00:03:49.700but i can't spit without hitting fucking 12 data centers from my apartment and like we lose power0.99
00:03:57.620sometimes the water turns brown like they're not it's not look it's not a good thing what did you0.97
00:04:03.980know it's interesting i was reading the other day i mean the jaw-dropping percentage 25 percent
00:04:09.360of the electricity consumption the entire consumption in the state is just data centers
00:04:15.160where you are which is insane how the hell did that when did that start happening would it just
00:04:20.120sneak up on everybody or what was his intentional policy of the last governor what what what's the
00:04:25.320origin story i i mean they started under um the previous governor um and they just it was like
00:04:34.060they were building them 12 at a time i mean it wasn't i mean they i literally like i'm not
00:04:39.440exaggerating like i am surrounded on four sides by um by data centers it's like all over like
00:04:48.080loudon county um i mean they're pushing them further and further west and like ironically
00:04:54.240like you know the rural communities which went heavy for trump and and um always go republican
00:05:01.700are like up in arms about it and i'm like well you know yep and you've i mean legitimately
00:05:09.020I don't want to even go down this rabbit hole, but it's such a timely topic, obviously huge out here.
00:05:13.660We're sort of the, you know, talk about the innovation in that space.
00:05:16.800But we haven't had the massive hyperscale data centers, ironically, in California.
00:05:21.400They're just we have a lot of smaller ones and we've had hundreds of smaller ones over the course of decades.
00:05:26.300And they've been kind of they haven't gotten a lot of attention.
00:05:28.780We have a few large ones that are now being promoted along the lines of what we've seen all across the country.
00:05:34.060But it's interesting. You're a case study. You're in the center of it.
00:05:37.040But was there any, I mean, legitimately any public input? Was there any, would anyone reach out, say what the hell you think when these things were being cited and zoned?
00:05:46.440No. I mean, I know there was like some there were some angry town hall meetings with like Republican members of Congress that just stopped having town hall meetings or state, you know, state representatives that just stopped having town hall meetings around them.
00:06:07.180And they always, you know, they always push it as like job builders or like job, you know, creators.
00:06:13.280But I know guys that, you know, that work in the trades that literally build these things.
00:06:19.140And they're like, you know, there's there's really not a lot of not going, you know, going into it.
00:06:25.360And then like once we're done building it, you know, the maintenance and the, you know, actual employees and jobs it creates are relatively minimal.
00:06:36.720Yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's a dog and a robot and the robot's there to feed the dog.
00:06:41.300I mean, that's pretty much it after these things are done.
00:06:45.020You know, it's interesting just, you know, for you, this has been a hell of a journey.
00:06:49.080I mean, it goes back to the book, Hold the Line, which you wrote a couple of years back,
00:06:52.000I think, what, 2022, and, you know, your own history, your own life.
00:06:56.920I mean, the idea that, you know, not just we be doing this podcast, you're doing your
00:07:00.880own show on YouTube now, which you started last year.
00:07:03.740I mean, in a million years, I imagine just from where you're sitting, the last thing you thought you'd be doing is the kind of stuff you're doing today.
00:07:12.880Did you expect us to, you know, keep adequate to 30 years, not just 20 years as a cop?
00:07:18.320What would you think your design, what was your life looking like?
00:07:22.020You know, what did you expect to be at this point in your life?
00:07:24.620I mean, I thought I was going to die a cop.
00:07:26.160um i i thought that i would spend 35 40 years as a dc cop um because i love the job i love the people
00:07:37.060that i worked with um but that that's just like i mean that's how i identified myself like that's
00:07:44.060who i was so i felt like you know i was just gonna be one of those guys that worked forever
00:07:50.520and um and I was fine with that like I looked forward to every day that uh that I showed up
00:07:58.240um you know until the last day so and Michael you were legit I mean it was I mean 9-11 was
00:08:07.040the inspiration that was sort of the trigger that you said man I need to serve I need to do something
00:08:11.280oh 100 percent I mean I remember exactly where I was I was at 13th and G Street Northwest
00:08:16.340um i was uh working construction at the time i was in the trades i was a carpenter with the
00:08:23.520united brotherhood of carpenters and joiners yeah and um we were subsurface level at the time and
00:08:29.760we came up for our nine uh 9 a.m smoke break and um one of my buddies was an electrician
00:08:36.240and he was uh he had one of those old like motorola brick phones and he was playing this
00:08:42.540like grainy voicemail message from, um, from his girlfriend. It was like her screaming on the phone
00:08:48.340that planes had hit the towers. And, uh, I remember he made this like off color comment about, you
00:08:56.060know, his girlfriend probably shouldn't be drinking that early in the morning. And, um, it turned out
00:09:02.060that it was, you know, very real. We started hearing air, you know, the air sirens, air
00:09:08.000horns coming through the city, police officers driving everywhere. And my dad at the time was
00:09:13.180an attorney working for a law firm in DC and his office space was right across the street. And so
00:09:20.500the first place I went when they shut down the job site, I walked right across and took the elevator
00:09:26.760up to his office and everybody was gathered inside of one of the conference rooms and they were
00:09:32.340watching it on a television. And it was just completely surreal. I mean, you had this room
00:09:36.780full of, you know, 150 attorneys and paralegals that were, you know, dumbstruck. And it was not
00:09:50.540even a month, two months later that I got hired with U.S. Capitol Police and was on my way down
00:09:57.300to Glencoe, Georgia for training with the federal at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.
00:10:04.360And that was, I mean, some of the conflation with you is a lot of people, they think about you in relationship to January 6th.
00:10:12.440A lot of people assume you were a police officer still at the Capitol when you were actually doing the D.C. Metro work.
00:10:18.720You were doing, what, narcotics, a lot of undercover work.
00:10:22.060What were you doing at the exact time?
00:10:24.480Yeah, so I spent a year, in fact, a year to the day at U.S. Capitol Police.
00:10:29.760And I figured out pretty quickly that I love the career of law enforcement. I did not like working at the Capitol. And I got to be honest with you, like no offense to politicians out there. But, you know, obviously one of our big responsibilities as a U.S. Capitol police officer is you got to be willing to like trade your life for, you know, for the people that work in that space.
00:10:53.240You weren't that impressed with everybody?
00:10:54.600No, not at all. So my disdain for politics and politicians started at an early age. And, you know, I got to see a lot of the behind the scenes and it ain't pretty.
00:11:10.000People just treating you like just treating you like shit.1.00
00:11:13.040Like shit. Yeah, absolutely. And so I got out of there. I joined the Metropolitan Police Department, D.C. Police, which is the more traditional law enforcement agency in Washington, D.C.1.00
00:11:29.040You know, essentially, if you call 911 in D.C., we're the ones that show up.
00:11:34.040That being said, I did like a very short stint in patrol in uniform and and found that, you know, as a 22 year old, 23 year old who was very much an adrenaline junkie, narcotics was like right up my alley.
