Dodd Jr. and Sean Parnell discuss the dark underbelly of the political system and how it affects both sides of the aisle. They also discuss the latest in the Joe Biden vs. Joe Biden war, and what would you do differently if you were Joe Biden. And of course, they talk about Hunter Biden's bag full of diamonds. Who gets paid with a bag of diamonds? And why is that a good thing? Is it better than a million dollars in diamonds? Or is it worse than a billion dollars in crackheads? And what are the odds of Hunter Biden getting paid for his diamond bag in the process of running for office? Don Jr. & Dodd Jr. discuss all of that and much more on this week's episode of the WDFA podcast. Enjoy & spread the word to your friends about this episode of WDFA! -Jon Sorrentino Subscribe, Like, Share, and Retweet! Enjoy! -The Besties -Jon & Sean -D.J. Jr. -And if you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! If you like the podcast, share it with a friend and tell us what you think about it! We'll be listening to it on Anchor.fm and sharing it on your friends and spreading it around the world! Subscribe to our social media! Thanks for listening! and share it to your thoughts, reviews, reviews and thoughts on the podcast! on your Insta story about it's a good one! & much more! -Jon and Sean are listening to this week! Jon and Sean talk about it on his own podcast, right? -J.R. & Sean is an American hero, right here! Cheers, right away! -Keegan and Sean is listening to the podcast? Thank you, Sean is back from the podcasting with the podcast and talking about it in the next episode of his new podcast, too much more!! -Kris is back with his own version of the podcast and so much more... & more! . -Says so! -Jon and Sean -- is back in the podcast is back on the road with a new episode coming soon! -Sells it out on the latest episode of The Realest American Hero Podcast
00:02:30.000Well, but a guy that also got screwed by a system from both sides, not just, you know, the opposing side, but even, I guess we call it, friendly fire, you know, in the consultant class, but sort of an amazing story.
00:02:44.000And I think, you know, a dirty underbelly of the political process and what the other side, and even some of, let's call it the consultant class...
00:02:56.000Meaning the guys on the Republican side that make all the money.
00:03:00.000There's guys that they get shitty candidates to run for office because they're rich.
00:03:06.000And even though they have no chance of actually winning, they figure they can get 15% on the ad buy and the this buy and their buddy's getting a kickback here for this.
00:03:14.000And it's all a big money laundering operation for a couple guys who...
00:03:19.000Who aren't fielding candidates that even have a chance, but are getting really rich in the process.
00:03:23.000And I mean, I think we have a really interesting conversation to have.
00:03:26.000I mean, your stories about war, I mean, we're going to cover a lot today.
00:03:30.000We may go long. Sean, he came in from Pennsylvania today to do this.
00:03:35.000He calls me at about 5, after sitting in traffic for three hours on I-95, like, we haven't moved.
00:03:40.000There was like a... I mean, there were...
00:03:43.000What I was saying is when women in dresses are getting out of the car on I-95 North to look at the traffic and figure out what's wrong, you know it's a traffic jam, the likes of which are very, very rare.
00:03:56.000And you get so screwed because he's literally sending me pictures.
00:03:58.000He's like, I'm like four cars away from this thing, but there's no going through it.
00:04:18.000Well, a lot, you know, just watching our country, what it seems like our country fall apart.
00:04:23.000I used to say on the campaign trail, and I've heard you say it actually too, if you were trying to destroy this country in, you know, at the time it was eight months and now it's two years, if you're trying to destroy the country in two years or less, what would you do differently than Joe Biden's doing right now?
00:04:41.000You know, you don't want to overuse the Manchurian candidate thing, but it's like, you know, I think, you know, China doesn't give a billion dollars to Hunter.
00:04:51.000It's not what they do. Just so we're clear, the Chinese have a diligence process, I would imagine, that does not involve giving the Dave Chappelle crackhead character a billion dollars and say, have at it.
00:05:02.000John, they paid Hunter Biden in a bag of diamonds.
00:05:06.000Well, that too. That's like out of a James Bond film.
00:05:11.000There are some cast of characters that would be James Bond villains right now.
00:05:18.000What I'd like to know is, if it was me, do you think they'd have a problem with it?
00:05:23.000And why are they so strangely silent if not?
00:05:26.000Well, they've already tried to try you for treason and a litany of other things based on hoaxes, so I imagine if people were paying you with a bag full of diamonds, it would probably be a little bit worse.
00:05:37.000Well, I mean, let's talk about that, because we've seen that, right?
00:05:42.000When they throw stuff at you, they did that.
00:05:45.000When they throw it at me, it's like covering up the stuff that they're actually doing, right?
00:05:49.000You know, Don Jr. was leading, like, yeah, I needed to collude with the Russians.
00:05:53.000Like, you know, in 16, I was like, we couldn't collude to order a cheeseburger.
00:05:57.000Like, we had no idea what was going on.
00:05:59.000We just had a good message. We understood the people.
00:06:01.000We went out there and delivered. And I think the policies then actually followed through and did amazing things.
00:06:06.000But you experienced some of that running where I mean, they threw out the most slanderous things they could possibly say about you, your ex-wife, your children.
00:06:18.000I mean, but it felt like everyone got in on the system.
00:06:21.000And then the second you withdraw from a race that I think you would have...
00:06:24.000I mean, I had endorsed you before anyone else was in the race.
00:06:27.000Like, you're the guy that could win that race in Pennsylvania.
00:06:29.000The second you're like, well, I got to fight these battles.
00:06:31.000I got to try to save my children and my relationship there.
00:06:35.000Oh, we were just kidding. There was nothing really there.
00:06:38.000Talk about it, because I don't think people fully understand that story, and they also don't understand that it wasn't just the Democrats.
00:06:44.000They threw plenty at you, and I'd love you to talk about that, what you can, because obviously they're still sort of...
00:06:49.000Most of it, I think, is litigation in the court of public opinion as opposed to anything else.
00:06:53.000But everything I've seen, it was total bullshit.
00:06:57.000And it didn't matter because they got what they wanted at the time.
00:06:59.000They forced you into an untenable situation.
00:07:02.000You're not like some of the other people that were running.
00:07:55.000And then your dad comes to Western Pennsylvania, and I didn't even know he was coming to Western Pennsylvania because at the time I think I was in the Carolinas or something giving away a service dog.
00:08:03.000And I had just come off the stage, and my phone is in my pocket, and it's just vibrating over and over and over again.
00:08:10.000And I look, and I have like 50 missed calls.
00:08:13.000Some of them are from reporters, consultants.
00:08:15.000And my mom was calling me over and over and over again.
00:08:18.000And I pick up the phone, and I'm like, Mom, what's going on?
00:08:35.000And so I'm like scrolling through my text and I see this video of your dad up on stage saying, no, Sean Barnell's going to run against Conor Lamb.
00:08:46.000And after that, so I've told that story on the campaign trail a couple times, Don.
00:08:50.000But after that, I asked Melanie, who is my wife now, I said, you know, I don't know if I want to do this because, you know, look what they did to Brett Kavanaugh.
00:09:05.000No, I mean, he was a gang rapist that managed to get to the Circuit Court of Appeals and be one of the most public figures in the judiciary.
00:09:12.000But it was only once he could get on the Supreme Court that he became a gang rapist.
00:09:16.000That's exactly right. When was this ever fucking plausible?
00:09:19.000That's exactly right. And so, you know, Christine Blasey Ford.
00:11:52.000So right then and there, Republicans are at a disadvantage.
00:11:55.000And part of the reason why is that the Democrats, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, removed In the lead up to 2020, the Green Party candidate from the ballot.
00:12:06.000So typically, Green Party candidate votes typically siphoned votes away from Democrats.
00:12:10.000Libertarian votes siphoned votes away from the Republican.
00:12:15.000But the Democrats didn't have to worry about that in 2020, so they did a great job at setting conditions at the top of the ballot in Pennsylvania to set them up for success.
