Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - Woke Won't Win Wars: Live with Sean Parnell | TRIGGERED Ep. 6

00:00:00.000 you you

00:01:47.000 you what's going on guys

00:02:14.000 Dodd Jr. here. This one's actually going to be a fun one.

00:02:17.000 I'm here with my good friend Sean Parnell.

00:02:22.000 Legit American hero.

00:02:23.000 Thank you. Guy that's dabbled in politics, wanting to get in this fight.

00:02:29.000 I dabble. I dabble.

00:02:30.000 Well, 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.

00:02:44.000 And 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...

00:02:55.000 I think that's the same way.

00:02:56.000 Meaning the guys on the Republican side that make all the money. 0.96

00:03:00.000 There's guys that they get shitty candidates to run for office because they're rich.

00:03:06.000 And 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.

00:03:14.000 And it's all a big money laundering operation for a couple guys who...

00:03:19.000 Who aren't fielding candidates that even have a chance, but are getting really rich in the process.

00:03:23.000 And I mean, I think we have a really interesting conversation to have.

00:03:26.000 I mean, your stories about war, I mean, we're going to cover a lot today.

00:03:30.000 We may go long. Sean, he came in from Pennsylvania today to do this.

00:03:35.000 He calls me at about 5, after sitting in traffic for three hours on I-95, like, we haven't moved.

00:03:40.000 There was like a... I mean, there were...

00:03:42.000 Rescuing someone on the highway?

00:03:43.000 What 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. 0.99

00:03:56.000 And you get so screwed because he's literally sending me pictures.

00:03:58.000 He's like, I'm like four cars away from this thing, but there's no going through it. 0.92

00:04:03.000 I'm like, oh. I was worried, yeah.

00:04:04.000 Hey, Rumble's been cool.

00:04:06.000 They're like flexible. I was like, hey, we're going to go a couple hours later and just, you know, try to have some fun in the process.

00:04:11.000 We roll with the punches, man. We roll with the punches, and I appreciate the flexibility, and hey, look, here we are, right?

00:04:16.000 Yeah, so what's going on?

00:04:18.000 Well, a lot, you know, just watching our country, what it seems like our country fall apart.

00:04:23.000 I 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?

00:04:39.000 The answer is nothing. Nothing.

00:04:41.000 You 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.

00:04:50.000 They don't invest in crackheads.

00:04:51.000 It'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.

00:05:02.000 John, they paid Hunter Biden in a bag of diamonds.

00:05:06.000 Well, that too. That's like out of a James Bond film.

00:05:11.000 There are some cast of characters that would be James Bond villains right now.

00:05:16.000 Who gets paid with a bag of diamonds?

00:05:18.000 What I'd like to know is, if it was me, do you think they'd have a problem with it?

00:05:23.000 And why are they so strangely silent if not?

00:05:26.000 Well, 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.

00:05:37.000 Well, I mean, let's talk about that, because we've seen that, right?

00:05:40.000 The double standard, the accusations.

00:05:42.000 When they throw stuff at you, they did that.

00:05:45.000 When they throw it at me, it's like covering up the stuff that they're actually doing, right?

00:05:49.000 You know, Don Jr. was leading, like, yeah, I needed to collude with the Russians.

00:05:53.000 Like, you know, in 16, I was like, we couldn't collude to order a cheeseburger.

00:05:57.000 Like, we had no idea what was going on.

00:05:59.000 We just had a good message. We understood the people.

00:06:01.000 We went out there and delivered. And I think the policies then actually followed through and did amazing things.

00:06:06.000 But 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.

00:06:18.000 I mean, but it felt like everyone got in on the system.

00:06:21.000 And then the second you withdraw from a race that I think you would have... 0.97

00:06:24.000 I mean, I had endorsed you before anyone else was in the race.

00:06:27.000 Like, you're the guy that could win that race in Pennsylvania.

00:06:29.000 The second you're like, well, I got to fight these battles.

00:06:31.000 I got to try to save my children and my relationship there.

00:06:35.000 Oh, we were just kidding. There was nothing really there.

00:06:38.000 Talk 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.

00:06:44.000 They threw plenty at you, and I'd love you to talk about that, what you can, because obviously they're still sort of...

00:06:49.000 Most of it, I think, is litigation in the court of public opinion as opposed to anything else. 0.99

00:06:53.000 But everything I've seen, it was total bullshit. 0.98

00:06:57.000 And it didn't matter because they got what they wanted at the time. 0.99

00:06:59.000 They forced you into an untenable situation.

00:07:02.000 You're not like some of the other people that were running.

00:07:04.000 Not from the billionaire class.

00:07:06.000 You're a hard-working blue-collar guy.

00:07:07.000 You did well for yourself. You've written books, fiction and nonfiction.

00:07:11.000 You were an American hero. But you couldn't sustain that legal battle.

00:07:16.000 And they knew that, so they did what they could to get you out.

00:07:19.000 And now we have John Fetterman.

00:07:21.000 Yeah, so let me start at the beginning.

00:07:24.000 I ran for Congress in 2020 in a very, very important swing district in western Pennsylvania, PA-17.

00:07:31.000 Now, I had never...

00:07:33.000 I'll actually tell you the story.

00:07:35.000 I had really no plans to run for political office.

00:07:39.000 Like you said, I was...

00:07:40.000 Writing books, I was working hard to have them developed into miniseries, screenplays, whatever.

00:07:48.000 I have a service dog charity where we travel around the country and we surprise veterans with service dogs.

00:07:53.000 I mean, that is what I was doing.

00:07:55.000 And 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.

00:08:03.000 And 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.

00:08:10.000 And I look, and I have like 50 missed calls.

00:08:13.000 Some of them are from reporters, consultants.

00:08:15.000 And my mom was calling me over and over and over again.

00:08:18.000 And I pick up the phone, and I'm like, Mom, what's going on?

00:08:22.000 Because I just walk off the stage.

00:08:23.000 And she goes, Sean. Are you running for Congress?

00:08:26.000 And I said, Ma, no, I'm not running for Congress.

00:08:29.000 And she says, well, President Trump says you're running for Congress.

00:08:33.000 And I'm like, what?

00:08:35.000 And 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.

00:08:44.000 So that's how I got into it.

00:08:46.000 And after that, so I've told that story on the campaign trail a couple times, Don.

00:08:50.000 But 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.

00:09:02.000 And I was afraid, Don.

00:09:05.000 No, 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. 0.98

00:09:12.000 But it was only once he could get on the Supreme Court that he became a gang rapist. 0.98

00:09:16.000 That's exactly right. When was this ever fucking plausible? 0.98

00:09:19.000 That's exactly right. And so, you know, Christine Blasey Ford. 0.94

00:09:23.000 She must be believed.

00:09:24.000 Why? Like, why?

00:09:26.000 She seemed like a lunatic to me. 0.99

00:09:28.000 Yes, so believe all women is a dangerous premise, and I'll tell you why in a little bit. 1.00

00:09:33.000 But, you know, so Melanie said, Sean, like, the president called you out.

00:09:38.000 I don't care. You've got to do it.

00:09:41.000 Because if you...

