known like nothing about.
01:56:35.140Well, fast forward 12 hours, I'm talking to Adam.
01:59:12.500And man, you know, when you kind of take all of the BS that religion kind of injects into your journey of building a relationship with the creator and Jesus, it's really interesting and it can be a lot of fun.
02:13:03.980You tried to stay up all night so you could look weathered and tired like your character and got a little too method, overslept the alarm, show up an hour and a half late.0.70
02:13:12.800Jennifer Gray is like, what the hell, man?
02:13:14.400but it was a very interesting story you tell you're very insightful about how john hughes
02:13:20.140you saw him you expected he was just going to throw you out of there and you got something
02:13:24.460different i thought he would continue the drubbing that that that she had initiated um but with him
02:13:31.600it it it came to a flintstones halt and um and he just like i i say in the doc and in and and the
02:13:39.780book when he just took one look at me and he literally just said oh good you're here
02:13:44.340let's get started and and just that what what that did for just calming my nerves and and and my
02:13:52.760confidence and and just knowing that i was you know in the presence of a man that didn't care
02:13:57.800about anything that that that led up to the the to the you know the moment that he needed to
02:14:03.720to you know get his director brain around you know um so and then it's it's it's pretty cool
02:14:11.000in the movie you can still see jennifer you can still see the the trailing effects of some of the0.98
02:14:17.040yes some of some of her ire and the animosity and just definitely yes no she was great in that scene
02:14:23.840too and you stole the scene and you could argue you stole the movie and i i thought about that
02:14:30.060with john hughes and i thought okay i understand why he did it because you walk in you're very
02:14:38.340good looking you are like oozing the right attitude for this guy right he's like this is my
02:14:44.600guy this is I need him in this scene and I think like that would come back to help you many times
02:14:49.980your movie star appeal your good looks your charm and but it wasn't always a force for good like
02:14:56.260this these things that would get you a pass from people like John Hughes that happened to you
02:15:00.260repeatedly in your life sound good on paper but like maybe weren't because gave you a feeling of
02:15:07.580invincibility, like you could get away with anything. And maybe that wasn't such a great
02:15:12.760thing for the other piece of Charlie Sheen, which is the addict piece. Yeah, no, certainly was not
02:15:18.980a great thing. I mean, it's nice to be forgiven. Obviously, it's nice to be given second chances
02:15:24.140and all that good stuff. And we touch on this in the doc a little bit. What was interesting that
02:15:31.300That even after not the biggest disasters or, you know, the furthest falls, but there was a pattern of, you know, fucking things up, sending shit off the rails, and then having a job literally on the other side of that event once I had, you know, once I dusted myself off.
02:16:01.300and, you know, got back ready to work.
02:16:06.680So, yeah, so, but, you know, I think there's two sides to that.
02:16:11.880That didn't mean I had to take those jobs,
02:16:15.520but it also didn't mean that they always had to be there.
02:17:34.980And then it's like even talking about, you know, watching dad, you know, with with with his ascent to stardom and his brilliant career and then watching Emilio.
02:17:43.360um it's you you know i thought that that i would have a handle on what that might feel like once
02:17:52.520you know were i fortunate for it to happen to me as well even on a smaller scale at at you know
02:17:59.280just a fraction of what they'd achieved um but there's no way to really prepare anyone for it
02:18:05.640There's no way to, I guess in some way it'd be like asking, you know, Barry Bonds or Hank Aaron, you know, what it actually feels like to hit a home run.
02:18:18.460You know, they can describe the mechanics of it, but they can't really ever put you inside a moment that you have to inhabit to, you know, truly own that experience.
02:18:29.840And so watching it and then living it was a whole different reality.
02:18:37.720But then it's nice to have people you can check in with and say, hey, okay, so this happened with the thing and then I saw how you dealt with that.
02:18:44.280And then any recommendations, any ideas.
02:18:47.420But even the advice sometimes, it's well-intentioned, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be useful.
02:18:58.700And I don't mean that dismissively, just that that, you know, giving people advice for things that they have to experience.
02:19:07.180Yeah, doesn't work. Is that is that is that making sense?
02:19:10.820Is that yeah, we all learn that as parents. We all learn that as parents.
02:19:14.280You know, you want to spare your kids all the pain and anguish you experienced by telling them the life lessons you learned.
02:19:20.520And I mean, I've concluded 15 years in a motherhood.
02:19:23.740It's not a complete waste of time, but it's really close to a waste of time.
02:19:26.800They have to make their own mistakes in order to really learn the lessons.
02:28:53.220It's exhausting. And to always, anytime the phone rings or you see an email from a lawyer or just, or a manager that always talks to that lawyer.
02:29:01.220And it's just, it just got to the point of this, you know, if, if, if this is prison, the only thing that's missing, it's the bars and the guards, you know.
02:29:11.640But, but yeah. And, and, and, you know, I was talking to Emilio and, and, and he said, he said, are you, are you, are you cool that like all this stuff is, you know, is, is out there.
02:29:22.840And like that. And I said, well, you know, I got to be honest, man, it's it feels a lot better, you know, out there than it did in here for so long.
02:29:34.080And the other thing is, like, don't put something in a book and in a doc that come out, you know, a day apart unless you're going to be willing enough, courageous enough, open enough to discuss those things, you know?