00:11:50.140And, uh, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. And, um, you know, as my, uh, my buddy who
00:11:56.880joined, who came from Capitol police and joined MPD with me, and I later would serve alongside of
00:12:02.360inside the, uh, lower West Terrace tunnel on January 6th, Ramey Kyle. Uh, we used to joke
00:12:08.120all the time with each other. We would do this job for free. You loved it that much. And you did
00:12:12.360it what? 20, 20-ish years, right? 20 years. Yep. Yeah. Amazing. And mostly undercover,
00:12:18.120obviously some criminal work but you you talk about your own journey in the book uh obviously
00:12:22.680you know being an adrenaline junkie and you know but but also you know empathy that you developed
00:12:28.480over time and you you actually have some wonderful stories of some of the folks uh that you got to
00:12:33.420know out there informants and and their own journeys and uh and and the notion of you know
00:12:38.360of de-escalation in the context of you know a more of a dominance mindset that yeah everything
00:12:44.860And everything I learned about being a cop did not come from the academy or any of my instructors.
00:12:51.620Everything I learned about being a cop came from mentors and colleagues.
00:12:56.780But I think more importantly, it came from like early on, I had a mentor, a guy named Joe Abdallah, who to me was like the Babe Ruth of narcotics.
00:13:08.200and um joe told me that you know as a narcotics officer you're only as good as your informants
00:13:15.120and you got to treat these people like you know gold um and so i um i developed an informant
00:13:24.640pretty early on in my career her name was leslie parkins i talk about her a lot in the book um0.50
00:13:29.960But she was my biggest teacher. I'm a white guy from the suburbs who's now policing inner city Washington, D.C., which obviously everyone knows is predominantly black and brown communities.
00:13:48.700I knew nothing about the culture, but more importantly, I knew nothing about what it's like to be poor, like really fucking poor and and how that was a huge motivating factor for the vast majority of of people that I interacted with that were committing crimes.
00:14:10.680And so like going from this mentality that like criminals are inherently bad people to recognizing the fact that like most of these people are just trying to survive.0.99
00:14:23.140And, you know, listen, I encountered my fair share of like evil motherfuckers.0.98
00:14:29.380But, you know, most of these guys and gals that were out there were just just trying to feed themselves, feed their families.0.99
00:14:36.300And, you know, and, you know, in narcotics, you learn feed their addictions. And so that that was important, because like you said, it it taught, you know, a 22 year old kid compassion and empathy for the people that that I was interacting with on a daily basis.
00:14:54.720And it made me an effective cop and a successful police officer.
00:15:01.340And so a few decades of doing that and politics for you, I mean, you write a little bit about it.
00:15:06.360I mean, you weren't, you know, wasn't, you didn't wear it on your, your, your sleeves.
00:15:09.980I mean, obviously you had a, I imagine a bias and we, you know, fast forward, you supported Trump in 2016, but was, were you politically, you know, motivated or were you just, was that, was that a big part of the job politics?
00:15:26.500I mean, obviously playing, you know, you have sort of a neutral understanding or appreciation of political representatives, but so that's more just apolitical.
00:15:42.880I don't remember having a single solitary politically motivated or involved conversation with any one of my colleagues prior to 2015-2016 election cycle.
00:16:01.020I mean, I grew up in a very democratic household.
00:16:04.340You know, one of the things that I think I love the most about my father is despite his success, he never lost sight of of his, you know, his roots and his upbringing, which, you know, his his father immigrated here from Italy.
00:16:19.780My grandmother also immigrated from Italy during World War II to flee fascism and Nazi occupation.
00:16:30.880They came here. They ended up in just outside of Pittsburgh by way of Ellis Island.
00:16:38.520And my grandfather worked in the steel mills in Sharon, Pennsylvania for 43 years, raised a family, helped put my father through school.
00:16:48.720My father worked in the steel mills as well to put himself through undergraduate and then graduate or law school, became a successful attorney, but always voted Democrat.
00:17:02.520And so, yeah, that Democratic politics were a part of the household.
00:17:08.120But then, you know, I I dropped out of high school when I was almost 17 and then went to work in the trades and lived on my own.
00:17:18.020And so I don't like, again, I voted in presidential elections, never voted in, you know, any other
00:17:29.140And that was, you know, that there was no political bias.
00:17:33.560Like I just didn't, wasn't really politically engaged.
00:17:39.440No, I mean, but in 2016, I mean, it's an important part of the narrative because, I mean,
00:17:44.500And, you know, eventually what you did and how you took it on the chin literally and figuratively and you stood up, you know, people always, you know, try to tack you for political bias, which is a lot.
00:17:58.280Yeah, no, I got like I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and I'm pretty open about why I voted for him.
00:18:04.100I think like a lot of specifically being in the career of law enforcement, you had all these polarizing incidents that were occurring across the country that were garnering national attention.0.98
00:18:18.480And rightfully so involving law enforcement officers and communities of color, specifically the killing of members of, you know, of these communities.0.97
00:18:30.020And it brought about this national conversation. And I thought that politicians had a responsibility to facilitate these conversations in a transparent and a productive way.0.98
00:18:46.320And what I saw, at least from my perspective, and this was skewed, I think, to an extent by like Fox News and some of these other right leaning media organizations, I saw Democrats using that to score political points rather than to try to have real conversations.
00:19:06.100I mean, obviously, my perception and perspective has changed dramatically, but that's how I saw things at the time. And it was like one political party was attacking us and the other political party was validating and embracing us.
00:19:20.820And so I obviously, you know, I went to to the Republican Party and supported not so much Trump, but I supported the Republican Party and obviously voted for Trump.
00:19:34.440I quickly learned my lesson. I mean, it wasn't it didn't take long for me to see the error of my ways.
00:19:44.280Yeah. Well, we'll get to that in a moment.
00:19:48.820And, again, I think the origin story is important because, you know, again, people just assuming you were a Capitol Police officer at the time of January 6th,
00:19:57.080you did spend a little bit of time there, but you were spending, again, we established more time, obviously, over 20 years, plus or minus, as a D.C. officer.
00:20:06.380But you were there on on January 6th on your own, meaning you were not assigned to be there.
00:20:14.780You went up to the Capitol. You were what were you doing that day?
00:20:18.740You were your mom's. Tell us a little bit about what happened that day.
00:20:24.480Well, I'll start with physically where I was. I was living with my mother at the time.
00:20:30.820I'd gone through like a pretty nasty breakup maybe six months earlier.
00:20:35.600And, um, I, I just wasn't in a financial position to get my own place at the time.
00:20:42.020And so I ended up moving with him with my mom, which was probably the best thing that
00:20:45.860could have happened, given the fact that, you know, everything that happened on January
00:20:49.4206th and actually having somebody there to support me, um, was, uh, was, was tremendous.
00:20:56.320Uh, that being said, uh, I was working for the DC police.
00:21:03.380I was assigned to a narcotics unit. We called it the crime suppression team. Each district has their own. I was assigned to the first district. That's where I spent my entire career working out of the first district.
00:21:18.260And we were involved, our office was involved in a narcotics investigation, and that was what was, you know, on the dry erase board for the day, so to speak. Like, we were going to be doing a drug buy. I was going to be working with, you know, my longtime informant, Leslie Perkins, and we were going to be buying heroin together out of a house in southeast or southwest Washington, D.C.