00:09:43.000 She's amazing. She's amazing.

00:09:45.000 She's amazing. So Melanie was like, so she tells me, If you let them control you, that is a form of political terrorism. 0.52

00:09:52.000 And they use those accusations to scare normal, decent, good people away from running for office.

00:09:59.000 And I think that's part of the reason, Don, why we have so many dirtbags on both sides of the aisle in Washington.

00:10:06.000 They call it a swamp for a reason.

00:10:08.000 And so I get in.

00:10:09.000 I run for Congress in PA-17 in a highly contested swing district.

00:10:12.000 I speak at the convention. Your dad supports me every step of the way.

00:10:17.000 The election was a total disaster, and I can talk about that all you want.

00:10:21.000 I do want to talk about it, because we've got to figure out how to win these things.

00:10:25.000 There's not sort of...

00:10:27.000 The ghost of Hugo Chavez came back and manipulated a machine. 0.99

00:10:30.000 Like, that stuff was bullshit, and I think everyone knew. 0.99

00:10:32.000 But the other side says, that's what they really mean. 0.99

00:10:34.000 But there were things that went on in individual districts.

00:10:37.000 And, like, when you look at these, it doesn't take much.

00:10:40.000 You know, one guy doing something.

00:10:42.000 It wasn't like it was one process that was done everywhere.

00:10:44.000 There were things that were done, a little bit here, a little bit there.

00:10:47.000 There didn't even have to be unity.

00:10:48.000 You just had to have a couple people acting as bad actors to change these elections.

00:10:52.000 Well, first of all, you know, once in a hundred year pandemic, right?

00:10:55.000 The first time in Pennsylvania where we've used no excuse mail-in ballots.

00:11:02.000 And, you know, you look at what happened after the election, you have people in Homeland Security coming out and saying, No, no, no.

00:11:07.000 This was the most secure election in American history.

00:11:10.000 Why? Well, because we said so?

00:11:12.000 There's no evidence that that's the case, right?

00:11:14.000 They just said it. Don, think about it.

00:11:16.000 It makes no sense. Once in a 100-year pandemic, there's total chaos.

00:11:19.000 We're still in the midst of lockdown.

00:11:20.000 It's the first time we implemented a system where we're sending ballots to millions of people.

00:11:25.000 The government had come out and said, you know what?

00:11:27.000 We had some problems. We're going to get better.

00:11:30.000 It wasn't perfect, but we're going to improve.

00:11:32.000 I would have believed that more because that's actually plausible.

00:11:36.000 And so if you think about the top of the ticket in 2020 as it pertains to your dad, you had your father.

00:11:43.000 You had Joe Biden and you had the Libertarian candidate in Pennsylvania.

00:11:45.000 The Libertarian candidate in Pennsylvania got about 80,000 votes.

00:11:48.000 What was your dad's margin in Pennsylvania?

00:11:50.000 It was about that.

00:11:52.000 So right then and there, Republicans are at a disadvantage.

00:11:55.000 And 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.

00:12:06.000 So typically, Green Party candidate votes typically siphoned votes away from Democrats.

00:12:10.000 Libertarian votes siphoned votes away from the Republican.

00:12:13.000 They negate out.

00:12:15.000 But 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.

00:12:22.000 But 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.

00:12:42.000 And what wasn't, they said, Well, it's extenuating circumstances.

00:12:45.000 Then 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.

00:12:51.000 These 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.

00:12:58.000 And so you think about it like this.

00:12:59.000 In Pennsylvania, we removed any semblance of a deadline for mail-in ballots.

00:13:05.000 We removed the signature verification for mail-in ballots.

00:13:08.000 There was no ID requirement for mail-in ballots.

00:13:11.000 There was no postmark requirement for mail-in ballots.

00:13:14.000 Add 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.

00:13:23.000 So you remove all the safeguards from mail-in ballot system, and then you put drop boxes in heavily Democratic areas.

00:13:29.000 Trust us. Yeah, and a common misconception is that most of this happened in Philadelphia.

00:13:35.000 And yet, you know, you walk down the streets of Philadelphia and you say to somebody, like, is there voter fraud here?

00:13:40.000 Are you talking to a Democrat or Republican?

00:13:42.000 And they'll laugh and be like, bro, it's Philadelphia.

00:13:45.000 Of course there is. What are you talking about?

00:13:46.000 But it was really, this Allegheny County was perhaps the most egregious offender in 2020 in terms of lack of standards.

00:13:56.000 Now, again, Democrat governor, everything they did was legal.

00:14:02.000 We've got to learn how to play that game.

00:14:04.000 And I agree with all of this, but it doesn't matter because you can't win with that right now.

00:14:09.000 Meaning, same day, paper ballots, ID, like the rest of the civilized world actually uses.

00:14:14.000 But guess what?

00:14:15.000 Until you actually have power to implement that, you've got to play the game on their battlefield.

00:14:21.000 They've set that pieces.

00:14:22.000 They've done it well. We sit there and be like, oh, this is wonderful.

00:14:25.000 But can you win?

00:14:27.000 No. The answer is if we continue to operate the way that we're operating on the political battlefield, no, you can't win.

00:14:35.000 There is a pathway forward in Pennsylvania.

00:14:37.000 I 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.

00:14:47.000 Republicans cannot win in the state of Pennsylvania with just Republican votes.

00:14:51.000 Democrats have over a 400,000-person now voter registration advantage with 1.2 million independents.

00:14:57.000 So whoever the Republican is going to be, you've got to get your Republican votes.

00:15:00.000 You've probably got to get 90% of the Republican votes.

00:15:02.000 You've got to get 60% of the independent votes.

00:15:03.000 And you have to get disenfranchised...

00:15:07.000 Blue-collar Democrats. And this, by the way, Don, this was something that your father was so good at doing.

00:15:12.000 If you look and analyze his path and the way that he won in 2016, it had never been done before in that state.

00:15:18.000 Oftentimes, Republicans talk about the suburbs.

00:15:20.000 Yes, they're really important.

00:15:22.000 But 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.

00:15:30.000 And 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.

00:15:43.000 But I also think we've got to be playing the ballot harvesting game.

00:15:46.000 Of course! I bet, whether it's Allegheny County or Philadelphia, I went to school in Philadelphia.

00:15:53.000 I went to school for five years outside of Philadelphia before that.

00:15:57.000 I bet you there's a lot of voters there that couldn't tell you who the candidates were.

00:16:01.000 Of course. Who filled out ballots and voted.

00:16:03.000 By the way, maybe legally, but not in an informed manner.

00:16:07.000 If we're not playing that same game, and we like to collect votes, oh, you'll vote on that election day?

00:16:12.000 Oh, that's wonderful. Thanks so much.

00:16:13.000 They're walking away with a ballot.

00:16:15.000 They're cashing that chip immediately.

00:16:18.000 Until we play that game, I don't think you actually have a chance.

00:16:22.000 I'd love to believe the candidate mattered, and it does to an extent.

00:16:26.000 It does to an extent. It doesn't matter if we're not playing that same game.

00:16:30.000 They have a two-month-long election day, and we're hoping it doesn't snow so that our people show up that day.