00:12:22.000But also, you know, when you talk about the way we conducted the election, Everything that the Democrats did because there was a Democrat governor operating via executive order with emergency powers in the middle of a pandemic, it was all legal, right? But we have never conducted an election like that ever.
00:12:42.000And what wasn't, they said, Well, it's extenuating circumstances.
00:12:45.000Then they bully a Republican on a panel who doesn't want to go against them because they don't want people protesting in their backyard.
00:12:51.000These are low-level guys, but they have a little decision-making power for the first time ever, and they just don't want to be bullied, so they fold.
00:12:59.000In Pennsylvania, we removed any semblance of a deadline for mail-in ballots.
00:13:05.000We removed the signature verification for mail-in ballots.
00:13:08.000There was no ID requirement for mail-in ballots.
00:13:11.000There was no postmark requirement for mail-in ballots.
00:13:14.000Add to that the fact that you have Zuckerbucks, where Mark Zuckerberg was pouring millions of dollars in the state to fund these drop boxes in heavily Democratic precincts.
00:13:23.000So you remove all the safeguards from mail-in ballot system, and then you put drop boxes in heavily Democratic areas.
00:13:29.000Trust us. Yeah, and a common misconception is that most of this happened in Philadelphia.
00:13:35.000And yet, you know, you walk down the streets of Philadelphia and you say to somebody, like, is there voter fraud here?
00:13:40.000Are you talking to a Democrat or Republican?
00:13:42.000And they'll laugh and be like, bro, it's Philadelphia.
00:13:45.000Of course there is. What are you talking about?
00:13:46.000But it was really, this Allegheny County was perhaps the most egregious offender in 2020 in terms of lack of standards.
00:13:56.000Now, again, Democrat governor, everything they did was legal.
00:14:02.000We've got to learn how to play that game.
00:14:04.000And I agree with all of this, but it doesn't matter because you can't win with that right now.
00:14:09.000Meaning, same day, paper ballots, ID, like the rest of the civilized world actually uses.
00:14:27.000No. The answer is if we continue to operate the way that we're operating on the political battlefield, no, you can't win.
00:14:35.000There is a pathway forward in Pennsylvania.
00:14:37.000I know exactly what we need to do to win there, but Pennsylvania is a tough hill to climb as it is just by virtue of the registration deficit that Republicans have.
00:14:47.000Republicans cannot win in the state of Pennsylvania with just Republican votes.
00:14:51.000Democrats have over a 400,000-person now voter registration advantage with 1.2 million independents.
00:14:57.000So whoever the Republican is going to be, you've got to get your Republican votes.
00:15:00.000You've probably got to get 90% of the Republican votes.
00:15:02.000You've got to get 60% of the independent votes.
00:15:03.000And you have to get disenfranchised...
00:15:07.000Blue-collar Democrats. And this, by the way, Don, this was something that your father was so good at doing.
00:15:12.000If you look and analyze his path and the way that he won in 2016, it had never been done before in that state.
00:15:18.000Oftentimes, Republicans talk about the suburbs.
00:15:22.000But if you look at Senator Toomey's plan versus your dad's and the path in Pennsylvania, two very different paths, and they both won.
00:15:30.000And what Republicans need to do moving forward is find a candidate that can bring out low-propensity voters that had never voted before in an election in their life but came out to vote for your dad while simultaneously carrying the suburbs and having a message to win there.
00:15:43.000But I also think we've got to be playing the ballot harvesting game.
00:15:46.000Of course! I bet, whether it's Allegheny County or Philadelphia, I went to school in Philadelphia.
00:15:53.000I went to school for five years outside of Philadelphia before that.
00:15:57.000I bet you there's a lot of voters there that couldn't tell you who the candidates were.
00:16:01.000Of course. Who filled out ballots and voted.
00:16:03.000By the way, maybe legally, but not in an informed manner.
00:16:07.000If we're not playing that same game, and we like to collect votes, oh, you'll vote on that election day?
00:16:52.000And frankly, it's a bunch of old school Republicans who don't get it.
00:16:56.000And so right now, Republicans need to be focusing on voter registration and doing everything that they can to throw money behind projects that close the registration gap.
00:17:04.000Because the Democrats have a formidable advantage.
00:17:07.000And if you give them two months lead time to vote, they've already got a 400 plus thousand person voter registration advantage.
00:17:14.000So focus on whittling that down before 2024, and then shift into a phased...
00:17:21.000Mail-in ballot where you're going out and you're going to people's doors, you're getting low propensity voters, what you call one of four voters, people that vote one time in every four election cycles, knock on their door, say, have you filled out a mail-in ballot?
00:17:32.000If you haven't filled it out, hey, there's an automatic opt-in button.
00:17:34.000Like, find them, get them a ballot, make sure that they vote, And this process should have been happening three months ago in Pennsylvania.
00:17:42.000Unfortunately, we're already behind the curb.
00:17:44.000It's not too late, but we're behind the curb.
00:17:47.000But to your point about, to your initial questions about, like, what happened to me, you know, jumping for Senate, we didn't take hardly any downtime from that run for Congress, which, by the way...
00:17:58.000You went right into it, because I know, I was that early pushing.
00:18:01.000I was like, you're the guy that I think could win.
00:18:03.000And, like, I was telling you the story earlier, and I think we had this conversation since, you know, You know, Andy Sarabian or not.
00:18:09.000My team and your team. You know, I was driving.
00:18:12.000It was, I guess... December of last year, and I was driving because I had a long drive, so I was just banging through all these calls and stuff like that.
00:18:19.000I was by myself. I was driving from South Dakota to Montana.
00:18:22.000I was going on a hunting trip with a couple of buddies, and I was talking about your race to Andy.
00:18:26.000He goes, listen, we got a little problem.
00:18:43.000I think he's a good... But I assumed he was running as...
00:18:45.000Probably not the ideal candidate to run in Pennsylvania.
00:18:49.000At the time, you may like him. I think he believes in a lot of these things now.
00:18:52.000But like... I'm reasonably well informed in this stuff, and I just assumed he was a Democrat off the bat.
00:18:57.000It's probably not going to bring out the sort of red meat-based Republicans that I think you would speak to.
00:19:02.000I've seen you speak to. We've done those events.
00:19:05.000We had an awesome time with Ted Nugent when we did that event.
00:19:08.000Thousands of people were there. Blue-collar Democrat Pittsburgh.
00:19:12.000Do you remember you asked how many of you were Democrats?
00:19:18.000Do you remember how many hands? Yeah, it's insane.
00:19:21.000We're like, yep, and we're voting for this guy.
00:19:23.000That was the flip. That's the one thing Joe Biden has gotten right the other day when he's like, would you believe that blue-collar people are voting for Republicans?
00:19:32.000Of course they're fucking voting for Republicans, you imbecile.
00:19:38.000You shift off the American dream to China.
00:19:41.000It's the only export we've actually created is the American dream to everyone who hates our guts.
00:19:46.000I mean, we'll talk about the military in a little bit, but...
00:19:50.000But talk further about exactly what happened to you in that one, because I saw it happening first hand, but I don't think people understand.
00:19:57.000I mean, as vicious as this game is, you said it, it's worse than anything you experienced in combat, and this guy experienced real combat.
00:20:44.000In this day and age, it means almost always taking a stand against what the radical Democrats are doing because what they're trying to do when they talk about transforming the nation, that means tearing down what was already built.
00:20:54.000And I think what we have here is pretty damn good and exceptional.
00:20:57.000And I'm going to, you know, my mission was to stop them from changing that.
00:21:00.000But also Republicans when we get it wrong.
00:21:02.000You know, do right on behalf of the people.
00:21:04.000That was my mission. And, you know, we built an amazing movement when we ran for Congress.
00:21:09.000And that's part of the reason why I said, you know, when people came to me and said, you should run for Senate, I was like, I don't know.