00:21:42.160um obviously things didn't turn out that way um and yeah i um i made the decision you know when i
00:21:54.500heard the the calls the distress calls coming out from the capitol from officers that they were
00:22:00.060being overrun that they were being assaulted and i made the decision to put a uniform on and uh and
00:22:06.020respond to the capitol so you were undercover you were in your undercover garb so to speak but then
00:22:11.780you decided to put the uniform on what was this a couple hours after an hour after you started
00:22:16.200hearing the distress calls how what was the sort of the timeline when you started hearing things
00:22:20.700were starting to get out of control up there so it was after the initial breach was like 1 p.m
00:22:26.260so what and my shift started at three so i actually got in the car at like 1 p.m or shortly
00:22:32.360before that and started heading uh it was when i was getting calls from uh from other officers
00:22:39.720namely my partner, Jimmy, who was telling me that, you know, he was hearing these reports that
00:22:45.400a large, you know, contingent of the Stop the Steal rally had broken off and about 10,000,
00:22:53.68015,000 people were marching down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol. And that's what I
00:22:58.100was like, all right, this is something, you know, this is not normal. We don't see this. We see
00:23:03.880First Amendment assemblies protest every single day in Washington, D.C. We don't see something
00:23:08.920like this. And I had, I tuned in, like, I knew what the rhetoric that was being used at that
00:23:14.060rally. I heard the president say, you know, fight like hell, or you're not going to have a country
00:23:18.540anymore. I heard, you know, Giuliani and, and all the others with, you know, um, so I knew what,
00:23:26.540you know, the condition that that crowd was most likely in. And, uh, and I knew people that, um,
00:23:32.660you know, that had that mentality. I, you know, I, I'm sure that, uh, that I knew some of the
00:23:37.660folks that were at that rally. And so I understood the mental state, so to speak, that they were in,
00:23:47.800that they really believed that this election had been stolen. And they believed that their actions
00:23:53.760were not just validated, but that they were actually receiving orders from their commander
00:24:02.160in chief. Uh, and so I knew how dangerous that combination could be. And, um, and I went there
00:24:09.120to be useful. Um, and, and I ultimately responded because I wanted, um,
00:24:21.840I, you know, as a cop, it's like the most fundamental principle that when another cop
00:24:28.980is in in distress you drop everything and you go and so that's you know that was so ingrained in me
00:24:37.240and i think it's just part of the um the character of of a police officer uh and so that that's what
00:24:46.740i did and i i'm not like the only one like there were hundreds of cops that self-deployed to the
00:24:52.620capitol that day yeah which i don't think people fully appreciate i mean how many folks came up
00:24:57.080there and a variant on a mutual aid framework. Were you guys getting briefed the week, you know,
00:25:03.540leaning up to this? I mean, you had Bannon out there promoting the hell out of this. You started
00:25:07.860to see, I mean, obviously online, you started to see this thing getting dialed up. You mentioned
00:25:13.140that you obviously were paying attention, but was it deeply briefed, you know, morning meetings
00:25:18.980with the DC folks? I mean, were you guys on sort of soft, you know, deployment status or
00:25:26.440Or was it, you know, just status quo ante, you're about to do your day job undercover,
00:25:31.800and you didn't necessarily think you'd be pulled into this?
00:25:34.620Yeah, I mean, listen, like, we had, so the way that the staffing works for these types
00:25:38.660of events is that, like, we have what's called civil disturbance units, CDU squads.
00:25:47.100I'm sure you guys have permanent, you know, CDU units at the California State Police.
00:25:53.020But we have the same thing in the city.
00:25:54.300But then when we have large scale events like this, we'll pull from patrol, we'll pull from other assignments.
00:26:01.540So we had guys that were in my office that had already been retasked that day and assigned to district CDU units.
00:26:09.620And so they were, you know, deployed throughout the city.
00:26:12.840Our focus that day as the Metropolitan Police Department was on potential unrest between Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, you know, these right wing violent extremist groups and counter protesters.
00:26:27.700And so we had assumed, I think, as a department that we would see that type of violence at places like Black Lives Matter Park.
00:26:40.700And so we had units that were deployed there, but they were deployed throughout the city.
00:26:47.700We aren't responsible for the Capitol.
00:26:52.740i received my briefing ironically from steve bannon and all the crazy ass fucking posts that0.99
00:27:00.200he put out and um the shit that he was writing on breitbart um like that's where i learned that0.99
00:27:06.680that this was even going to be a thing uh you know we i don't know you know like i'm sure you've seen0.98
00:27:12.600some of the briefings from law enforcement i'm sure you've seen probably thousands of them as
00:27:16.720the governor of california they're always very sterile and there's there you know and so it was
00:27:22.360like, today, there will be a protest held at the Ellipse. And there wasn't, I don't even think they
00:27:30.820named the protest. And so, you know, that was the information that was disseminated to the
00:27:38.040Metropolitan Police Department. Not that it's really that necessary to know, you know, the
00:27:43.120political makeup of a potential rally, but there was no, like, you know, we anticipate acts of
00:27:49.760violence uh that was incorporated into that um into that briefing it was more just like this is
00:27:55.900what's happening this is the times that it's happening and as a narcotics officer that was0.94
00:28:01.920like that uh sheet went right in the fucking file 13 in the trash basket the moment i received it0.92
00:28:09.180so it was like the last thing that i was thinking about that day amen so you get up there that day0.95
00:28:15.700And just, you know, you just what you pull up, you're walking around, you're just trying to be useful or do you get pulled right in right away?
00:28:23.440I mean, what was, you know, set the scene when you when you arrived?
00:28:26.500Oh, man. I mean, people should watch my my body worn camera.
00:28:30.080It's all over the Internet. But me and my partner, Jimmy, are like walking around just kind of like two idiots touring the Capitol.1.00
00:28:37.360And then we made our way to we kind of got there every place we got to until we made our way to the Lower West Terrace Tunnel.0.99
00:28:46.900We like missed all the action by like 30 seconds.
00:28:50.720And so, you know, we made our way through the south, the south entrance to the capital.
00:28:56.020We walked through. I forget the name of the hallway, but there's like a bunch of statues of old white motherfuckers in there.1.00
00:29:02.780Uh, and we made our way to, uh, the, the crypt, which is, um, in the rotunda it's beneath0.99
00:31:37.320And your first, I mean, you describe it so vividly
00:31:41.320and we've obviously watched you describe it,
00:31:43.560You write about it in your book as well.
00:31:46.080And, you know, how your badge was torn, body camera, obviously the physical impacts.
00:31:54.320We'll get to, you know, the mental side of this a little bit later.
00:31:57.940But what could just sort of fast forward?
00:32:01.260I mean, was it a blur just out of nowhere, just went from that scene you just described
00:32:07.040to total chaos to sort of waking up from a dream?
00:32:10.520I mean, how would you describe just that time from that moment you walked down to the tunnel to, you know, when the aftermath, the dust is settling?
00:32:20.900Everything to a point is incredibly vivid.
00:32:23.820I mean, when I sit here and I recount it, it's like I'm actually there and I could see everything.
00:32:32.600I mean, I remember. I remember standing in the back of all these officers and thinking to myself, like, these guys have been here now at that point, I think it was around 3 p.m.
00:32:44.300They had been there fighting for two hours nonstop with no relief.
00:32:51.960And I was like, well, I just got here. I'm going to get to the front.
00:32:57.480And and I remember turning to Jimmy and telling him, like, we need to get to the front.
00:33:01.460Like, we just got here. And then we make our way to the front. And while we're making our way through this, you know, pack of officers, we're calling out, like, if anybody needs help.
00:33:15.540And I just remember like looking and, you know, just kind of coming face to face with some of the cops and looking through their little plexiglass face shield and you could see them bleeding.
00:33:26.800Some of the guys were, you know, couldn't breathe.