00:16:37.000 That's not a great way to win in the long run.

00:16:39.000 The pathway forward in Pennsylvania, it's a two-fold strategy that Republicans should have been implementing yesterday.

00:16:45.000 But I will say this, the Republican Party in western Pennsylvania is in disarray.

00:16:49.000 They struggle with funding.

00:16:52.000 And frankly, it's a bunch of old school Republicans who don't get it.

00:16:56.000 And 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.

00:17:04.000 Because the Democrats have a formidable advantage.

00:17:07.000 And if you give them two months lead time to vote, they've already got a 400 plus thousand person voter registration advantage.

00:17:14.000 So focus on whittling that down before 2024, and then shift into a phased...

00:17:21.000 Mail-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?

00:17:32.000 If you haven't filled it out, hey, there's an automatic opt-in button.

00:17:34.000 Like, find them, get them a ballot, make sure that they vote, And this process should have been happening three months ago in Pennsylvania.

00:17:42.000 Unfortunately, we're already behind the curb.

00:17:44.000 It's not too late, but we're behind the curb.

00:17:47.000 But 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...

00:17:58.000 You went right into it, because I know, I was that early pushing.

00:18:01.000 I was like, you're the guy that I think could win.

00:18:03.000 And, like, I was telling you the story earlier, and I think we had this conversation since, you know, You know, Andy Sarabian or not.

00:18:09.000 My team and your team. You know, I was driving.

00:18:12.000 It 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.

00:18:19.000 I was by myself. I was driving from South Dakota to Montana.

00:18:22.000 I was going on a hunting trip with a couple of buddies, and I was talking about your race to Andy.

00:18:26.000 He goes, listen, we got a little problem.

00:18:29.000 Dr. Oz is going to enter the race.

00:18:30.000 I go, listen, I know him through New York Circle.

00:18:32.000 I think he's a good guy. I go, that's going to be really hard to win in a general election.

00:18:38.000 Andy looks at me like, what are you talking about?

00:18:39.000 I go, Well, he's running as a Democrat, right?

00:18:41.000 And I like the guy.

00:18:43.000 I think he's a good... But I assumed he was running as...

00:18:45.000 Probably not the ideal candidate to run in Pennsylvania.

00:18:49.000 At the time, you may like him. I think he believes in a lot of these things now.

00:18:52.000 But like... I'm reasonably well informed in this stuff, and I just assumed he was a Democrat off the bat.

00:18:57.000 It's probably not going to bring out the sort of red meat-based Republicans that I think you would speak to.

00:19:02.000 I've seen you speak to. We've done those events.

00:19:05.000 We had an awesome time with Ted Nugent when we did that event.

00:19:08.000 Thousands of people were there. Blue-collar Democrat Pittsburgh.

00:19:12.000 Do you remember you asked how many of you were Democrats?

00:19:18.000 Do you remember how many hands? Yeah, it's insane.

00:19:21.000 We're like, yep, and we're voting for this guy.

00:19:23.000 That 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?

00:19:32.000 Of course they're fucking voting for Republicans, you imbecile. 1.00

00:19:35.000 You despise basic Americans. 1.00

00:19:38.000 You shift off the American dream to China. 0.96

00:19:41.000 It's the only export we've actually created is the American dream to everyone who hates our guts.

00:19:46.000 I mean, we'll talk about the military in a little bit, but...

00:19:50.000 But 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.

00:19:57.000 I 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.

00:20:04.000 He wasn't like Pete Buttigieg.

00:20:07.000 It's a little bit...

00:20:08.000 I mean, where's the lie?

00:20:11.000 I'm not allowed to say that because I didn't drive around on a military base for a little bit, but like...

00:20:18.000 You did these things, and you said it's literally worse than actual combat.

00:20:25.000 You know, because, Don, I'm not a political type, if that makes sense.

00:20:31.000 I was an outsider that jumped into this because I love this country.

00:20:35.000 Period. End of story. I don't care about the Republican Party.

00:20:37.000 I don't care so much about the Democrat Party.

00:20:39.000 I care about doing what's right on behalf of the American people.

00:20:42.000 And sometimes, you know...

00:20:44.000 In 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.

00:20:54.000 And I think what we have here is pretty damn good and exceptional.

00:20:57.000 And I'm going to, you know, my mission was to stop them from changing that.

00:21:00.000 But also Republicans when we get it wrong.

00:21:02.000 You know, do right on behalf of the people.

00:21:04.000 That was my mission. And, you know, we built an amazing movement when we ran for Congress.

00:21:09.000 And 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.

00:21:13.000 That's... I wasn't successful in my first run.

00:21:16.000 It seems like it would be like a big jump just to run for Senate.

00:21:21.000 But we had Democrats that were coming out and campaigning for us.

00:21:24.000 We were knocking on...

00:21:26.000 Actually, we were also going to heavily Democratic areas and doing everything that we could to build bridges there.

00:21:31.000 And by the way... I was with you.

00:21:33.000 I felt the vibe. It was fun.

00:21:35.000 We had a great time, and it was a unifying message.

00:21:37.000 If you love this country, we don't always have to agree on everything.

00:21:41.000 But if you love this country, you can stand with me.

00:21:43.000 Please. Please stop being racist.

00:21:46.000 I'm sorry. You're racist, misogynist, and homophobic for loving your country and for believing in those things. 0.99

00:21:53.000 I'm sorry that my white guilt got the best of me. 1.00

00:21:56.000 I'm sorry. Your privilege.

00:21:59.000 But that's what they'd have you believe at this point.

00:22:01.000 That's exactly right. That's like a real attack.

00:22:03.000 I mock it because I've gotten to the point where they attack me every day.

00:22:07.000 I'm at the point maybe where they try to cancel me probably makes me stronger, so have at it, folks.

00:22:12.000 You know, they'll try to get me for the Pete Buttigieg one.

00:22:14.000 And, you know, I'll say, fine, how about this?

00:22:16.000 Like, pick a military discipline.

00:22:17.000 I'll compete against Pete. Let's see who does better.

00:22:19.000 Like, it's fine. Like, you know.

00:22:21.000 You are a pretty good shooter.

00:22:22.000 I can hold my arm.

00:22:27.000 You do. I want a lot of those kind of bets where they're like, oh, the kid from New York?

00:22:30.000 That's not going to work. The son of a billionaire can shoot a rifle?

00:22:33.000 Yeah, right. Then you win.

00:22:35.000 Yeah. I think I'm undefeated in, like, Governor's clay suits also.

00:22:39.000 It's like, oh, they shoot a shotgun.

00:22:40.000 It's a pretty good record.

00:22:42.000 But talk about what they tried to do to you. 0.87

00:22:46.000 I think they realized, and the Republicans did it too, which was more disgusting.

00:22:50.000 It wasn't like, hey, let's talk about policy. 0.98

00:22:53.000 They weaponized your ex-wife and lies. 1.00

00:22:59.000 Conveniently, of course, You know, like, you mentioned Kavanaugh.

00:23:01.000 Perfectly Kavanaugh. Like, the second it was not an issue anymore, they disappeared.

00:23:05.000 And there didn't have to be any...