00:21:13.000That's... I wasn't successful in my first run.
00:21:16.000It seems like it would be like a big jump just to run for Senate.
00:21:21.000But we had Democrats that were coming out and campaigning for us.
00:23:34.000But every billionaire, rich, and powerful person in the world, they hang on every single race.
00:23:41.000And in the state of Pennsylvania, the race was over $300 million.
00:23:44.000So lots of money, lots of power on the line.
00:23:47.000Lots of people getting rich. Not a lot of great people Like, you know, that are involved at that level that watch races like that, frankly.
00:23:56.000And so I, you know, never had a single issue during my run for Congress.
00:24:00.000In fact, when the media inquired into my personal life, and at the time I was going through a divorce and a custody fight, I'm still going through a custody fight, my ex stood with me and said, hey, look, our private life is our private life, you know.
00:24:13.000Sean and I, we both love our kids, just basically go away.
00:24:38.000And as a father of five young kids, like...
00:24:40.000Yeah. I mean, that's a declaration of war.
00:24:43.000Don, yeah, look, like, I'll just give you the timeline looking back now, because it's easy to be, like, a Monday morning quarterback.
00:24:48.000And, like, when you're in it, right, and you're in this haze, it's hard to see through it.
00:24:52.000And what I mean by that is, like, when you've got, you know, I had every media outlet, it seemed like every media outlet in the country at my custody trial.
00:24:58.000I mean, I walked out of the trial, and there were 50 cameras there.
00:25:03.000By the way, you have no, I mean, as a man, you have no chance anyway, right?
00:25:06.000But... Oh, well, yeah, we can talk about that all you want, because I'm learning a lot about that.
00:25:10.000But let me give you the timeline, and I'll let the viewers decide what they think about this, right?
00:25:15.000I get in for Senate, you know, basically every judge in my county in western Pennsylvania blanket recuses my case.
00:25:23.000The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 5-2 Democrat supermajority, specially appoints, you know, a Democrat judge who's not from my county over my custody case.
00:25:34.000I don't remember the exact date, but it's sometime in September, I think.
00:25:39.000But whatever exact date it was, that same day, and I know because I have the email, private custody records and other things were leaked to the media that same day, and also to my donors from Republican campaigns.
00:25:56.000And I'm thinking, where are they getting all this information?
00:25:59.000Some of this stuff isn't supposed to be out there.
00:26:02.000And then the custody trial was in November, and when my ex initially filed for a custody modification, because if you go through a divorce, custody modifications can happen at any time, right?
00:26:15.000Because it's always about what's in the best interest of the kids.
00:26:17.000When it was initially filed, it was over homework and extracurricular activities.
00:26:21.000And somewhere along the way, all that changed.
00:26:24.000And I get into the custody trial, and all of a sudden, I get accused of this horrific, horrific things.
00:26:35.000And by the way, Don, all of this stuff had already been, like these things that were being brought out in the trial in front of every media outlet in the country, all of these things, all of these accusations had already been litigated three years prior in a court by a judge where a judge said those aren't true.
00:26:52.000And thrown out entirely. And so I thought to myself, like, This is America.
00:26:58.000How many times can you be charged with the same crime in America?
00:27:02.000But here's the thing. In family court, it's as many times as you want.
00:27:05.000Because there's no clear and convincing standard in family court.
00:27:09.000There's no clear and convincing standard of evidence at all.
00:27:11.000And so basically, it's like, he said, she said, and whoever the judge thinks is most credible is who wins.
00:27:17.000See, like, you talk about dads struggling in family court.
00:27:20.000Now, since I've been in this, I feel like I've become an advocate.
00:27:23.000And by the way, this has been... Oh, you should be?
00:27:26.000This is something, even in this or on social, the amount of guys that reach out to me, is there anything I can do?
00:27:34.000I'm not saying all of them are perfect, but many are and you just see them getting fucked by a system that is so brutal to them.
00:27:44.000Well, probably like me too, meaning guilty until proven innocent by a standard that's impossible to meet and not by any other system that's ever been like that in America.
00:27:53.000I mean, I see it, the amount of dads, I believe the vast, vast majority of them, just good dads trying to do right by their kids and try to be involved in their lives, getting screwed over in a process is scary how many reach out to me about, like, is there anything you can do?
00:28:09.000And I'm like, honestly, I think if I came out, you know, Trying to help you, it would probably make your situation much worse because, you know, whatever lunatic judge would be like, this guy's got to be.
00:28:17.000Well, I think, I will admit, I will say that I do think that the public perception of me being a Trump guy, I mean, that colors everything, you know, but don't get me wrong, like, I don't care, like, your father and you all launched my political career, you all, and you, your father, you stood by me through all of that, and that means a lot to me.
00:28:39.000How many people didn't? How many people heard the news, they read the headline, and they're like, You know, you reached out to me.
00:28:51.000You were there for me. Megyn Kelly reached out to me.
00:29:00.000And I feel like the people that know me, know the real me, and know that I am not capable of doing those types of things that I was accused of, they reached out to me and stood by me.
00:29:12.000But by and large, You know, those types of accusations, whether they're leveled at you in a family court or somewhere else, they're sinister.
00:29:20.000Because, you know, a very close friend of mine is a sheriff and said, you know, oh my gosh, like, I love Sean.
00:29:26.000I think he's a really nice guy, but who knows what happens behind closed doors.
00:29:31.000I get that a little bit. I saw that, I used the example of like, you know, General Flynn.
00:29:36.000Right? Well, the CIA said that he was doing this stuff.
00:29:40.000The FBI, you know, back before when I thought these guys actually were doing good work and weren't, like, literally corrupt, broken bureaucrats, I was like, well, there must be something to it.
00:29:51.000These guys, you know, and then that's when you realize you have to make the distinction between the door kicker.
00:29:55.000You know, the amount of guys I see, FBI agents, the guys doing the work.
00:29:58.000Sure, yeah. They're like, hey man, love what you guys are doing.
00:30:01.000We're so sorry. It's insane, but we're powerless.
00:30:04.000If we said anything, we'd be out in two seconds.
00:31:08.000There's a police report of him running over his wife, wasn't there?
00:31:11.000Yes, there's nothing like that for me.
00:31:13.000But he's the Democrat. Can I run in the Senate?
00:31:16.000So we're just going to cover it. Not a single, hardly any story, Don.
00:31:19.000Like, almost nothing. And that's why the Republicans, like, we're working, we're not just competing against their ideas or their values.
00:31:24.000You're competing against them, plus a trillion-dollar mainstream media machine, plus a trillion-dollar big tech enterprise that's literally functioning as the marketing department of the other side.
00:31:35.000It makes me want to fight harder, but it just, you've got to understand, we're working from a deficit from instant number one.
00:31:40.000And you talk about my decision making, and again, I haven't talked about this, but the decision making that I went through when I was trying to decide what I was going to do in that race, because I don't quit, I've never quit anything else, I've never quit anything in my entire life.
00:31:57.000But I knew by virtue of this custody order, I mean, the most significant factor weighed, and again, this is all public knowledge.
00:32:04.000You can go out and read the order. Go out and read the order yourself.
00:32:07.000You know, right there in the order, Sean is a leading candidate for Senate.
00:32:11.000Now, this is not... I testified to, like, when I was asked, do you think that you're going to win?
00:32:15.000I said, well, hell yeah, I think I'm going to win.
00:32:18.000So in the order, significantly, you know, father is a leading candidate for Senate, and essentially, like, I'm going to be all over the state.
00:32:26.000I'm going to be busy. And that was one of the main factors, the main reasons that the judge awarded my ex-primary custody.
00:32:33.000And so what I did was, as I said, okay, I'm going to take that off the table.
00:32:37.000Because my kids, I've got five kids too.
00:33:02.000I've always had an unbelievably close relationship with them.
00:33:05.000In fact, the first paragraph in the judge's order is these are two great parents.