00:33:46.440fucking idiot but uh so yeah it was really difficult to breathe um and i mean these guys1.00
00:33:56.460just look like they had been getting their asses kicked for for hours and and a lot of them had and1.00
00:34:02.180i i think you know one of the things that's missed is uh you can't see it on my body-worn camera but0.98
00:34:06.760But when you're walking down through that tunnel, there are adjacent tunnels leading off of that.
00:34:15.220And they were littered with injured police officers that were exchanging equipment with other police officers who had either had their equipment taken from them or weren't equipped with, you know, with riot gear.
00:34:29.280And and that's something that, you know, I'll never, never forget that that scene, because, you know, in a normal.
00:34:36.760quote unquote law enforcement scenario, these guys would be transported away from the scene
00:34:43.180in an ambulance. Um, but this was like a battle. Um, it was much more in line with, you know,
00:34:51.160what I would describe as a military engagement, not a law enforcement situation because
00:34:56.900we couldn't get, um, medical assistance into the facility because the scene wasn't secure for
00:35:03.720hours, six hours. And so I made my way to the front of the stack. I remember coming face to
00:35:14.960face with, you know, with the insurrectionists, the rioters. And all of a sudden, I remember
00:35:24.040saying, we've got injured officers here, we need to shut these doors, which there were there were
00:35:30.500two doors that had been pulled open and all hell broke loose. And it was, you know, you can't
00:35:42.240really use the word fighting because you, I mean, I couldn't even, there wasn't even enough room to
00:35:47.960pull and throw a punch. Like it was just body against body, you know, like I described it as
00:35:55.500like a medieval battle scene. I mean, you were just, you were using your body weight to try to
00:36:00.540repel these people from the tunnel. Um, and it was them versus us in this kind of heave-ho
00:36:06.720exchange that, that seemed to last forever. Um, and somehow, you know, the, the 50 some odd of us
00:36:14.820managed to, uh, to gain ground and, and push these guys out of, uh, out of the tunnel.
00:36:19.640Unfortunately, being in the front of that, you know, that train didn't exactly stop on a dime, and I ended up getting pushed out through the mouth of the tunnel. And at one point, there was a guy, Albuquerque Cosper Head from Tennessee.
00:36:34.220He was one of the rioters who put me in a headlock and pulled me off the police line out into the crowd. And he's the guy that if you guys watch, you can hear him on the body cam yell out, I've got one, I've got one.
00:36:50.760and um that that was like you know a very surreal oh shit moment where it seemed like time stood0.89
00:37:01.240still uh i remember his face vividly um i could smell the uh mint skull on his breath that's how0.58
00:37:11.760close we were and um and that was uh you know at that point i was pulled out uh i was restrained
00:37:22.880i was beaten um you know i had one individual um kyle young tried to remove my my firearm from
00:37:32.240its holster um another individual from the great state of california daniel rodriguez
00:37:39.840uh used a stun gun um and uh applied it to my neck multiple times um and uh yeah that's kind of um
00:37:53.600at one point i do remember yelling uh that i have kids and i think that was
00:38:04.280me trying to survive um you know obviously i do have kids i have four daughters i probably would
00:38:13.120have said it if i was uh if i had none um but uh you know it worked uh it did appeal to uh
00:38:22.600to some of them um but it you know i people need to understand like in that in those moments
00:38:30.340some of these guys were trying to, you know, prevent people from assaulting me while others
00:38:37.640were still trying to assault me. And that continued all the way up until I was returned to the police
00:38:43.440line, which I like at that point, you know, I don't remember very much of anything. The next
00:38:52.760thing I remember vividly is walking back to, uh, to my police cruiser with my partner, Jimmy and
00:39:00.600him projectile vomiting all over the sidewalk in front of the Longworth house office building.
00:39:06.600Um, and after that, he drove me to, uh, Washington hospital center. And, um, that's where I was told,
00:39:14.460uh, in the emergency room that, uh, that I had suffered a heart attack, um, that my troponin
00:39:21.380levels had spiked significantly, that I had a cardiac event, and I was admitted to the hospital.
00:39:28.180I was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. I like to eat well, but after work,
00:39:34.580after errands, after everything else, cooking just doesn't happen. That's why I started using
00:39:39.760Factor. Factor delivers fresh, never frozen, ready to eat meals. Designed by dietitians for
00:39:45.260balanced nutrition that actually fits my life. No prep, no cleanup, just heat, eat, and move on.
00:39:51.900And just like that, I get my time back. No dishes, no poor choices, no dinner stress. I don't have to
00:39:58.380plan. And somehow I'm still eating meals like grilled salmon, creamy shrimp pasta, and flavorful
00:40:04.460chicken bowls. Food that tastes like I worked for it, even though, well, I didn't. Factor helps me
00:40:10.400stay on track. High protein, low carb, no dairy, whatever the goal. Try Factor with one of their
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00:40:30.420Factormeals.ca. Hey, I'm Ruby Carr, the host of the podcast Encore. Check out our brand new
00:40:36.400episodes featuring music from the show that everyone is reheating as we speak heated rivalry
00:40:42.260join me as i go behind the songs that brought shane and elia together i'll tell you the stories
00:40:47.340of vice my moon my man wolf parades i'll believe in anything and tattoos all the things she said
00:40:53.040and how they all became a part of this global phenomenon stream encore on iheart radio crave
00:40:58.820or wherever you get your podcasts what's up fam i'm sports journalist ari chambers hey what's up
00:43:00.020Listen to Podlandia A.O. Rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:43:11.980Mike, I appreciate you recounting for the 88th time or this, but it's so, and the reason, and forgive me, the reason I think it's important is people have forgotten, man.
00:43:23.900I mean, they just have forgotten it or they don't want to talk about it and they don't want to even relive it in any way, shape or form.
00:43:31.580Or they never, you know, took the time to hear your story in a more personal way.
00:43:36.740It became so political, including, by the way, today, you know, I can't even conceive.
00:43:41.520I think it was what yesterday, Judge Mehta, who was the one who originally sentenced.0.58
00:43:46.900You talk about Proud Boys Oath Keepers.
00:43:49.420I think, you know, it was an 18 year sentence, a jury finding these guys guilty, Stuart and these guys, but officially said this book chapter of this book is over yesterday as it relates to the seditious conspiracy because of the actions of President Trump.
00:44:07.920I just, you know, how do you this thing doesn't go away for you. And yesterday, I imagine, was just another, you know, gut punch where this thing concluded in some respects.
00:44:19.840Yeah, I was a cop for 20 years. Like being disappointed in the criminal justice system is nothing new for me. That being said, the most difficult aspect to deal with is the politicization of of January 6th.
00:44:39.860That there's one segment of the country that either doesn't believe that it happened, believes that it was, you know, a false flag operation, or that, you know, which I think is probably the worst of the three that, you know, that these individuals are heroes and patriots that stormed the Capitol and assaulted police officers, myself included.
00:45:03.200All of that because of one man, Donald Trump. Donald Trump orchestrated the event. He influenced it. And then he's the one that is most responsible for politicizing the event.
00:45:24.960I mean, it's it's funny, you know, not to bring politics into the conversation too much, but you hear all the time like, oh, Democrats want to talk about January 6th, Democrats want to talk about January 6th.0.85
00:45:37.040We're fucking like six years out. And, you know, the only people that are really talking about January 6th are Donald Trump, Republicans and, you know, his attorney general, who's really his personal attorney cosplaying as the attorney general Todd Blanche.