00:23:06.000 Don, I ran for Congress in one of the biggest swing districts in the country.

00:23:09.000 I spoke at the Republican National Convention in prime time.

00:23:13.000 None of this. In fact, when the media inquired...

00:23:16.000 But Senate National. Well, that, I'll tell you what...

00:23:19.000 And a lot more money. That's exactly right, Don.

00:23:21.000 And I didn't realize that going into it, and just call it, I was naive going into it, but...

00:23:27.000 For Republicans, anyway, about 50 Senate seats up for grabs in the country.

00:23:32.000 If we're lucky, maybe 51.

00:23:34.000 But every billionaire, rich, and powerful person in the world, they hang on every single race.

00:23:41.000 And in the state of Pennsylvania, the race was over $300 million.

00:23:44.000 So lots of money, lots of power on the line.

00:23:47.000 Lots 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. 0.74

00:23:56.000 And so I, you know, never had a single issue during my run for Congress.

00:24:00.000 In 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.

00:24:13.000 Sean and I, we both love our kids, just basically go away.

00:24:16.000 And that was that.

00:24:18.000 But then it flipped. Then it didn't happen for Senate.

00:24:21.000 That didn't happen. And you even had judges citing that you're leading as a candidate.

00:24:26.000 I mean, I remember reading this.

00:24:27.000 You're leading as a candidate, therefore he shouldn't be able to have custody of you, which was never a problem before.

00:24:32.000 And then the left weaponizes that to all of a sudden you're a terrible father.

00:24:36.000 So I'll tell you the timeline.

00:24:38.000 And as a father of five young kids, like...

00:24:40.000 Yeah. I mean, that's a declaration of war.

00:24:43.000 Don, yeah, look, like, I'll just give you the timeline looking back now, because it's easy to be, like, a Monday morning quarterback.

00:24:48.000 And, like, when you're in it, right, and you're in this haze, it's hard to see through it.

00:24:52.000 And 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.

00:24:58.000 I mean, I walked out of the trial, and there were 50 cameras there.

00:25:01.000 So, I'm not used to that.

00:25:03.000 By the way, you have no, I mean, as a man, you have no chance anyway, right?

00:25:06.000 But... Oh, well, yeah, we can talk about that all you want, because I'm learning a lot about that.

00:25:10.000 But let me give you the timeline, and I'll let the viewers decide what they think about this, right?

00:25:15.000 I get in for Senate, you know, basically every judge in my county in western Pennsylvania blanket recuses my case.

00:25:23.000 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 5-2 Democrat supermajority, specially appoints, you know, a Democrat judge who's not from my county over my custody case.

00:25:32.000 Your dad endorses me.

00:25:34.000 I don't remember the exact date, but it's sometime in September, I think.

00:25:39.000 But 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.

00:25:56.000 And I'm thinking, where are they getting all this information?

00:25:59.000 Some of this stuff isn't supposed to be out there.

00:26:02.000 And 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?

00:26:15.000 Because it's always about what's in the best interest of the kids.

00:26:17.000 When it was initially filed, it was over homework and extracurricular activities.

00:26:21.000 And somewhere along the way, all that changed.

00:26:24.000 And I get into the custody trial, and all of a sudden, I get accused of this horrific, horrific things.

00:26:33.000 You know, just horrific things.

00:26:35.000 And 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.

00:26:52.000 And thrown out entirely. And so I thought to myself, like, This is America.

00:26:58.000 How many times can you be charged with the same crime in America?

00:27:02.000 But here's the thing. In family court, it's as many times as you want.

00:27:05.000 Because there's no clear and convincing standard in family court.

00:27:09.000 There's no clear and convincing standard of evidence at all.

00:27:11.000 And so basically, it's like, he said, she said, and whoever the judge thinks is most credible is who wins.

00:27:17.000 See, like, you talk about dads struggling in family court.

00:27:20.000 Now, since I've been in this, I feel like I've become an advocate.

00:27:23.000 And by the way, this has been... Oh, you should be?

00:27:26.000 This is something, even in this or on social, the amount of guys that reach out to me, is there anything I can do? 0.74

00:27:34.000 I'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.

00:27:44.000 Well, 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.

00:27:53.000 I 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?

00:28:09.000 And 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.

00:28:17.000 Well, 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.

00:28:39.000 How 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.

00:28:51.000 You were there for me. Megyn Kelly reached out to me.

00:28:54.000 Tucker Carlson reached out to me.

00:28:56.000 Scott Pressler reached out to me.

00:28:58.000 And there were some others.

00:29:00.000 And 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.

00:29:12.000 But 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.

00:29:20.000 Because, you know, a very close friend of mine is a sheriff and said, you know, oh my gosh, like, I love Sean.

00:29:26.000 I think he's a really nice guy, but who knows what happens behind closed doors.

00:29:29.000 It sows the seeds of doubt.

00:29:31.000 I get that a little bit. I saw that, I used the example of like, you know, General Flynn.

00:29:36.000 Right? Well, the CIA said that he was doing this stuff.

00:29:40.000 The 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.

00:29:51.000 These guys, you know, and then that's when you realize you have to make the distinction between the door kicker.

00:29:55.000 You know, the amount of guys I see, FBI agents, the guys doing the work.

00:29:58.000 Sure, yeah. They're like, hey man, love what you guys are doing.

00:30:01.000 We're so sorry. It's insane, but we're powerless.

00:30:04.000 If we said anything, we'd be out in two seconds.

00:30:08.000 So, I get it.

00:30:10.000 And look, the things that I'm talking about, this is the first time I've ever talked about them.

00:30:15.000 This timeline that I'm talking about, the press who is probably watching this, go out and verify it on your own.

00:30:21.000 Look at this stuff on your own. It's all 100%.

00:30:23.000 Well, you also want to know why it's bullshit? 0.97

00:30:26.000 Because the second you got out of the race, It's not an issue anymore. 0.96

00:30:30.000 Meaning, if you did the things they were accusing you of or alleging, there'd be an investigation.

00:30:36.000 There would be police knocking on your door.

00:30:38.000 There would be XYZ happening.

00:30:39.000 Instead, no, no, no, we got what we wanted.

00:30:41.000 We're just kidding. It shows you how vicious that system is.

00:30:45.000 Well, yeah, and you look... Let's not even make it political.

00:30:48.000 Let's look at what happened to Senator Warnock.

00:30:50.000 The same thing happened to him.

00:30:51.000 Exactly the same thing.

00:30:53.000 Similar accusations, custody trial, a contested custody trial...

00:30:59.000 Not any media attention.

00:31:01.000 Like, in fact, if you're watching this right now, throw it in Google.

00:31:04.000 You might find one article.

00:31:06.000 But every single...

00:31:08.000 There's a police report of him running over his wife, wasn't there?

00:31:11.000 Yes, there's nothing like that for me.

00:31:13.000 But he's the Democrat. Can I run in the Senate?

00:31:16.000 So we're just going to cover it. Not a single, hardly any story, Don.

00:31:19.000 Like, almost nothing. And that's why the Republicans, like, we're working, we're not just competing against their ideas or their values.

00:31:24.000 You'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.