00:33:10.000To a certain extent, the judge saw that as well.
00:33:14.000But I knew that, one, my time with my kids, at least for the foreseeable future, was going to be greatly diminished, and they needed me to be there for them.
00:33:25.000But I thought that if I could remove the Senate campaign from the table and file a motion for reconsideration, the judge might say, because if it's always about the best interest of the kids, they always come first, I thought that he might say, you know what?
00:33:48.000The Dads Resource Center, which is a Pennsylvania Family Court resource group for fathers, they did a study of 15 random samples of contested custody trials in 15 counties across the state of Pennsylvania.
00:34:01.000700. So when I say contested custody trials, I mean mom and dad fighting over who should have the children.
00:34:08.000So, like, 400, over 400 times, or 400 times the mother got primary custody, 104 times in the state of Pennsylvania, an order of shared custody, and 100 times father got primary custody.
00:34:24.000I'm actually surprised it's even that high. I'm telling you, if that is not evidence...
00:34:29.000Father, hard-working guy, mother, drug-addicted, accusing this, schizophrenic, and it's like, well, we can't do anything about it.
00:34:34.000It's like, wait, you're going to leave a child, a baby, with a schizophrenic, drug-addicted mother, but not a father that's like, well, it's the mother.
00:34:45.000When you go through something as horrible as divorce, and it is terrible, Kids don't ask for it.
00:34:52.000Children deserve to love both parents.
00:34:56.000Children deserve to have a relationship preserved with both parents.
00:35:01.000And frankly, one of our most sacred constitutional rights, and this is upheld by the Supreme Court, is the ability to raise our own children without state intervention.
00:35:18.000And I know that you know what I'm talking about here, given what you and your father have gone through.
00:35:21.000Well, that's being violated in public school systems right now.
00:35:23.000If it can happen to me, if it can happen to me, how many other tens of thousands of people, not even just fathers, just people, is this happening to?
00:35:32.000Because you talk about the family court, we're talking about It's not just sometimes the injustice of the orders itself that gives kids to one parent or the other.
00:35:43.000It's the tens of thousands of dollars in a system that bleeds families bone dry and puts them in poverty.
00:35:51.000Equal shared parenting should be the standard across the board.
00:35:54.000It's something that Congress and Senate, I think both sides of the aisle should take up.
00:36:09.000They make the most money from the dysfunction.
00:36:11.000And it's wrong and we shouldn't allow it to happen in a country like America.
00:36:16.000I agree. Your rather illustrious military career.
00:36:20.000I do. Before I do that, I've got to remember, we got started talking, and I'm like, hey, I love it.
00:36:26.000I hope you guys love it. And honestly, this is one, we may just do a show on this one, because literally, it's such a disproportional request I get, because so few people are willing to say that.
00:36:36.000You know, it makes you a terrible person if you're a dad saying, hey man, I think some dads are getting screwed big time.
00:36:49.000These are companies, if you're watching the world and you're seeing the world go to crap and you're seeing inflation, you're seeing us being on the brink of war, you see what's going on in interest rates.
00:36:59.000If you want to hedge against that, maybe you want to look at diversifying your portfolio, check out maybe precious metals.
00:37:33.000And again, if you're like me and you see the world going to crap and you've heard me bitching about this for every episode thus far and probably on all my other social media, maybe it's a good hedge.
00:37:44.000But remember to support those companies that share your values.
00:37:47.000And if you have the guts to come out here to support a show like this in the age of cancel culture, in an age where they've weaponized going after companies for even...
00:37:57.000Supporting a conservative, let alone taking those kind of positions, I think it's really important.
00:38:22.000I don't come from a military family, you know?
00:38:25.000And you were going to be a teacher, right?
00:38:26.000Yeah, I was an elementary education major.
00:38:28.000I remember waking up in this rundown college apartment, sleeping on this rundown college couch, not really sure how I got there, crushed Iron City beer cans.
00:38:37.000I mean, I'm from Pittsburgh, so Iron City beer cans everywhere, cigarette butts all on the floor.
00:38:41.000I remember staggering over to the television set.
00:38:43.000We were like a natural light or natty ice if we were going to really spoil ourselves in college.
00:39:00.000And I sobered up real quickly, and I remember staggering back and sitting on that rundown couch
00:39:07.000and watching 9-11 unfold on my TV, people tumbling from those flaming towers
00:39:13.000and landing on the sidewalk and dying.
00:39:16.000People that were lucky enough to survive that fateful day stagger out of the wreckage.
00:39:22.000Covered from head to toe in that thick gray soot.
00:39:24.000The only thing you see were the bloodshot eyes and a thousand yard stare.
00:39:27.000You remember that? And I wasn't even there.
00:39:30.000Ironically, I graduated from the Wharton School of Finance and I moved to Colorado to be a bartender so I could hunt and fish and just make sure I knew what I was getting into before.
00:40:23.000And it was like, okay, well, then you're cut off and you've got no credit card.
00:40:26.000The only thing they forgot to cancel was my gas card.
00:40:28.000So I literally worked at a bar and I did fine.
00:40:31.000And once you're in a small ski town in Colorado, like...
00:40:34.000Once you became local, you sort of ate for free, and like, I worked in a bar, so you took care of the guy that took care of you earlier.
00:40:39.000It was like one big bar system, but like, yeah.
00:40:41.000And I made up the differential, basically, by like, living off gas station food.
00:40:45.000So the gas station sushi thing is real, and it may not be ideal, but you can survive.
00:40:51.000Yeah. God, that's almost like a modern-day Bruce Wayne story without the Batman, where you just disappear as Don...
00:40:57.000No, Don Jr. went fishing and hunting bird.
00:40:59.000Yeah, so after 9-11, I was just so affected by that, I just thought, you know, up until that point in time in my life, I had...
00:41:09.000I never really knew what my life's purpose was going to be, and I heard my mom tell me, and I've heard it said, you know, two most important days of your life are the day that you're born and the day that you figure out why.
00:41:21.000And in the wake of our most horrific terrorist attack in our nation's history, I just feel like I knew exactly why God put me on this earth, and that was to serve in the military, you know?
00:41:31.000I went down to the recruiter, said I wanted to go to airborne school so the Army could teach me how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes.
00:41:37.000I wanted to go to ranger school because I knew it was the best leadership school that the Army had to offer.
00:41:41.000And I wanted to be the best leader that I could for my future soldiers.
00:41:45.000And then I wanted to be on the front lines of America's collective response.
00:41:49.000And man, Don, I ended up going to all those cool, sexy schools.
00:41:55.000PCS'd up to, moved up to Fort Drum, New York, which is, I don't know if you know who that is in northern New York, two seasons up there, like July and winter with the 10th Mountain Division.
00:42:04.000And I was assigned an infantry platoon, and eight months before we went to Afghanistan, we did everything we could to shoot, move, and communicate together as a team, but we found ourselves boots on the ground.
00:42:15.000In January of 2006, in what we call RC East, Regional Command East in Afghanistan, probably about five kilometers from the Pakistan border, we controlled my platoon.
00:42:27.000First of all, our mission was to find Osama bin Laden, and this is again in 2006.
00:42:31.000My platoon, we had a company, we had a full company that was thrown out there, and we were in charge of everything from Burmel, well, from Margah, which is a town where we built the very first combat outpost there in 2007, to Burmel, all the way down to Shkin.
00:42:54.000I mean, we got shot at from PAX. So this base that I was assigned to, it was forward operating base Burmel.
00:43:00.000We took over 4,485 days of combat, 16 straight months of combat, over 4,000 indirect fire attacks, and those were rockets and mortars and artillery.
00:43:10.000And I mean, we've gotten hundreds of direct fire engagements with the enemy.
00:43:13.000Now, by the way, like this was not something In 2006, I'm sure you know about the horse soldiers and the invasion of Afghanistan and driving the Taliban back into Pakistan.