02:30:25.560because i guess they never or they didn't see the connection between like okay it goes here
02:30:31.580and then you know and then does that you're it's still you know it's you're responsible for all of
02:30:38.560it and so sometimes you get the annoying publicist who says don't ask about this meanwhile the
02:30:45.920principal is fine asking about it so oftentimes it's a function of that having worked on the
02:30:51.360today show i know that the pr people can be absolutely awful and not they're telling you
02:30:57.040not to ask something like like you've just read it in the book and then you you want to tell them
02:31:02.620but it's here how do i know this i know this because he wrote it like he told me right i
02:31:07.620didn't pull it out of the ether right so yeah that's interesting yeah some are awful i mean
02:31:13.240that that was actually one of the questions i had for you
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02:31:50.220I was on Fox News in 2011 when you had the two and a half men cancellation and the winning and like the super torqued up Charlie with all the testosterone you write about.
02:32:01.360It was something like 4,000, which is, I don't know what number is supposed to be normal, but it's like two digits, not three and not four.
02:32:08.640I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen.
02:32:10.780I'm different. I just have a different constitution.
02:32:12.700I have a different brain. I have a different heart.
02:32:14.120I have a different, you know, I get tiger blood, man.
02:32:16.260You don't worry that you're going to die when you take that many drugs.1.00
02:37:40.880and i put this responsibility on abc yeah but i was working out in a gym and i saw her on a on a
02:37:46.840monitor like up in the corner of the room with the sound off and i knew this interview was coming and
02:37:52.720i didn't know what the hell it was going to turn into but i was i was i was with somebody and i0.98
02:37:58.060said hey what about her she looks pretty smart she looks like she knows what she's doing maybe0.83
02:38:03.280she'll do the interview i mean literally it was like that no research nothing didn't know her
02:38:07.900backstory so she gets just yanked into this thing you know and and and then um i i yeah she she was0.93
02:38:18.320like just front and center for that thing you know she was like putting on the seat belt to do that
02:38:23.880interview so exactly yeah i want to talk about sobriety because i think it's sure kind of
02:38:29.580interesting how it happened for you but before i get to that the hero in this story after you
02:38:36.100for rescuing yourself from your addictions or at least from the active addiction is your dad
02:38:43.640and i just like to me i i have such empathy for him because charlie i will tell you that
02:38:51.420i lost my sister at age 58 two years ago a couple years ago and thank you and she she was an addict
02:38:59.900and she had a lifetime of similar problems with her it started as a prescription pill that she
02:39:05.440was given and like when i i saw the number of times your dad intervened and tried so hard
02:39:11.480sometimes he did the right things sometimes it was questionable what he did but what i saw was
02:39:16.440this extremely loving father who really wanted you to stop doing drugs who desperately wanted
02:39:22.860you to get better and didn't totally know how to stop it and then i saw he didn't participate in
02:39:28.880the documentary and neither did emilio and i know you say it's because they watched the rough and
02:39:33.140they said you you got it all covered but i did wonder is that the full story or do you think
02:39:40.120there's like a lingering resentment at all there because i i certainly think in my family having an
02:39:46.420addict is like having a nuclear bomb go off in your nuclear family and there can be lingering
02:39:51.100resentments interesting yeah no i i i think that's all face value i think that's all face value with
02:39:58.060because i was in the room with them watching both of their reactions to the rough cut and they
02:40:05.100they they couldn't have been more excited or passionate about it or celebrating it more and
02:40:10.920and dad was just like i'm i'm in this i'm already in this start to finish and amelia was like geez
02:40:17.380i i don't know what i could possibly contribute beyond what charlie's already doing and i just i
02:40:24.020I genuinely think like they didn't want to get in the way or try to tell my stories through their POV, even though that's sometimes, you know, a that's part of how documentaries get to different parts of stories.
02:40:41.940And that's a that's a device that they do lean into.
02:40:46.200But no, I because I think, you know, we started this about two years ago.
02:40:52.260So I was, at that point, clean almost six years.
02:40:57.240And so they knew that I wasn't, you know, I was committed to this thing.
02:44:21.140Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, or Emilio Estevez?
02:44:24.540wow uh gosh i think dad's the best dramatic actor of the three of us i think i may have a
02:44:38.940slight edge in the comedy department right um and i think emilio is more comfortable
02:44:48.260than pop and myself um with romantic stuff i can see that yeah but i didn't answer your question
02:44:58.440did i okay we didn't go better or best you know like who's gonna get the lifetime achievement
02:45:05.520award i uh hopefully pop because you know what i'm saying i mean he's he yeah but um i think
02:45:15.020there's things that he he can do that emilio and i can't stuff emilio can do that pop and i can't
02:45:21.120and then finish that triad with the other two that can't yep you know the scene of course in
02:45:27.760wall street with you and your dad i told you not to get into that racket in the first place you
02:45:32.920could have been a doctor or a lawyer you write about you write as follows uh there are a few
02:45:39.140moments with dad in that film that had flashes of promise from my end he was his usual fabulous
02:45:45.880self and i was doing whatever i could to not vanish on screen next to him i mean how special
02:45:53.180was it that you had that feeling about him and working with him and in part that was portrayed
02:46:00.560in the relationship you know between bud fox and his dad in the movie itself right right right no
02:46:07.200it was it was it was it was an incredible experience um i you know little little pieces
02:46:13.000of regret throughout that um that i could have been more present that i could have been
02:46:18.900just more more dialed in more professional i think what's what's i think covered nicely in
02:46:24.920the book is that you know platoon is still burning down the box office when when we start wall street
02:46:31.140And so there was a lot of distraction. I wanted the party to keep going. And I think that I mentioned something about just wanting to be playfully drunk on a fancy boat in tropical waters with beautiful women, not working again, stuff like that.
02:46:54.100So there was a lot of distractions doing that.
02:46:59.880So some of the stuff with dad, and he was well aware of it.
02:47:04.520And so he was, I think, just hoping for a more focused me.
02:47:10.240And that's why I talk about doing my best to not vanish on screen next to him, talent-wise, but also just, you know, where my head was at, you know.