00:31:32.000 Like, we're not in a fair fight.

00:31:35.000 It makes me want to fight harder, but it just, you've got to understand, we're working from a deficit from instant number one.

00:31:40.000 And 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. 0.85

00:31:57.000 But I knew by virtue of this custody order, I mean, the most significant factor weighed, and again, this is all public knowledge.

00:32:04.000 You can go out and read the order. Go out and read the order yourself.

00:32:07.000 You know, right there in the order, Sean is a leading candidate for Senate.

00:32:11.000 Now, this is not... I testified to, like, when I was asked, do you think that you're going to win?

00:32:15.000 I said, well, hell yeah, I think I'm going to win.

00:32:18.000 So 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.

00:32:26.000 I'm going to be busy. And that was one of the main factors, the main reasons that the judge awarded my ex-primary custody.

00:32:33.000 And so what I did was, as I said, okay, I'm going to take that off the table.

00:32:37.000 Because my kids, I've got five kids too.

00:32:39.000 I've got an amazing blended family.

00:32:41.000 You know how that happens, right? Yes, yes.

00:32:43.000 I know now, and I've got new hobbies.

00:32:45.000 It's amazing. I got into politics because it's less brutal than raising young kids and trying to do it right.

00:32:50.000 It's actually true.

00:32:53.000 It is. Kids teach you crazy things.

00:32:57.000 Kids are amazing because they teach you new things about life every day.

00:33:00.000 But my kids are everything to me.

00:33:02.000 I've always had an unbelievably close relationship with them.

00:33:05.000 In fact, the first paragraph in the judge's order is these are two great parents.

00:33:10.000 To a certain extent, the judge saw that as well.

00:33:14.000 But 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.

00:33:22.000 Period. End of story. Full stop.

00:33:25.000 But 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?

00:33:37.000 Okay, the Senate campaign's gone.

00:33:38.000 Let's go back to equal shared Parenting, which, by the way, should be the standard nationwide.

00:33:42.000 This gladiator stuff in family court is wrong.

00:33:45.000 You talk about dads having a rough go of it.

00:33:47.000 Listen to this statistic.

00:33:48.000 The 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.

00:34:01.000 700. So when I say contested custody trials, I mean mom and dad fighting over who should have the children.

00:34:08.000 So, 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.

00:34:23.000 So if that is not...

00:34:24.000 I'm actually surprised it's even that high. I'm telling you, if that is not evidence...

00:34:29.000 Father, hard-working guy, mother, drug-addicted, accusing this, schizophrenic, and it's like, well, we can't do anything about it.

00:34:34.000 It'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.

00:34:42.000 Here's my thoughts on this, Don.

00:34:45.000 When you go through something as horrible as divorce, and it is terrible, Kids don't ask for it.

00:34:52.000 Children deserve to love both parents.

00:34:56.000 Children deserve to have a relationship preserved with both parents.

00:35:01.000 And 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.

00:35:13.000 But that is violated in family court.

00:35:16.000 Not just for me. Think about this.

00:35:18.000 And I know that you know what I'm talking about here, given what you and your father have gone through.

00:35:21.000 Well, that's being violated in public school systems right now.

00:35:23.000 If 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?

00:35:32.000 Because 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.

00:35:43.000 It's the tens of thousands of dollars in a system that bleeds families bone dry and puts them in poverty.

00:35:51.000 Equal shared parenting should be the standard across the board.

00:35:54.000 It's something that Congress and Senate, I think both sides of the aisle should take up.

00:35:57.000 It should be a federal law.

00:35:59.000 But you know who fights against this the most?

00:36:02.000 State bar associations and family court attorneys.

00:36:05.000 Why? Because they benefit the most.

00:36:07.000 They benefit the most.

00:36:09.000 They make the most money from the dysfunction.

00:36:11.000 And it's wrong and we shouldn't allow it to happen in a country like America.

00:36:16.000 I agree. Your rather illustrious military career.

00:36:20.000 I do. Before I do that, I've got to remember, we got started talking, and I'm like, hey, I love it.

00:36:26.000 I 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.

00:36:36.000 You know, it makes you a terrible person if you're a dad saying, hey man, I think some dads are getting screwed big time.

00:36:41.000 You know, it's crazy.

00:36:43.000 But I do want to thank our sponsors.

00:36:45.000 Guys, GoldCo.

00:36:47.000 Go to DonJrGold.com.

00:36:49.000 These 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.

00:36:59.000 If you want to hedge against that, maybe you want to look at diversifying your portfolio, check out maybe precious metals.

00:37:05.000 Go to GoldCo and go to DonJrGold.com.

00:37:11.000 These are companies that actually, it takes balls to support a show like this and to do that.

00:37:16.000 So I want to make sure they go and actually do that and also that those companies actually understand where it's coming from.

00:37:22.000 Because you've seen cancel culture.

00:37:23.000 You've seen how difficult that is. So go check them out.

00:37:27.000 GoldCo has done a great job with that.

00:37:29.000 But my URL for that is donjrgold.com.

00:37:33.000 And 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.

00:37:44.000 But remember to support those companies that share your values.

00:37:47.000 And 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...

00:37:57.000 Supporting a conservative, let alone taking those kind of positions, I think it's really important.

00:38:01.000 So DonJrGold.com, check it out.

00:38:04.000 May be a great hedge against that.

00:38:05.000 But now I want to talk a little bit about, obviously, your military service.

00:38:10.000 Sort of incredible stuff.

00:38:12.000 I've heard the stories, but I don't know that everyone else does.

00:38:16.000 How did you get into it, first and foremost?

00:38:19.000 That's a great question.

00:38:20.000 So, I was a sophomore in college.

00:38:22.000 I don't come from a military family, you know?

00:38:25.000 And you were going to be a teacher, right?

00:38:26.000 Yeah, I was an elementary education major.

00:38:28.000 I 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.

00:38:37.000 I mean, I'm from Pittsburgh, so Iron City beer cans everywhere, cigarette butts all on the floor.

00:38:41.000 I remember staggering over to the television set.

00:38:43.000 We were like a natural light or natty ice if we were going to really spoil ourselves in college.

00:38:47.000 So I understand.

00:38:48.000 Yeah, so I remember staggering over to the television set, the world spinning.

00:38:52.000 I had the hangover of a lifetime.

00:38:53.000 I turn it on, and I watch the TV flicker to life, just in time to see an airplane crash into the World Trade

00:38:59.000 Center.

00:39:00.000 And I sobered up real quickly, and I remember staggering back and sitting on that rundown couch

00:39:07.000 and watching 9-11 unfold on my TV, people tumbling from those flaming towers

00:39:13.000 and landing on the sidewalk and dying.

00:39:16.000 People that were lucky enough to survive that fateful day stagger out of the wreckage.

00:39:22.000 Covered from head to toe in that thick gray soot. 0.63

00:39:24.000 The only thing you see were the bloodshot eyes and a thousand yard stare.

00:39:27.000 You remember that? And I wasn't even there.

00:39:30.000 Ironically, 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.

00:39:39.000 So 9-11, I came out of the mountain.

00:39:41.000 I was elk hunting that morning. I came out of the mountains.