00:43:25.000If you think back to 2005, 2006, the eyes of this nation were wholeheartedly fixated on the Iraq War.
00:43:58.000Well, I mean, I don't know that I would say that because all combat's pretty shitty.
00:44:03.000It was just different. It was a different type of combat.
00:44:05.000So, like, when you're doing Iraq, you know, there's...
00:44:09.000Military operations and urban terrain.
00:44:11.000I mean, that is absolutely the worst shit you will ever do.
00:44:17.000Because, first of all, you go into it just with military doctrine expecting to take something like 50% to 60% casualties when you're operating in an urban environment.
00:44:25.000Because you have civilians, you have buildings, you've got guys kicking in doors, clearing rooms, anchoring, kicking in another door, clearing rooms.
00:44:33.000And that's just exhausting. And our techniques, from my understanding from my friends in the military, we weren't used to fighting that kind of war, right?
00:44:41.000You had a breaching system where you ran into the door, but the IED took out the first person in, and it took a while to adapt to the realities of what was going on versus sort of what the textbook procedure would have been, right?
00:44:52.000It was a different thing in Iraq, right?
00:45:03.000I was in Afghanistan, and my brigade specialized in Afghanistan, meaning like the 3rd Brigade combat team in the 10th Mountain Division, the Spartans, we just rotated in and out of Afghanistan.
00:45:12.000And so, Afghanistan really, first of all, we weren't getting intelligence from the front line.
00:45:16.000We didn't know we were getting ourselves into.
00:45:18.000We thought that Afghanistan Was just a stability and support operation.
00:45:22.000And we realized very quickly that that was not the case.
00:46:08.000When we were fighting in eastern Afghanistan, we were in the mountains, it was like no man's land.
00:46:11.000There was very, very little collateral damage.
00:46:14.000We spent a lot of time and energy relocating people so that we didn't have to worry about hurting civilians when we were there.
00:46:21.000And then it just became about direct fire engagements, using mortars, using artillery, using air power effectively, both rotary wing and fixed wing.
00:46:41.000Well, you know, like when you're getting...
00:46:44.000When you know that you're riding into a kill zone, like you spend enough time in an area of operation, you know that the enemy starts to ambush you from certain places.
00:46:52.000So the good leaders look at those places and they plot what's called target reference points.
00:46:57.000So when you're calling for fire artillery, you're not calling in an eight-digit grid.
00:47:01.000You're not calling in like, oh, we're at Whiskey Bravo, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and I want you to fire Whiskey Bravo, one...
00:47:07.000No, it's like, hey, fire TRP-1, you know?
00:47:10.000And so... When you do that, you know you're going into an ambush zone.
00:47:14.000You can actually time your assault on an objective with your trucks.
00:47:19.000Okay, we're going to start our movement now.
00:47:20.000Right before we get to phase line alpha, you know, fire target reference point one.
00:47:26.000Okay, fire TRP two and three and so on.
00:47:29.000So that by the time you hit the objective, you just had an artillery rocket, you know?
00:49:18.000I mean, all I remember probably about 30 seconds after hitting that cave site was waking up in a smoldering hole probably 20 feet from where I was.
00:49:29.000And I remember the first thing that I remember when I came to was like a burning piece of shrapnel on my leg about this big.
00:51:00.000And so he grabs me by my chest and pulls me up, and I'm sitting there on the ground with my legs splayed out in front of me like a two-year-old or something on Christmas morning, and I'm looking around at just the devastation that was being wrought in our position, and we were getting hit by airburst mortars, so mortars that blow up in the sky and the shrapnel rains down on you.
00:51:21.000I think two of my trucks were immediately knocked out of commission, and as we later looked and analyzed this attack, all of my key leaders were knocked out of that fight within the first minute of the engagement, and myself included.
00:51:33.000You know, I had my platoon sergeant who was behind a huge tree, and some of these trees just in Afghanistan I feel like they're untouched by humans.
00:51:43.000Huge. Platoon sergeant's laying behind one of those things, just pointing to his back, screaming to me that he got hit, and his back was covered in blood, and he got hit with a piece of shrapnel back there.
00:51:54.000My platoon sergeant, a guy by the name of Greg Greason, I was a second lieutenant.
00:51:59.000I didn't really know what I was doing.
00:52:01.000I was lucky to have guys like my sergeants and even my soldiers who taught, coached, and mentored me every step of the way.
00:52:07.000The fact is, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those guys teaching me everything I know.
00:52:12.000So my platoon sergeant was like my partner in crime.
00:52:15.000He taught me everything, and he was the voice.
00:52:18.000He was my go-to guy, and he was already hurt.
00:52:36.000Ran back to my truck and I started calling fire on those target reference points that we talked about.
00:52:41.000And I started calling fire on danger close on our position.
00:52:44.000I don't know if you know what that means, but danger close means that the rounds are going to be exploding around you and that your guys on the hilltop should take cover.
00:52:51.000And as I'm trying to surveil the battlefield and try to keep my head down, because mortars are still raining down all around us, and I remember looking at my hand when I was laying on the ground, Don.
00:52:59.000The level of fire was so intense I mean, I'm looking at my hand.
00:53:05.000It's laying on the ground just like this, right?
00:53:07.000And I'm watching bullets land between my fingers.
00:53:11.000Kick up dirt, land between my fingers.
00:53:13.000And later that day, I would look at my uniform.
00:53:16.000I had bullet holes in my pants of my uniform.
00:53:38.000Got a couple of trucks that are already out.
00:53:40.000So immediately as a leader, I'm thinking, I'm not just going to be able to leave this hilltop.
00:53:43.000We can't leave our equipment out here because we've got top secret radios out here with our ComSec.
00:53:48.000ComSec is basically like all the frequencies that we use to talk.
00:53:50.000Can't leave that out here for the enemy.
00:53:52.000So I'm stuck here on this hilltop with 24 guys.
00:53:54.000And I'm looking at those two hilltops.
00:53:57.000I'm on a hilltop, but I got two hilltops directly east of us, like just right on the Duran line, which is right on the border of Pakistan.
00:54:05.000And on both of those hilltops, so we're getting pounded with airburst mortars, but on both of those hilltops, directly east of us, you had three machine gun nests, like, each on each hilltop.
00:54:14.000And they had us in a wicked crossfire, and they're hitting us with plunging fire.
00:54:17.000So they were in an elevated position, and they're actually arcing the rounds down on top of us.
00:54:22.000They're in a really shitty spot. Yeah, so even if you're in what you call a ranger grave or a hasty fighting position, you're laying in the prone and bullets are landing on you, you know?
00:54:30.000So what I was thinking, I was watching them fire, Don, and it was like they weren't just firing.
00:54:41.000Like one gun would fire and then stop.
00:54:43.000The next gun would fire and then stop.
00:54:45.000And the reason for that is because they didn't want to melt the barrels on their machine guns.
00:54:49.000And so I'm thinking, okay, now I'm on the phone calling for fire, calling for air support, but I'm also thinking like, okay, they hit us with airburst mortars to keep our heads down while they simultaneously emplaced two different support-by-fire positions.
00:55:06.000It sounds much more sophisticated than everything you read about where it's like, oh, you know what I mean?
00:55:12.000You hear about catching these guys, you know...
00:55:15.000With farm animals and stuff like that.
00:55:17.000You're like, no, it's gotta be, but this sounds like a really...
00:55:19.000I'm sure you have some of those stories, too, but...
00:55:58.000And no sooner did I think that the two platoon-sized elements, 40-man elements, rushed down the hill, through those support-by-fire positions, down their hilltop, into the valley below, and started bounding up towards us.
00:56:46.000Kyle Lewis. It was his very first patrol ever.
00:56:49.000And he's out on patrol with his up in a gun.
00:56:51.000He gets shot in the head, falls down in the turret, stands back up.