00:45:54.960I mean, obviously, we should talk about the weaponization fund and how Donald Trump wanted to use $1.776 billion of taxpayer money to pay off violent criminals.
00:46:15.220something I'm still I'll be honest with you I'm not convinced Todd Blanche can sign in whatever
00:46:21.380letter he wants I don't believe for one second that those individuals are not going to receive
00:46:27.400monetary compensation one because there's already a mechanism through the tort claims act
00:46:35.120which would allow each of them to apply individually this slush fund essentially
00:46:41.000would just make it easier to process. And so, you know, American taxpayers be warned,
00:46:50.300your hard earned money is going to go to paying off violent criminals, many of whom
00:46:55.580have already found themselves back into, you know, into the criminal justice system
00:47:01.020for some pretty heinous crimes. Upwards of 100, I think just shy of 100 child molestation and
00:47:08.900reckless. I mean, all kinds of horrific crimes. Almost one out of every 16 of these guys
00:47:14.860are backing these great people. Yeah, exactly. It debunks the claim that all along that these
00:47:21.900were great Americans that were simply inspired by what they saw as this horrendous corruption.
00:47:30.140uh and yeah they these were just criminals who were predisposed to committing acts of violence
00:47:37.760who you know somebody said go be violent for me and and they went and uh you know we're we're
00:47:45.320violent um that's it it's as simple as that michael did you ever imagine i mean obviously
00:47:51.040when trump got back into office you had you know he was saying a lot of stuff on the campaign trail
00:47:56.580He was talking about potentially doing commutations, pardons for a lot of these guys.
00:48:00.820Did you ever imagine it at the scale that he would do it universally for every damn one of these guys and do it so quickly in the term?
00:48:10.160Or were you absolutely convinced of that?
00:48:11.860So I remember another vivid memory of mine is is watching Donald Trump announce his his candidacy for his second term from Waco, Texas, which, for those of you who don't remember, is the the scene of a violent confrontation between fringe extremists, armed extremists and American law enforcement officers,
00:48:39.820which cost the lives of quite a few of my former colleagues. And so he promised then
00:48:48.720that he was going to pardon the patriots from January 6th. And I remember my mom looking at
00:48:53.900me and saying, like, he can't do that. I was like, oh, he can and he will. And I knew when
00:49:00.340he announced his candidacy after four years of the Biden presidency, not that I was disappointed
00:49:09.180with biden as a president other than his selection of merrick garland for attorney general um but
00:49:15.500i knew just from you know talking to people and and continuing conversations and even speaking
00:49:22.240to former colleagues of mine who after enduring january 6 still voted for donald trump again
00:49:29.640which is that to me is like the eighth wonder of the world like i will never understand
00:49:34.740uh you know that uh whatever that is but uh they did it and it was
00:49:42.200yeah i mean um i i knew right then and there like that uh he was going to get elected and
00:49:49.360that he was going to pardon everybody um you know from uh from january 6th and he did a hell
00:49:55.600of a thing you think you're reminding us i mean he very intentionally picked waco as a statement
00:50:00.280And then, of course, he had the J6 National Anthem as well throughout the campaign.
00:50:06.380I mean, how did that land to you, for you?
00:50:10.560I just, like, I mean, there's a, and this is probably going to end up being one of the most used words besides the F word in this podcast, but surreal.
00:50:25.100Like, it just, it's like, you can't, it was like, I don't know, like an SNL skit, but it was horrifying because it was, you knew that it was reality.
00:50:53.820Like who had known that idiocracy was a documentary about MAGA and the Trump administration. And it's like that, but imagine if that was reality, like how horrifying that is. Yeah, I mean, it was just, it was absurd and terrifying all at the same time.
00:51:11.600And then, you know, and not to jump around, but in the timeline here, but fast forward to when he actually to January 20th, 2025, when he actually pardoned these individuals, like that to me was not so much the pardons was scary.
00:51:35.300But the idea that as somebody who had been a law enforcement officer for 20 years, like this was the first moment in which I knew that the criminal justice system that I had served, that I was now a target of that criminal justice system.
00:51:53.560Yeah. You know, I remember. Panicking that, you know, what do I what what can I do to protect not just myself, but my family?
00:52:02.860I mean, at that point, we had endured almost countless death threats.
00:52:07.400My mother had been physically confronted on multiple occasions.0.96
00:52:12.520She actually had to sell her home and move because of the amount of threats and people showing up at her house.
00:52:19.480And so I went to get restraining orders against the individuals who had pled guilty to violently assaulting me.
00:52:28.440And, you know, I remember contacting the Department of Justice, my victim advocate, and saying, you know, hey, listen, I need to get their home addresses because they have to be served.
00:52:49.480Wow. So, you know, I mean, so just the indignity over and over and over again that continues to your point to this day, because, as you say, Trump continues to bring up January 6th and the Republican Party continues to bring it up and whitewash this.
00:53:08.180And you had some more interesting and colorful interactions recently as it relates to some of this that continues.
00:53:25.760But, you know, the issue of the fund, it's just, you know, to your point, it was 1776.
00:53:34.280I mean, this idea, that's another just everything about this is an SNL script.
00:53:38.060Everything about this is just it's just, you know, anyway, that's, you know, we can excuse a quote unquote Trump being Trump.0.99
00:53:45.980But again, from your prism, from your perspective, and as a guy who loves our country, hell, from our collective perspective, this is serious shit.0.99
00:53:54.660In fact, you mentioned the Rodriguez guy.0.99
00:53:56.960I mean, we felt a little powerless here in California.
00:54:03.640But if anyone does get any settlements in California, and they're California residents, and we know there are a lot of those 1,600 or so folks that were convicted.
00:54:12.920And as you said, most who pled guilty and many that had juries of their peers that convicted them, that if they do receive any compensation, they'll be taxed at 100 percent as relates to the state taxes.
00:54:27.060I mean, that should have been done by every single Democrat governor across. Abigail Spamberger, if you're watching, you know, you could take a lesson from this guy right here. I mean, that should have been done immediately.
00:54:41.360The moment that they announced that they were going to have this fund, because it's whether the fund is created or not, the money already exists.
00:54:50.240And it's through the Tort Claims Act. People can sue the Department of Justice.
00:54:56.660And, you know, under Todd Blanche, do you really think they're going to put up any level of resistance?
00:55:02.940No, of course not. They're just going to pay them out.
00:55:06.000Um, and so, you know, if, if you want to support law enforcement and protect cops, uh, that should
00:55:13.540be, you know, that should be something that's, that's happening across the board.