00:39:42.000 I heard it on the radio.

00:39:44.000 Just like a plane. I figured it was some moron and stuff. 1.00

00:39:47.000 I didn't know what was going on at first. 1.00

00:39:49.000 It was early morning. And like...

00:39:52.000 A little bit more happening. I was like, literally the next day I was in my car, you know, driving home because, like, that was my home.

00:39:57.000 I knew people that worked in those buildings.

00:39:59.000 And, you know, the whole leaving to go to Colorado to be a bartender after graduating from Warren, that was a conversation that...

00:40:06.000 With my father, that was rather interesting.

00:40:08.000 I was like, hey, you did what?

00:40:09.000 I'm like, well, you know, it's going to...

00:40:11.000 How did that go?

00:40:14.000 That was rough.

00:40:17.000 That was like Hillary at the debates rough. 1.00

00:40:21.000 So it was an interesting one.

00:40:23.000 And it was like, okay, well, then you're cut off and you've got no credit card.

00:40:26.000 The only thing they forgot to cancel was my gas card.

00:40:28.000 So I literally worked at a bar and I did fine.

00:40:31.000 And once you're in a small ski town in Colorado, like...

00:40:34.000 Once 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.

00:40:39.000 It was like one big bar system, but like, yeah.

00:40:41.000 And I made up the differential, basically, by like, living off gas station food.

00:40:45.000 So the gas station sushi thing is real, and it may not be ideal, but you can survive.

00:40:51.000 Yeah. God, that's almost like a modern-day Bruce Wayne story without the Batman, where you just disappear as Don...

00:40:57.000 No, Don Jr. went fishing and hunting bird.

00:40:59.000 Yeah, 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...

00:41:09.000 I 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.

00:41:21.000 And 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?

00:41:31.000 I 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.

00:41:37.000 I wanted to go to ranger school because I knew it was the best leadership school that the Army had to offer.

00:41:41.000 And I wanted to be the best leader that I could for my future soldiers.

00:41:45.000 And then I wanted to be on the front lines of America's collective response.

00:41:49.000 And man, Don, I ended up going to all those cool, sexy schools.

00:41:55.000 PCS'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.

00:42:04.000 And 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.

00:42:15.000 In 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.

00:42:27.000 First of all, our mission was to find Osama bin Laden, and this is again in 2006.

00:42:31.000 My 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.

00:42:44.000 That's the Wild West.

00:42:46.000 That's Pakistan. We chased the enemy into Pakistan.

00:42:53.000 More than a few times.

00:42:54.000 I mean, we got shot at from PAX. So this base that I was assigned to, it was forward operating base Burmel.

00:43:00.000 We 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.

00:43:10.000 And I mean, we've gotten hundreds of direct fire engagements with the enemy.

00:43:13.000 Now, 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.

00:43:25.000 If you think back to 2005, 2006, the eyes of this nation were wholeheartedly fixated on the Iraq War.

00:43:34.000 George W. Bush was president.

00:43:36.000 Like, the surge. That was the word.

00:43:38.000 Like, should we send more troops to Iraq in a war that's already failing?

00:43:42.000 And then the weapons of mass destruction debate was raging.

00:43:44.000 Yeah, I guess that was still going on then, right?

00:43:46.000 That was where the focus was.

00:43:49.000 So Afghanistan, everyone, boys.

00:43:51.000 And we were getting no intelligence from the front line.

00:43:53.000 Nothing. And that was probably, in terms of combat, more brutal.

00:43:57.000 Afghanistan? Not even close, huh?

00:43:58.000 Well, I mean, I don't know that I would say that because all combat's pretty shitty.

00:44:03.000 It was just different. It was a different type of combat.

00:44:05.000 So, like, when you're doing Iraq, you know, there's...

00:44:09.000 Military operations and urban terrain. 1.00

00:44:11.000 I mean, that is absolutely the worst shit you will ever do. 0.99

00:44:17.000 Because, 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. 0.99

00:44:25.000 Because you have civilians, you have buildings, you've got guys kicking in doors, clearing rooms, anchoring, kicking in another door, clearing rooms.

00:44:33.000 And 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?

00:44:40.000 It was a different kind.

00:44:41.000 You 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?

00:44:52.000 It was a different thing in Iraq, right?

00:44:54.000 We learned a lot on the go.

00:44:56.000 We refined what we call our TTPs, or tactics, techniques, and procedures.

00:45:01.000 I was never in Iraq, though.

00:45:03.000 I 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.

00:45:12.000 And so, Afghanistan really, first of all, we weren't getting intelligence from the front line.

00:45:16.000 We didn't know we were getting ourselves into.

00:45:18.000 We thought that Afghanistan Was just a stability and support operation.

00:45:22.000 And we realized very quickly that that was not the case.

00:45:25.000 Because the Taliban did retreat.

00:45:28.000 Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Akhani Network, Hakhmati, or they did retreat to Pakistan.

00:45:33.000 But they consolidated, reorganized, and came back in 2005.

00:45:36.000 And they were ready to fight us.

00:45:38.000 They did some fighting in 2005, but they were ready to fight us in 2006 when we got back there.

00:45:43.000 You talk about the different styles of combat.

00:45:45.000 Let me address that for a second.

00:45:46.000 Afghanistan was like an infantryman's dream. 0.99

00:45:49.000 What I mean by that is, like, you never want to find yourself in a fair fight with the enemy.

00:45:54.000 The only thing that you want to do is kick boots on the objective.

00:45:57.000 If you're in a fair fight, your tactics are right.

00:45:58.000 Yeah. And so in Afghanistan, we were able to leverage the full military might of the military.

00:46:04.000 Like, where we were fighting in...

00:46:08.000 When we were fighting in eastern Afghanistan, we were in the mountains, it was like no man's land.

00:46:11.000 There was very, very little collateral damage.

00:46:14.000 We spent a lot of time and energy relocating people so that we didn't have to worry about hurting civilians when we were there.

00:46:21.000 And then it just became about direct fire engagements, using mortars, using artillery, using air power effectively, both rotary wing and fixed wing. 0.87

00:46:32.000 You know, combat sucks. 0.93

00:46:33.000 It's horrible. But if you have to go through it, that's the best way to do it. 0.97

00:46:39.000 When you can leverage...

00:46:41.000 Well, you know, like when you're getting...

00:46:44.000 When 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.

00:46:52.000 So the good leaders look at those places and they plot what's called target reference points.

00:46:57.000 So when you're calling for fire artillery, you're not calling in an eight-digit grid.

00:47:01.000 You'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...

00:47:07.000 No, it's like, hey, fire TRP-1, you know?

00:47:10.000 And so... When you do that, you know you're going into an ambush zone.

00:47:14.000 You can actually time your assault on an objective with your trucks.

00:47:19.000 Okay, we're going to start our movement now.

00:47:20.000 Right before we get to phase line alpha, you know, fire target reference point one.

00:47:26.000 Okay, fire TRP two and three and so on.

00:47:29.000 So that by the time you hit the objective, you just had an artillery rocket, you know?

00:47:33.000 And you can hit the objective if...