00:56:53.000No helmet on his head, but gets right back on his gun.
00:56:59.000You hear lots of different advice or philosophies when you're talking about leadership in the Army and you always hear that good leaders are supposed to inspire their troops.
00:57:08.000Well, that day I learned that great troops inspire their leaders.
00:57:12.000And that's sort of become a bedrock of my leadership philosophy moving forward is that leaders should draw the inspiration from those that they lead.
00:57:38.000I'm watching two, three guys be vaporized by these artillery rounds that we're dropping and just two or three more running through the shot and the shell, sprinting up the hill to our position.
00:57:48.000Nothing what we did Nothing of what we had was stopping them.
00:57:53.000There were just so many of them. They were outnumbered 10 to 1.
00:57:56.000And I'm thinking, man, I want to give the command to fix bayonets.
00:57:58.000And then I realized that the Army didn't issue us bayonets for that deployment.
00:58:02.000So, you know? And so that was outnumbered 10 to 1 on a hill in Afghanistan, 24 guys on the ground.
00:58:08.000I think the fight ended up being something like 10 hours before we got everything off of that hilltop.
00:58:13.000But it was Apache helicopters with a call sign fullback.
00:58:18.000That two Apache helicopters that came in and saved us, along with my company commander with a platoon, a Delta platoon that was in the area, responded as a quick reaction force on the hilltop, responded with augmented with ANA, two Apache helicopters.
00:58:32.000And then, when you talk about bringing the full might of the U.S. military to bear, we brought in a B-1 strategic lancer that dropped like 12 2,000-pound JDAMs on the cave site.
00:58:42.000Then and only then did we get them to break contact.
00:59:20.000Okay. You know, I love seeing a leader.
00:59:24.000You know, it seems sort of opposite from what I see today.
00:59:26.000And again, I didn't say I can't, you know, whatever, but, you know, I see a guy like Milley, like, I want to learn about white rage.
00:59:32.000You know, he's got medals from here, never won a war.
00:59:35.000Not sure he's even seen combat, but, like, he's got, you know, then you see Eisenhower, like, one little pin, like, one World War II, might or need, you know.
00:59:42.000It's so, like, insane watching this, but you see a general...
00:59:48.000I use the example on the stump speech all the time, you know, when the Afghan withdrawal.
00:59:51.000I want to hear your thoughts on that, because to me that was like a low point in American history, and I didn't shed blood or loose legs there like you did, right?
00:59:58.000But I saw that, and then I see him testify before Congress.
01:00:28.000What would you tell your son as a patriotic American about joining the military, knowing that if he's a red-blooded, straight, No, you may have no chance.
01:00:39.000If you want to be an admiral, go be trans.
01:00:42.000You'll get it in two weeks, it feels like.
01:00:47.000I'm saying it kind of funny, but I'm also not.
01:00:51.000There's truth in it. Yeah, there is, of course.
01:00:53.000After Afghanistan, I watched Blinken get up there.
01:01:26.000You could have lost your own life there.
01:01:28.000And you're watching these clowns Like, say this with a straight face.
01:01:33.000It was very difficult to watch the fall of Afghanistan.
01:01:36.000It was very difficult. And the reason for that is, and this has shaped my view on foreign policy, and we can talk about, you know, people talking about the war in Ukraine and how we should support that.
01:01:48.000And by the way, I understand The idea of peace through strength and that the idea that if there are republics in the world and more freedom...
01:03:23.000You don't have an army unless you can pay them, water them, feed them, sustain them, supply chains.
01:03:29.000Afghanistan is so corrupt, I knew in my heart of hearts that they would never have that.
01:03:33.000Because most of the aid that we were giving them was going to their cousins, their brothers, their uncles, corrupt warlords who were in charge of large geographic swaths of Afghanistan.
01:03:43.000And Afghanistan is largely tribal, so it's very, very corrupt.
01:03:47.000But I knew that an Afghan collapse was imminent.
01:03:53.000Well, by the way, again, I knew nothing about it and I knew it was imminent.
01:04:00.000Let's give the Taliban the biometric scanners so they can find anyone who's been helping us in a war against them for 20 years.
01:04:06.000They're going to do the right thing because they're good human beings.
01:04:08.000Remember, they were supposed to install a diverse and inclusive government despite the fact that they were throwing homosexuals off buildings for the last few decades.
01:04:15.000They would put journalists in cages and douse them in gasoline and light them on fire.
01:04:20.000And we're going to leave them $86 billion in U.S. equipment.
01:04:23.000How much of that equipment will be used to oppress...
01:04:29.000Murder, maim, pillage for generations to come.
01:04:33.000It's not like us where it's like, oh, well, we used the truck for two weeks, let's just leave it to someone else.
01:04:37.000They'll get 30 years out of a truck that we've used for two years.
01:04:40.000And look, when I say we have a general problem, we do.
01:04:44.000There's something about when you pin those stars on your shoulders, you are less of a military leader in this day and age and more of a politician.
01:04:55.000I think that there was a shift in focus in our military.
01:04:59.000If you look at World War II, we have the same amount of generals today in our army that we did in World War II, and our army in World War II was far bigger.
01:05:07.000So I think we have, to a certain extent, too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
01:05:11.000And by the way, there are some really great generals in the army too, but the problem is that you have a lot, like we talk about Millie, when you're focused on things like white rage, you're not...
01:05:21.000I had never even heard about white rage before.
01:05:43.000Yeah, absolutely right. And when you're focused on things like weight rage, and people will say, oh, well, the military can do two things at once.
01:05:49.000No, stop. You still have men and women in the field.
01:05:54.000The men and women that serve this country are America's most precious resource.
01:06:00.000And you have them out there front towards enemy while you're on Capitol Hill talking about some liberal bullshit.
01:06:07.000Two months later, an entire country collapses.
01:06:09.000And oh, by the way, we've been there for 20 years.
01:06:12.000We've spent billions and billions and billions of dollars in Afghanistan, like blood, sweat, and tears in Afghanistan.
01:06:19.000I've lost probably 30 of my friends since I came into the military, 30 of them.
01:06:24.000You know? And all of that, and people ask me all the time, well, was it wasted?
01:06:47.000There are little girls that are reading in Afghanistan today because we taught them how to read.
01:06:51.000Boys and girls working in the economy of Afghanistan never having had that opportunity before.
01:06:57.000And those girls, by the way, they're not allowed to even get a band of education anymore because we let the Taliban...
01:07:01.000Yes, so when I say, no, we did so many great things, but our leadership in Washington broke it.
01:07:11.000And by the way, Republicans and Democrats, and so this is why I say, if you're going to send America's sons and daughters into the fight, and you're a senior military leader, you have a moral obligation to win with a clear-cut mission and a clear-cut end state.
01:07:26.000Like, here's the mission, here's what success and victory look like, and when that's done, we're done.
01:09:12.000I mean, it seems to me like the basic tenant would leave no man behind, but we left our civilians.
01:09:16.000We left! We pulled out our military, left the equipment, left our civilians, left the enemy's biometric scanners to make sure they could root out all, like, I'm saying, so who, or, like, my five-year-old could have done a greater job, you know, at the time, you know, pulling us out of Afghanistan than the people who are supposed to be the generals in charge.
01:09:36.000So listen, Reagan era, and by the way, Ronald Reagan was an amazing president.
01:09:40.000Foreign policy at the time was incredible.
01:09:42.000Reagan era, peace through strength doctrine, right?
01:09:46.000And the idea that the promulgation of democracies all over the world will make the world a safer and freer place is true.
01:09:53.000It is true. What comes part and parcel with that is trust in government, right?
01:09:59.000Trust in our leaders, trust in a system that are going to do right by the American people.
01:10:04.000And we've had Republicans and Democrats, by the way, 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
01:10:09.000We haven't even done a battlefield assessment, a proper battlefield assessment of what went wrong there because, frankly...