00:58:41.040any of you holdouts at the doj my former colleagues because they were the local prosecutors0.99
00:58:47.000for washington dc america fucking hates you you're the enemy um the best thing that you0.98
00:58:53.900could do is quit your job what do you i mean you you keep referring to it i mean all of us0.99
00:59:00.300are trying to understand it i mean is is it just the association with power is it uh it's just the
00:59:06.380privilege of being proximate to power? Is it a personality that is, you know, that is so dominant
00:59:15.320that there's, you know, I mean, you even think about Lindsey Graham and looking for a father
00:59:21.440figure. I mean, what, what, I mean, you talk about the eighth one of the world. Seriously. I mean,
00:59:25.420you've had, you've spent years, I mean, years and years trying to figure this out. And you've got
00:59:30.420friends, as you say, that, you know, in your own department that voted for him again, despite0.99
00:59:36.900the fact that he pardoned all these damn people that attacked police officers. I mean, what do0.97
00:59:41.620you, how do you unpack that? What do you, what is the core here and the essence of why, from your
00:59:48.020perspective? I mean, I'm not a medical professional, but I mean, I look at it like, I think with Todd
00:59:57.460Blanche with some of these people, um, they, you know, they hitch their cart to Donald Trump
01:00:04.740and now they are so, uh, criminally culpable and invested in the, in this administration that they
01:00:12.800have no choice, but to go, you know, uh, balls deep into, um, into this behavior because, you
01:00:21.120know, what, what's the alternative? Um, you know, I think a lot of these guys are just like riding
01:00:25.720it out, hoping that they get a presidential pardon before Trump kicks the bucket. But I think there's
01:00:33.400like some true believers in there. But I think the vast majority of these people that he surrounded
01:00:38.080himself are just grifters, you know, like you said, people that that enjoy celebrity, you know,
01:00:46.060whatever, you know, I guess they they ascribe to the belief that any publicity is good publicity.
01:00:54.960I don't know. I mean, you also, you look at the contrast, like you've got half of his cabinet lives on a military base because they're afraid to interact with the general public because they know that people hate them. And so, like, I can't even, I can't begin to, like, to understand what's going on inside their minds.
01:01:16.960And then the other thing, too, is like, you know how Trump treats his friends. Once you're no longer useful, he throws you to the wolves.
01:01:26.200Yeah, you saw Janine Perrault in this week.
01:01:28.600Yeah. So, you know, like over I mean, and then that that in and of itself was was insane.
01:01:36.840I mean, as somebody who tried to push good felony casework through, you know, the D.C. criminal justice system for 20 years to watch them pursue felony charges against a guy that like dipped his hand in the fucking reflecting pool and pulled out a piece of, you know, paint that had peeled off because, you know,
01:01:56.620they were pouring, uh, you know, all these chemicals in there to try to like clear out
01:02:00.920the algae. It just like, how is it as a, I mean, to me, that's, that's a crime as a
01:02:10.420prosecutor, you have committed a crime in bringing those charges against this individual.
01:02:15.020Yeah. It's, it's, it's beyond dereliction of, of duty and in a violation of your oath,
01:02:20.440you're a criminal, Jeanine Pirro is a criminal. Um, and she still got tossed aside by Trump.
01:02:26.620Well, we'll see if he ultimately tosses her aside or she just, you know, dials it back up for him, which is exactly why I guess Bondi wasn't good enough for Trump.0.72
01:02:37.560And so we got Blanche, personal defense attorney, a criminal attorney.
01:02:40.760I like to eat well. But after work, after errands, after everything else, cooking just doesn't happen.
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01:03:02.960No dishes, no poor choices, no dinner stress.
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01:06:19.440Today, I think you texted something or tweeted something out about the Tate brothers and, you know, goes to this issue of masculinity.
01:06:27.620I think one of the things that's really interesting about you just, and I mean, every observer will make the point.
01:06:33.640I mean, you're right out of Central Casting, man.
01:06:35.700I mean, right out of Central Casting.0.97
01:06:37.200And so that's why you were such you were so I mean, you're the worst goddamn thing that happened on January 6th to Trump and their frame because they didn't have the ability to look at you with your history, your background, the fact you even voted for this kind of a bitch first place and your ability to articulate what happened in a sober and thoughtful way and your tenacity and your commitment to this larger cause.0.98
01:06:59.920you didn't go away, you didn't back down. But this notion of, you know, the Democratic Party0.98
01:07:04.700and what's happening in my party and the relationship to, you know, why Trump got back
01:07:09.020in, what we need to be doing better is issues around masculinity. You brought up the Tate
01:07:13.800Brothers today in context of, you know, now it seems Republicans are walking away from
01:07:18.560those guys. I don't know what took them so goddamn long. But what do you make of where we are in the0.89
01:07:23.700relationship to all that? And what's in the stew in all of this? Is masculinity a part
01:07:29.880of this? Is there, you know, hyper, what, what do you make of all this? I, I, I mean, I don't,
01:07:37.140um, like, I, I understand some of the attraction to things like, uh, like Trump, like early on
01:07:49.440circa like 2015, 2016, like some of the stuff that he did and said was, um, I, you know, the,
01:07:58.060the braggadociousness really it was just the disdain for politicians i think that resonated
01:08:02.780with like a lot of americans because you know politicians i mean it's there's i say all the0.98
01:08:09.220time like there's nothing more american than talking shit about politicians um that being said0.91
01:08:16.100like i don't i don't i don't understand like i don't understand the fascination with the tate0.98
01:08:22.760brothers. I don't understand the fascination with Nick Fuentes. I don't understand the
01:08:27.900fashion, the, you know, the fascination with these characters or caricatures like Officer Tatum or0.97
01:08:34.320even fucking Charlie Kirk. Like, I just don't, I don't get it. You know, to me, like0.90
01:08:45.520strong, like male role models were, were also most of the, I think the, the most significant
01:08:56.020in my life, like besides my grandfather were, um, it came later in life. They came after January 6th.
01:09:04.520Um, and, and the vast majority of them came from, uh, military backgrounds because there were people
01:09:10.360who like me had dealt with uh violence as trauma and and taught me that it was okay to um you know
01:09:19.460to to be emotional to cry to fucking uh to have those types of feelings and to express those types
01:09:24.840of feelings and they you know but there was also uh they taught me that it was important to um0.92
01:09:33.760you know to receive treatment and i one of the things i'm most proud of is that i took full
01:09:39.780full advantage of the, you know, the psychological treatment that I received after January 6th.
01:09:48.660And I mean, that, you know, saved my life many times over. And so, like, but then also
01:09:55.020protecting women, you know, not as like a women are subservient to me, but just as the idea that
01:10:04.320um, like women are the most important, um, like part of our lives. Like everybody's got a fucking0.98
01:10:13.780mother. That's a fact. And, um, you know, like, I, I just don't understand like the, with the1.00
01:10:20.300Tate brothers, the relationship, you know, with women and, and, you know, I didn't really know
01:10:24.620very much about them until they got rearrested recently. And you've seen all the, uh, the
01:10:28.780connections between Baron Trump and the Tate brothers and, and, uh, the Trump administration.0.64
01:10:33.360And it's like these guys were, they had an online university that taught you basically how to objectify women and then get them to basically work for you as like sex slaves or cam, you know.0.99
01:10:53.020I mean, it just is this incredibly dark fucking world. And it I mean, it terrifies me like I'm 45. So I'm not connected to, you know, the the whatever generation we're in now of youth. But like I don't I just it doesn't it doesn't make any sense to me like how that is considered masculine.0.99
01:11:15.460But at the same time, it also doesn't make any sense to me, to your point earlier, like, how is it that the Democratic Party hasn't figured out a way to combat this, to come up with, like, an alternative?
01:11:26.480Like, you don't need the Joe Rogan of the left.0.99
01:11:37.420And, you know, it's like, I don't know.