00:47:37.000 If you're lucky, the enemy is either dead or severely injured, and you can hit them with some level of surprise.

00:47:44.000 And then we were able to use rotary wing, we were able to use fixed wing a lot.

00:47:48.000 So what's some of the craziest stories from Afghanistan?

00:47:51.000 Maybe both vicious and funny, because I've heard some interesting sort of funny stories from friends probably do.

00:47:57.000 I'm just trying to remember which ones there are, but I think there's some amazing ones that I think people would find interesting.

00:48:02.000 Well, we went through, I mean, God, how much time do you have in this podcast?

00:48:06.000 I'm gonna tell war stories, but I mean, the one is, if you talk about the day that I was wounded, I call it like my alive day.

00:48:14.000 We were perched on a hill doing what we call an observation post, an OP. I had 24 soldiers on the ground, five gun trucks.

00:48:22.000 I had an interpreter with me.

00:48:23.000 We had two 240 Bravo machine guns, a Mark 19 and 250 calibers.

00:48:28.000 We had our trucks in 360-degree security with my men perched in between the trucks behind cover and concealment.

00:48:35.000 We set in at night, did everything right.

00:48:37.000 Sun came up.

00:48:39.000 I used my forward observer, called for fire on...

00:48:42.000 Places that I thought the bad guys would be.

00:48:45.000 Back then we called them harassment and interdiction fires.

00:48:49.000 OH&I fires.

00:48:50.000 We don't do that anymore. But harassment and interdiction fires.

00:48:53.000 So if the enemy's there, we want to let them know that we know they're there. 0.98

00:48:56.000 And we're just going to shoot those hilltops to show them. 0.96

00:48:58.000 And so we did that that morning.

00:49:01.000 I hit this place where it was a cave site where the enemy was moving rockets from Pakistan through this cave into Afghanistan.

00:49:07.000 So we hit this cave with some 105s. 1.00

00:49:09.000 And when we did that, man, we just got...

00:49:12.000 It was like hitting a hornet's nest with a baseball bat.

00:49:15.000 And we just started getting pounded.

00:49:18.000 I 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.

00:49:29.000 And 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.

00:49:37.000 And Don, I was so out of it that...

00:49:42.000 Obviously, I was knocked unconscious.

00:49:44.000 I talked about this recently, but this is only really the second time I've ever really talked about this.

00:49:51.000 I thought that I was going to die.

00:49:53.000 I thought that I was dying.

00:49:54.000 And I just remember, I could have sworn I felt like God with me there. 0.99

00:50:00.000 Yeah, and I'm always afraid to talk about it, man, because there are going to be people out there that, oh, you're crazy.

00:50:06.000 Honestly, I think that'd be comforting to a lot of people as well.

00:50:11.000 I just could have sworn I felt it.

00:50:13.000 You know, and I could have sworn I felt my grandfather, who is like...

00:50:16.000 My grandfather is like a second father.

00:50:18.000 Figured to me he died the day before I was supposed to go to Afghanistan.

00:50:21.000 So, like St.

00:50:22.000 Christopher medal, he wore one given to him like Christmas of 1945.

00:50:26.000 Wore it every day. Never took it off.

00:50:28.000 I was wearing it in Afghanistan when I got hurt.

00:50:30.000 And I could have sworn I heard him just saying, Get up.

00:50:33.000 Get up. Wake up.

00:50:35.000 And I remember things came back to me real slowly that day.

00:50:38.000 It was like somebody was... You know, turning the sound up on a TV that was just static, you know?

00:50:44.000 And one of my squad leaders, or one of my team leaders, rather, was sitting on my chest, like, slapping me in the face.

00:50:49.000 And he had this big smile on him, and I'm like, like, what was wrong with you, dude?

00:50:53.000 And he just, he's like, he's like, sir!

00:50:55.000 I'm like, what? He's like, you got blown the fuck up! 0.83

00:50:58.000 And I'm like, what? I'm like, what? 0.50

00:51:00.000 And 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.

00:51:21.000 I 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.

00:51:33.000 You 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.

00:51:41.000 They're almost prehistoric.

00:51:43.000 Huge. 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.

00:51:54.000 My platoon sergeant, a guy by the name of Greg Greason, I was a second lieutenant.

00:51:59.000 I didn't really know what I was doing.

00:52:01.000 I was lucky to have guys like my sergeants and even my soldiers who taught, coached, and mentored me every step of the way.

00:52:07.000 The fact is, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those guys teaching me everything I know.

00:52:12.000 So my platoon sergeant was like my partner in crime.

00:52:15.000 He taught me everything, and he was the voice.

00:52:18.000 He was my go-to guy, and he was already hurt.

00:52:21.000 So I knew it was real serious.

00:52:24.000 I remember standing up and as I stood up, I had this clear fluid leak out of my ears and my nose just gushed out.

00:52:31.000 And I remember doing this and looking at it and I was like, well, it's not blood.

00:52:34.000 Good to go. Still in the fight.

00:52:36.000 Ran back to my truck and I started calling fire on those target reference points that we talked about.

00:52:41.000 And I started calling fire on danger close on our position.

00:52:44.000 I 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.

00:52:51.000 And 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.

00:52:59.000 The level of fire was so intense I mean, I'm looking at my hand.

00:53:05.000 It's laying on the ground just like this, right?

00:53:07.000 And I'm watching bullets land between my fingers.

00:53:11.000 Kick up dirt, land between my fingers.

00:53:13.000 And later that day, I would look at my uniform.

00:53:16.000 I had bullet holes in my pants of my uniform.

00:53:19.000 I mean, it was just...

00:53:20.000 Like an act of God that you weren't...

00:53:22.000 I mean, this is what I learned by the whole philosophy of, like, small bullet, big sky.

00:53:26.000 Like, it's really freaking hard to hit something.

00:53:28.000 It really is. Like, even with machine guns.

00:53:31.000 And so... And the importance of good cover and concealment.

00:53:36.000 So I'm looking out at everything.

00:53:38.000 Got a couple of trucks that are already out.

00:53:40.000 So immediately as a leader, I'm thinking, I'm not just going to be able to leave this hilltop.

00:53:43.000 We can't leave our equipment out here because we've got top secret radios out here with our ComSec.

00:53:48.000 ComSec is basically like all the frequencies that we use to talk.

00:53:50.000 Can't leave that out here for the enemy.

00:53:52.000 So I'm stuck here on this hilltop with 24 guys.

00:53:54.000 And I'm looking at those two hilltops.

00:53:57.000 I'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.

00:54:05.000 And 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.

00:54:14.000 And they had us in a wicked crossfire, and they're hitting us with plunging fire.

00:54:17.000 So they were in an elevated position, and they're actually arcing the rounds down on top of us. 0.79

00:54:22.000 They'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?

00:54:30.000 So what I was thinking, I was watching them fire, Don, and it was like they weren't just firing.

00:54:35.000 They weren't just firing on cyclic.

00:54:37.000 They were talking the guns.

00:54:41.000 Like one gun would fire and then stop.

00:54:43.000 The next gun would fire and then stop.

00:54:45.000 And the reason for that is because they didn't want to melt the barrels on their machine guns.