01:10:17.000There hasn't been enough time that's gone by, right?
01:10:56.000Putin is... The guy that was supposed to start World War III, Donald Trump, is the only person that's been the voice of reason in all of this, ending the big wars.
01:11:07.000I never thought I'd ever see that in my lifetime.
01:11:09.000That was the holy grail of geopolitical accomplishment.
01:11:13.000And no one could ever do it. And Trump, the guy that was going to start World War III, according to all of these people, was the only guy, actually, that got peace deals done.
01:11:20.000Only guy advocating to end the never-ending wars.
01:11:22.000Only guy, frankly, right now, in and of the Republican side, even too, being like, Hey, uh, like, what's the ending of Ukraine?
01:11:49.000They didn't do it under Trump. Because they understood resolve and strength.
01:11:53.000That's right. Being able to build back the military so you would be capable of actually fighting a war, which I think would be very questionable right now.
01:11:59.000Yeah. Right? I mean, especially when you look at the threat of China.
01:12:02.000We're spending resources and missiles and depleting our...
01:12:05.000Look at what we just... Look at what just came out about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
01:12:09.000Yeah. It looks... Well, that's an act of war, by the way.
01:12:11.000It looks like... With a nuclear power.
01:12:15.000And... So we basically destroyed a pipeline that supplied natural gas to almost all of Europe, right?
01:12:25.000So by destroying that pipeline, a byproduct of that would be hurting the European people in those countries that are now struggling and paying more for gas.
01:12:34.000We did that. But it gets more complicated than that even though, because the problem we have is that We allowed Europe to become dependent on Russia oil.
01:12:45.000We sat there and said, okay, Germany, oh, you want Russia oil?
01:12:47.000Okay. And then they say, okay, well, NATO, we need you to kick in billions more to protect us from Russia, who they're enriching by using their natural gas rather than getting it from us, rather than drilling for it themselves.
01:12:59.000We're sitting there being like, okay, so we're going to spend more money protecting you from the guys that you guys are getting rich.
01:13:03.000In that case, Angela Merkel. It's insane that we're even having these conversations.
01:13:08.000And Trump was the only guy to be like, this is bullshit.
01:13:10.000Trump was the only one, the only leader that we've had in my lifetime that pursued peace.
01:13:16.000And for all the bullshit that the media talked about, he's going to start World War III. Well, the fact is, we're closer to World War III. I mean, I hate to use that hyperbole because it's almost cliche, but it's true.
01:13:43.000What happened with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was concerning for a lot of different reasons, some of which I just talked about, but not the least of which, is that it doesn't seem like at this point, and we don't know for sure yet, but we're pretty damn close to, like, Congress, both Democrats or Republicans, were not briefed on the covert action.
01:14:02.000They're the representatives of the people.
01:14:04.000Well, if the reporting is correct, it seems like they did everything in a way to avoid ever having to bring it to Congress, even though had they done, you know, moved this widget there, all of a sudden that would have merited it.
01:14:15.000So you do that with a nuclear power who's sitting on a 6,000 nuclear warhead arsenal.
01:14:25.000I think I'd say the Russian performance in Ukraine, while devastating in many respects, was also one of the great underperforms of modern military history, meaning I think everyone in the world was like, oh, that'll be over in two weeks.
01:15:39.000And frankly, nobody in the Biden administration And not even anyone, very few people in the media are even asking questions about what peace looks like in Ukraine.
01:15:49.000What does a negotiated settlement look like?
01:15:51.000No one's even asking, not at one single question!
01:15:54.000Because as long as there's this much money floating around...
01:15:57.000It's going to continue. You know how to get peace talks going?
01:16:00.000Hey, there's a finite, we're cutting this off at XYZ point in time.
01:16:04.000Literally, otherwise, they're going to say, hey, we're using America missiles, we're going to send this away.
01:16:13.000But until we say, hey, the blank check ends at a certain point, you better get to the table.
01:16:18.000It's like we're not even trying. It's like, oh, well, you know, everyone's making some money along the way, and big wars, you know, we haven't been in a war in, like, you know, nine months, so, like, seems like a good time to start making some money selling missiles again.
01:16:29.000That's my opinion, but it just seems, like, so obvious.
01:16:33.000And nobody in the media is asking questions about it.
01:16:35.000I think that during the White House press briefing today, nobody asked the White House press secretary about the Nord Stream 2 bombing, which is probably one of the most significant stories of our time.
01:16:47.000And it's also the most plausible, right?
01:16:50.000I remember when that happened, I go, oh, of course, like, I sort of, I mean, no evidence, right?
01:16:54.000But I was like, of course we did that.
01:16:56.000Like, they're like, well, maybe the Russians did it.
01:16:57.000I was like, the Russians blew up their billion-dollar pipeline that was going to be, like, a leverage point that gave them the money to fuel, like, I don't understand.
01:17:05.000Maybe if you told me the Ukrainians did it, I'd say, fine, but, like, I don't know that they have the sophistication to do that.
01:17:09.000They don't have the sophistication to do that.
01:17:11.000So I'm sitting there being like, oh, yeah, the Russians did it to themselves.
01:18:23.000I don't love what they do. I think they're a terrible dictatorial regime, but they're doing what's right for China, and they're taking over the world.
01:18:29.000While we're sitting there worried about the 9,476 genders, they're securing every cobalt mine in the world.
01:18:37.000I'm not saying they're doing it in good ways.
01:18:40.000I think it's the most corrupting ever, but they're doing what's good for them to secure their future, and the notion that...
01:18:50.000You know, the globalist agenda, it's crazy.
01:18:52.000I know. I mean, we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars on Ukraine, the lion's share of which we have no idea where it's going, while Americans struggle to put food on the table for their family.
01:19:05.000You know, you talk about kitchen table issues.
01:19:08.000There are a lot of kitchen table issues that Americans are struggling with on a day-to-day basis, yet this administration seems like they're focused on Things that are just out of touch with the American people.
01:19:19.000Well, I mean, one of the things I see that being out of touch with the American people is sort of the crisis at the border and immigration.
01:19:28.000You told a story about sort of being just, again, sort of this unvetted Yeah.
01:19:33.000Immigration with some of the people that you've been over in Afghanistan.
01:19:36.000Tell that story because I think people have to understand, you know, you read about it every day and it's not just someone coming over, like, there are terrorists being caught at our border coming in through the open sieve that is our southern border right now.
01:19:47.000It's not just, you know, You know, not everyone there is a true, you know, refugee looking for a better, like, there's a lot of bad stuff going on there.
01:20:19.000Yeah. But we do have to secure our southern border.
01:20:22.000And you talk about the people that are coming across the border.
01:20:25.000Specifically, we talk about Afghan refugees.
01:20:28.000Refugees. And I do use that term loosely because not all of them are refugees, especially when you're in the midst of an asymmetric fight and there is zero record-keeping in Afghanistan.
01:20:39.000An Afghan, like out in Paktika Province, and ask them how old they are, they often don't know when their birthday is.
01:20:46.000Because they don't, you want to go back to a time where Jesus Christ walked the earth, add the AK-47 and the Hilux pickup truck, and you've got Afghanistan.
01:20:54.000There's no economy, at least where I, there's 90% of Afghanistan, no paved roads, no running water, no electricity.
01:21:01.000They cut down wood in the summer, and they burn that wood in the winter to stay warm.
01:21:06.000They've got a bazaar where they do trading, but that's it.
01:21:09.000And so it's impossible, it's physically impossible to vet those people when they're coming over in large swaths, either from Afghanistan or across our southern border.
01:21:18.000Well, so you had a particular story, I guess, with an Afghan interpreter, sort of turned on...
01:21:23.000Yeah, so we had an interpreter, this was one of the ones who was vetted, but as is typically the case in Afghanistan, a lot of the loyalties there shift with the debtor standard, largely based on money, they can be bought, yeah.