01:11:41.600Like, I've never really watched the podcast.1.00
01:11:43.880I've watched enough of it to see it's like you're watching the biggest dumb ass like work through questions and problems like in real time with other weird fucking dumb asses.0.99
01:11:59.700And but somehow that like the mechanics of that resonates with with people.1.00
01:12:05.740It's like, oh, my God, what what happened?1.00
01:12:08.460But yeah, I mean, Democrats need to like, like, I'll be honest with you, like, not to fucking, you know, blow smoke up your ass. But I like the I love the AI fucking images that you put out about fucking Trump, because it's like, I look at it like people ask me all the time, like, why do you say motherfucker? And why do you call Trump guys cucks and cocksuckers and all this shit?1.00
01:12:33.100It's like, dude, I use the language that I know resonates with them.1.00
01:12:37.860Like I could go on a whole diatribe about what is wrong with MAGA, what is wrong with Trump.
01:12:45.600And I could do it in an intellectual manner.
01:12:48.120Well, I could, but other people could.
01:12:50.300But that doesn't resonate with them.1.00
01:12:52.480And they're just being like, hey, you're a libtard.1.00
01:12:54.800Look at your liberal intellectual speak.1.00
01:12:57.060But I could also say you're a fucking bitch.1.00
01:13:00.420and that's like, that's going to resonate. That's going to hurt. And so I use the language that,1.00
01:13:08.720that I'm familiar with. And then I also know as somebody who, you know, has spent a lot of time
01:13:14.640in these circles, I know that that, you know, that's going to garner a reaction.
01:13:20.640So you don't subscribe to the, if, you know, to beat them, you kind of have to join them. You
01:13:25.520have to speak their language. You don't want to, you know, when they go low, we go high. I mean,
01:13:29.340you believe we got to just fight fire with fire we got to be strong i'm saying when they go low0.99
01:13:34.320we go like fucking in the gutter like we go subterranean uh like that that's how that's0.97
01:13:45.240what i ascribe to um but i mean listen like i'm not running for public office uh and i will never0.95
01:13:51.720run for public office and i should never be anywhere near the levers of power in this country
01:13:56.040I'm too angry and I hold too much of a grudge. But like, that's, I think that's, there's, you know, my old boss, Gigi Neal, he used to tell me all the time in the police department, different strokes for different folks.
01:14:13.240and that's to me that's what you know if we were to unify as a democratic party you've got
01:14:19.860different strokes for different folks you've got politicians who need to present like a much more
01:14:24.520polished um you know image uh because like i i don't want to vote for a michael fanon i wouldn't0.81
01:14:31.480support me for any fucking office for all the reasons that i just told you uh in addition to0.92
01:14:36.360the fact that like you know i say that some of the things that i said um that being said like0.97
01:14:42.120I think I'm valuable to, you know, to those that are fighting to preserve democracy.0.95
01:14:50.800And, you know, because of my experiences, and because I don't give a shit what people think0.98
01:14:56.260about. There you go. Where do you think we're gonna have a free and fair election this November?0.99
01:15:01.940I mean, you've written a lot about ICE, you've talked a lot about ICE on your show.
01:15:05.540Yeah, obviously, we both share the position that it's become a private police force and extension
01:15:10.440an arm of Donald Trump administration directly. Obvious concerns there. We're exhibit A, B and C
01:15:18.180out here in California where so much of this happened first. Fast forward with all that
01:15:23.640expertise, you're all understanding fair and free election 2026. I mean, I think that it's
01:15:32.300not a black and white response. I think that this administration is going to throw
01:15:38.340a lot of different obstacles in people's way to try to deter them or prevent them from voting.
01:15:46.060I mean, we already saw it with the recension of the Voting Rights Act,
01:15:51.540the deployment of ICE and CBP to city streets.
01:15:57.960I think that they are going to use intimidation tactics. I think that they are going to try to
01:16:05.000pervert the law in states that they can. I think they're going to use the federal government,
01:16:13.160you know, federal law enforcement agencies like we saw in Georgia, try to seize ballots or seize
01:16:18.120ballots. I think they're going to do absolutely everything that they can, which is why we need
01:16:23.580to do everything that we can, starting like yesterday, to prepare for that, to make sure
01:16:32.880that the legal apparatus is in place so that, you know, the lawsuits can be filed, make sure that,
01:16:38.260you know, community organizers are, you know, getting people registered to vote and getting
01:16:42.620people, you know, preparing to, you know, to get people to the polls in a safe, safe manner,
01:16:51.920despite whatever the administration does. And so, you know, my hope is that so many people are
01:16:57.860adversely impacted by this administration, that that people are engaged and they're engaged now
01:17:04.960and and they recognize what's at stake because it's not the most significant election of our
01:17:12.400lifetimes. I think it's the most significant election of this republic that that's about to
01:17:18.500to take place. And and what's at stake is is accountability. You know, I get it like I'm a
01:17:27.460a father and I'm trying to put kids through school and food on the table and kitchen table
01:17:34.080issues are very real. And I get that. But if we don't have accountability for the crimes that
01:17:40.740this administration has committed against we, the people, then you can kiss democracy and our
01:17:48.480republic goodbye. Do you think, I mean, you referenced it a moment ago about living long
01:17:56.500enough I think was the word you the phrase you said if we're living long enough to make sure
01:18:00.520Trump pardons them I mean do you see just as ubiquitous surrounds I mean most the cabinet
01:18:08.480colleagues family members you see him pardoning everybody is it to be honest with you like this
01:18:14.820is what I foresee I foresee because Trump if anything is like extremely like excessively
01:18:20.720lazy person um i think he'll just be like i pardon everyone like everyone that was in any way
01:18:28.960uh like he'll he'll try to find some legal speak that incorporates like everyone that worked for
01:18:34.860the federal government or was in any way engaged with his administration uh because that's easier
01:18:40.540to do than you know to try to single out single out individuals and then let you know let the
01:18:47.120courts deal with it uh you see that happening um after the midterms you see that happening before
01:18:54.320he leaves in 2028 assuming i think it'll happen whenever he thinks that it's uh you know prudent
01:19:00.520for him because i i i guarantee you he's going to incorporate he's going to include himself in that
01:19:06.140uh vast uh vast part and then you know it's going to be up to uh
01:19:13.200to the courts and, and, um, and everyone else to see if, um, you know, if that's going to hold
01:19:20.720up. What does oversight look like for you with, uh, assuming the speaker Jeffries, what's,
01:19:26.460what's real oversight look like? Is it, it's subpoenas, it's hearings. There's a beyond that.
01:19:32.920Uh, it's all of the above. I mean, it's, it's subpoenas, it's enforcing subpoenas,
01:19:37.840it's, you know, establishing or instilling. I mean, if you want, if I, you know, if I'm
01:19:42.400applying for a job in this, I volunteer to either be the head of the U.S. Marshals or you can put me
01:19:49.480in charge of the, what is it, House or Senate Sergeant at Arms. I have no problems putting
01:20:00.160handcuffs on members of Congress and I've got no problems enforcing subpoenas and dragging those0.99
01:20:05.860motherfuckers before the court and so um that there's a role that i could play but i um yeah0.98
01:20:12.260i mean i think you know the sometimes like the reality is that the investigations themselves0.99
01:20:17.820can be incredibly uh detrimental and and damaging to an individual and you know i you could say that
01:20:26.300it's weaponizing law enforcement but i i call it enforcing the law and so you know if if the
01:20:33.960byproduct of that is that the guy goes broke or the gal goes broke because they betrayed their
01:20:40.920oath to the Constitution and essentially were a traitor to this country, then so be it. That's
01:20:47.040one form of accountability if they're going to elude or escape criminal culpability. But I don't
01:20:54.780think that any of these people should be able to show face in this country after this administration
01:21:02.140is gone. But yeah, I mean, it's going to take a, you know, presidential level, you know,
01:21:11.320investigation into, you know, all of the, you know, I mean, like, it's going to make
01:21:19.880the January 6th investigation look like, you know, an arrest for petty theft.
01:21:29.980I think it's going to take massive resources, but it needs to be done.
01:21:44.300The rank lawlessness across the spectrum.
01:21:46.840What was it just, I mean, taken from, you know, ripped from the headlines?
01:21:53.100Like, what was it? Donald Trump was suing Capital One and then Capital One shut down hundreds of his bank accounts because of the red flags that came up from him.
01:22:05.160I mean, I saw one of them. Money laundering. Money laundering. He was selling condos to Russian oligarchs for cash.
01:23:25.100what's your game plan man what's your game if i was the last human being left on earth i don't
01:23:34.280think cnn would would uh would hire me and i you lasted there a little bit right where you were
01:23:39.520you were working for them right i made it like uh well i i made it through my two-year contract
01:23:46.480but i actually made it on air like i lasted like 14 months before um i think i said something like
01:23:54.460they asked me what i thought an appropriate punishment for trump was and this was back
01:23:59.860you know at the end of the first administration for january 6th and i said i hope he gets life
01:24:06.260in prison uh i hope he has a stroke and then lives and lives forever oh jesus oh god did you
01:24:14.860actually say that i did that was that was your last appearance that was my last appearance
01:24:19.460You're like the independent media is more your style.
01:24:28.160I'll be totally honest with you. I hate doing this.
01:24:32.400Why are you doing it? What's you just, I mean, you do it.
01:24:36.240Obviously you talk about your kids, take care of your kids. I mean,
01:24:38.860there's that reason, but why are you doing it then?
01:24:42.420Cause I couldn't get a job. Nobody would hire me.
01:24:45.980When I left CNN, I must've applied to like, I mean,0.96
01:24:49.080literally like 500 fucking jobs and, um, of, you know, everything from like loss prevention at0.96
01:24:55.520Walmart to, you know, private sector security firms. Um, and no, nobody would hire me. And,0.99
01:25:03.540and the few that, you know, had the, um, I don't know if you call it audacity or, or, um, or, you
01:25:10.440know, it was out of respect, just said like, you're just too polarized. You know, we're afraid
01:25:16.520that you would be a workplace distraction. We're afraid that, you know, the employees that work for
01:25:21.760us that support Trump, that it would become problematic, or we're just afraid to hire you
01:25:28.500because we don't want to target on our back. And, and so, you know, it was really,
01:25:38.320it was interesting. Like, I, I didn't even get into the space intentionally. I did Jim Acosta
01:25:45.020a show when he transitioned from CNN to, uh, to Substack. And, uh, in order to do a Substack,
01:25:53.060if you've ever done one, you have to like sign up and like get an account. And so I like logged in
01:25:58.920and, and, um, after my appearance, it was like, um, you have 10 paid subscribers. And I was like,
01:26:05.980for what fuck? It just did it, you know, TV appearance. And then, you know, uh, then he was1.00
01:26:13.000like, oh yeah, you should like write stuff for, uh, for Substack. And so I started doing that.
01:26:18.500And then, um, you know, it, it, it did relatively well. And, um, I mean, I'm paying the bills,
01:26:25.560but I, I don't like, I just don't like being in this, um, space. I don't like,
01:26:34.180I, um, I, it just, I got too much skin in the game. Like I said that I would stick it out
01:26:42.680through the next presidential election and then i just you know i don't know hopefully um i've i can
01:26:50.280just ride off into the sunset and things will return to normal we won't have like a jd vance
01:26:56.280as president and i have to flee the country um but i i'm in it until then and then um i i i mean0.99
01:27:04.760be your guess is as good as mine like what is a you know former cop with a fucking gd do um0.76
01:27:13.660i see myself like uh owning a lot of uh port-a-johns and yeah that's probably that's probably0.90
01:27:26.460where i end up and like retiring it's a good business like a trailer somewhere it's it's
01:27:32.420not a bad business. Don't disparage it. But no regrets, man. No regrets. I mean, you put
01:27:38.100yourself out there. You were willing to take the heat. You know, your family suffered. You talk
01:27:43.200about your mom having to move the death. I mean, brother, I can't even imagine what's come your way
01:27:48.880in that respect. I mean, the fact I could I totally get it. I mean, there's a lot of folks
01:27:53.380work with the Biden administration with none of your background that can't can't get hired.
01:27:59.000They're getting kicked off boards or not even getting an interview because they know Trump's going to come after that company or blacklist them.
01:28:06.000So I totally I hear you. But no regrets.
01:28:09.300No, no, no. I would do absolutely everything that I did the exact same way that I did it.
01:28:16.280I mean, it's just who I am. I I wish that, you know, the reaction of my colleagues had been different.
01:28:26.640I wish that, you know, I wish the reaction of this country, you know, had been different.
01:28:33.060I wish they would heeded, would have heeded so many of our warnings, you know, so many of us who put ourselves out there and warned America, you know, about a second coming of Trump and what that would look like.
01:28:48.060And, you know, I guess they had to learn the hard way.
01:28:53.180And your daughter's proud of you, man?
01:28:56.640i mean they it's there's they understand like they're you know we we don't give kids enough
01:29:05.640credit like they absorb quite a bit but uh a lot of it is still like a novelty to them and to be
01:29:11.220honest with you like i'd rather just keep it that way like i'm a pretty um like i'm a humble dude
01:29:16.800like i i'm a self denigrator and uh and i like them to just you know like i i think a lot of
01:29:23.720this like the attention that i get is is ridiculous and i want them to to see me as
01:29:31.720as ridiculous and not take this uh you know like the the fight is is serious but their dad is just0.99
01:29:39.840some jackass that doesn't care about giving the middle finger to politicians or or telling them1.00
01:29:47.100to go fuck themselves in a congressional hearing um literally literally that was the other day1.00
01:29:54.700I told Nancy Pelosi if you ever make a statue of me um I wanted to reflect that moment uh where1.00
01:30:05.840you know I'm staring at uh was it Troy Nels yeah and I'm giving him the middle finger and his
01:30:12.760reaction was just absolutely priceless and you got to incorporate both of us into the statute
01:30:17.340it's got to be his face looking at me while i'm going like that in the middle of a uh of a
01:30:24.020congressional hearing well with that uh thanks for being on man and everybody watching go to
01:30:35.340sub stack and yeah push subscribe thank you uh and check on uh michael's show which uh is on youtube
01:30:43.640and brother you already get close to a million damn people now so that's a pretty i know it's
01:30:49.260crazy over three and three quarters people need to get lots they need to get a life get something0.86
01:30:54.580better but thank you very much i really appreciate it and you know to be honest with you like well
01:31:02.640I gotta say like thank you for um for being in this fight so you know there there's a lot of
01:31:08.600governors out there that are sitting it out and um you know it means a lot to us peons down at
01:31:14.540the bottom when um when people in positions of power who have you know a lot to lose uh actually
01:31:21.280stand up and meet the moment so on behalf of on behalf of us peasants thank you
01:31:26.800I have a sell-by date, so I'll be joining you in peasantry very shortly.