01:21:34.000As the tide shifts, it's like, oh, those guys are going to be in charge, we're going to do something, throw them a solid?
01:21:39.000And I'm not saying that we shouldn't take care of our interpreters.
01:21:41.000We should. I had great interpreters in Afghanistan when the fall of Afghanistan happened.
01:21:48.000We worked overtime and put the Senate campaign on pause to work our asses up to get them out.
01:21:52.000I remember you speaking to me about that. But these are guys that we knew and we vetted.
01:21:56.000And when we were in Afghanistan, these guys, we vetted them to a certain extent, but we had a guy turn on our platoon, ended up working as a sleeper inside of our unit, and was tracking our movements.
01:22:08.000And I was home on leave, and he coordinated with a Pakistani IED cell, and they put a plastic TC6 Italian anti-tank mine right over where my command truck typically sits on observation posts and the places that we go.
01:22:24.000My truck rolled over the mine, instantly killed Jeremiah Cole in the backseat of our truck, who is a forward observer and is just an incredible human being, a newborn baby at the house, newly married, and wounded everybody else in the truck.
01:22:36.000I wasn't there. All of that was made possible from an interpreter who turned on us.
01:22:42.000And so I'm not saying that America shouldn't work hard to save the people who are good for us.
01:22:49.000I'm just saying that in the most extreme form of flying tens of thousands of unvetted refugees into our country and releasing them onto the streets is not a good idea.
01:23:01.000And you see that playing out in New York City now, where you've got the mayor of New York City.
01:23:06.000I can't remember his name now. I'm drawing a blank.
01:23:17.000Sanctuary cities everywhere else, but not here.
01:23:19.000This is too much. I'm like, wait, so you expect others to take millions and you can't take a few?
01:23:23.000It's like, well, that's going to stress our area.
01:23:25.000All I'm saying is that the left's position or the mainstream, and even some on the right are like, bring them here, bring them here, bring them here.
01:23:33.000It's like, wait a second. Let's take a step back.
01:23:36.000Let's have a plan. There wasn't one in place.
01:23:37.000And we're seeing some tragedies play out now where we have Afghan refugees that are getting in trouble, getting arrested, assaulting people.
01:23:46.000I think some of you have been arrested for murder.
01:23:48.000Well, look at Europe. I mean, the rape statistics and all these things.
01:23:51.000They're coming from a very specific demographic, and you're not allowed to say that, and that's a terrible thing.
01:26:17.000It takes some getting used to actually...
01:26:20.000Trying not to be the guy that's always talking, because I've spent years of just being the guy that's answering a question, and I'll talk forever.
01:26:27.000So it's a cool format, but I think the long form thing is actually really interesting.
01:26:31.000I hope the viewers find it that way, because you can sort of learn a lot more about what's really going on, and you're so used to it.
01:26:37.000You've got four minutes on Hannity, and you've got a picture, and it's like...
01:26:40.000And, you know, if we're going to change this country, there are ways in which we can organize, like the left does, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, together.
01:26:49.000One of those ways you can do that is podcasting.
01:27:08.000That'd be great. Yeah, it's Battleground with Sean Parnell.
01:27:10.000You're right. I think it's interesting also that even the mainstream media, and even conservative mainstream media, you can see their agenda.
01:27:18.000I used to be on all the time, and then they were like, well, we don't really like that.
01:27:22.000We're going to go a different... You don't even get asked anymore.
01:27:24.000I know. I was like, wait a minute. I don't know.
01:27:25.000I think I have a pretty big voice. And you can see that's their sort of hand, no different than politics, trying to control.
01:27:31.000They want the power back. They want a candidate that...
01:27:34.000They really own. Because they need them to actually do it.
01:27:37.000That's why Trump's a threat. He doesn't need the money.
01:27:39.000He doesn't need the airtime. He sort of has his ability to get it.
01:27:41.000And so even watching that dynamic, even amongst the conservative side of things, you realize, I feel like we're doing this for the right reasons.
01:27:50.000We believe in it. I didn't need this shit.
01:27:52.000You know what I mean? I had a pretty good life.
01:27:54.000My dad definitely didn't need this shit.
01:27:56.000Well, now I'm in the fight. Now we're not going to stop.
01:28:03.000You think about some of the people on the left are some of the most unqualified individuals ever.
01:28:08.000The only thing that they're qualified to do is bloviate and talk about politics.
01:28:11.000But rarely have they ever done anything.
01:28:14.000If you're a leftist, you'd be a White House press secretary or something, which, by the way, is an accomplished position.
01:28:20.000It's an important position. Yeah, but not if you get it because you're the first ex- You know, checkbox, you know, lesbian, whatever it may be.
01:28:27.000And it's like, well, that qualifies you.
01:28:28.000It's like, I got shit last, two weeks ago, another Buttigieg one.
01:28:31.000You know, we're going through, like, the fifth transportation crisis.
01:28:37.000Well, what made him qualified? Basically, my opinion was he was most qualified because he was gay and he was a presidential candidate.
01:28:42.000No, this is exactly right. He would have never been qualified to be a president.
01:28:44.000He was a consultant and a mayor of a shitty town in Indiana.
01:28:47.000Like, that was small. Like, he had no accomplishment.
01:28:49.000No one knew who he was. But, like, he was gay.
01:28:52.000So, like, obviously you can be a presidential candidate.
01:28:54.000You don't have to do anything. Listen, listen, you're exactly, like, yes, this is exactly what I'm talking about, how it seems like the whole of our country, like, if you're a Democrat, you could be the most unqualified person in the world, be, you know, work as a consultant in the White House, and then go be on the board of Amazon.
01:29:11.000You know, if you're a conservative, if you run for a political office, you lose everything.
01:29:16.000Yeah, well, I got attacked because I said, like, hey man, like, you can be smart on paper and academic, doesn't mean you're qualified to do the job.
01:29:23.000And someone went, like, oh my god, he's attacking people.
01:29:25.000Of course I am, because he oversaw a supply chain crisis that it was a disaster, right?
01:31:53.000A guy like you, it's an honor to be your friend.
01:31:57.000Thanks, Tom. I hate what happened because I think you'd be awesome.
01:32:01.000In that role, but I think you're the kind of guy that's going to stay engaged, and whether you're in the Senate or whether you're in the House, you're going to do just as much fighting for our country as you have throughout your whole life.
01:32:11.000And I think it's just an honor to call you a friend, and I want to thank you for being here.
01:32:15.000Yeah, thank you. Guys, I want to thank you for watching.
01:32:17.000Again, go check out Sean. Go check out his books.
01:32:20.000Everything that he's done, it's an amazing story.
01:33:05.000Joe Biden looks articulate compared to Robert Mueller, but because he was a former Marine, it was like, you know, they tried putting someone that you couldn't attack, but that's the problem.
01:33:17.000You know, just, you could be a Marine, plenty of these, doesn't mean you don't turn into a piece of guard.
01:33:22.000I honor that service, I think that's wonderful, but it doesn't mean you're beyond reproach for the rest of your life.
01:33:27.000It doesn't mean you could be a bad actor.
01:33:29.000You know, Hunter Biden, like, he can get away with anything that I couldn't get away with, and it's fine.
01:34:10.000A whole tenant of this podcast is going to be shedding a light on those who are willing to support the conservative cause.
01:34:17.000We've seen how quickly people will cancel that.
01:34:20.000We've seen how quickly they'll throw you off.
01:34:22.000We'll see what they do to you, attack your families.
01:34:24.000These people would put you in the gulag, so if someone's going to go out there and have the balls to support a conservative cause, If you're going to look that way, I'm not saying, do whatever you want, but if you're looking at something, take the time to find the companies that share your values.
01:34:45.000You'll learn about it. You'll make your own decisions.
01:34:47.000Again, support those who believe in the stuff that you believe in and who will put their business, their lives on the line to fight for the stuff that we all believe in.