00:54:49.000 And 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.

00:55:06.000 It sounds much more sophisticated than everything you read about where it's like, oh, you know what I mean?

00:55:12.000 You hear about catching these guys, you know...

00:55:15.000 With farm animals and stuff like that.

00:55:17.000 You're like, no, it's gotta be, but this sounds like a really...

00:55:19.000 I'm sure you have some of those stories, too, but...

00:55:21.000 Yes, I'll tell you one after this.

00:55:24.000 But you're absolutely right.

00:55:26.000 These weren't farmers with pitchforks.

00:55:27.000 This wasn't a ragtag consurgency.

00:55:29.000 These were hardened Afghan fighters that...

00:55:31.000 They fought against the Russians in the 80s and the Afghan Civil War in the 90s.

00:55:35.000 Their whole life has been war. Yes, their whole life has been war.

00:55:38.000 In fact, you know, your average Afghan fighter or foreign fighter has 10 years combat experience on your 18-year-old American private.

00:55:45.000 So I'm thinking to myself, okay, hit us with indirect fire.

00:55:50.000 They simultaneously place two support by fires.

00:55:52.000 They're attacking just like us.

00:55:53.000 What are they going to do next?

00:55:55.000 Well, if I'm them, I attack.

00:55:58.000 And 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.

00:56:10.000 So about 80 enemy.

00:56:13.000 And that was just about the time that the rounds started landing danger close.

00:56:17.000 And I remember running out to where the contact is heaviest because I just believe that that's where a platoon leader is supposed to be. 1.00

00:56:22.000 If you're leading men in combat, if you aren't where contact is heaviest, you're a fucking useless leader. 0.99

00:56:27.000 Like, your platoon leader, your job is to lead your troops and lead them boldly. 0.99

00:56:31.000 And so I get out to where the contact is happening.

00:56:33.000 It's the easternmost portion of our perimeter.

00:56:35.000 Three of my soldiers had already been shot in the head out there, but every single one of them was still in the fight.

00:56:39.000 And I'm looking up at a guy named Mike Emrick, who was up in the turret, and he had had a bullet.

00:56:43.000 He had taken a bullet to the head.

00:56:46.000 Kyle Lewis. It was his very first patrol ever.

00:56:49.000 And he's out on patrol with his up in a gun.

00:56:51.000 He gets shot in the head, falls down in the turret, stands back up.

00:56:53.000 No helmet on his head, but gets right back on his gun.

00:56:59.000 You 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.

00:57:08.000 Well, that day I learned that great troops inspire their leaders.

00:57:12.000 And 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.

00:57:19.000 It's all about service, right?

00:57:20.000 Being a leader is about service.

00:57:23.000 Watching these rounds land danger close.

00:57:25.000 They're vaporizing these guys.

00:57:26.000 By the way, this isn't a human wave attack.

00:57:29.000 They're bounding, right?

00:57:30.000 With squad-level elements, team leaders and a squad leader yelling commands.

00:57:34.000 They're bounding up the hill after us.

00:57:36.000 Rounds are hitting danger close.

00:57:38.000 I'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.

00:57:48.000 Nothing what we did Nothing of what we had was stopping them.

00:57:53.000 There were just so many of them. They were outnumbered 10 to 1.

00:57:56.000 And I'm thinking, man, I want to give the command to fix bayonets.

00:57:58.000 And then I realized that the Army didn't issue us bayonets for that deployment.

00:58:02.000 So, you know? And so that was outnumbered 10 to 1 on a hill in Afghanistan, 24 guys on the ground.

00:58:08.000 I think the fight ended up being something like 10 hours before we got everything off of that hilltop.

00:58:13.000 But it was Apache helicopters with a call sign fullback.

00:58:18.000 That 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.

00:58:32.000 And 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.

00:58:42.000 Then and only then did we get them to break contact.

00:58:44.000 So that, like...

00:58:47.000 485 days of stuff like that.

00:58:49.000 And by the way, by the way, as a young platoon leader, as a young infantry guy, like...

00:58:56.000 But you're a terrible American, Sean, according to the radicals in the mainstream press.

00:58:59.000 Well, I'll say this.

00:59:02.000 I did want to test myself, like, see what combat was like, and we got on our first firefight, and we did all right, you know?

00:59:08.000 My men were amazing.

00:59:10.000 And I say men, because we only had men back in the infantry back then.

00:59:13.000 Like, now, you know, it was...

00:59:15.000 That's got to be where we go next, right?

00:59:17.000 Okay. Talk about woke military.

00:59:20.000 Okay. You know, I love seeing a leader.

00:59:24.000 You know, it seems sort of opposite from what I see today.

00:59:26.000 And 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.

00:59:32.000 You know, he's got medals from here, never won a war.

00:59:35.000 Not 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.

00:59:42.000 It's so, like, insane watching this, but you see a general...

00:59:48.000 I use the example on the stump speech all the time, you know, when the Afghan withdrawal.

00:59:51.000 I 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?

00:59:58.000 But I saw that, and then I see him testify before Congress.

01:00:02.000 I want to learn about white rage.

01:00:04.000 Really? You couldn't have seen a quote.

01:00:07.000 I could not have seen it come...

01:00:09.000 I know nothing. Let's just assume I know jack shit about Afghanistan. 0.99

01:00:13.000 I saw it coming. 0.99

01:00:15.000 We leave him $86 billion worth of equipment.

01:00:18.000 The Russians are now buying it to you against us in Ukraine. 0.94

01:00:21.000 They couldn't have seen it coming, but he's worried about white rage not actually winning the war.

01:00:25.000 What do you see with woke military?

01:00:28.000 What 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. 0.93

01:00:39.000 If you want to be an admiral, go be trans. 1.00

01:00:42.000 You'll get it in two weeks, it feels like. 0.83

01:00:47.000 I'm saying it kind of funny, but I'm also not.

01:00:51.000 There's truth in it. Yeah, there is, of course.

01:00:53.000 After Afghanistan, I watched Blinken get up there.

01:00:55.000 We are shocked and dismayed.

01:00:57.000 I think this is almost verbatim. We are shocked and dismayed that the Taliban did not install a more diverse and inclusive government.

01:01:03.000 The fuck have you been watching? All of a sudden the Taliban are third generation feminists. 1.00

01:01:08.000 I can't take these people seriously.

01:01:11.000 You're going to be the Secretary of State of the United States and that's a serious question?

01:01:15.000 What do you think? There was going to be a trans coalition?

01:01:17.000 They were going to bring in Leah Thomas? 0.99

01:01:19.000 What the fuck did you think was going to happen? 0.98

01:01:22.000 How do you take these people seriously? 0.99

01:01:23.000 And again, you lost friends there.

01:01:26.000 You could have lost your own life there. 0.99

01:01:28.000 And you're watching these clowns Like, say this with a straight face. 0.98

01:01:33.000 It was very difficult to watch the fall of Afghanistan. 0.97

01:01:36.000 It 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.

01:01:48.000 And 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...

01:01:57.000 Trump believed in that. Yes, he did.

01:01:58.000 But he wasn't a warmonger because he wasn't worried about getting on the board of Bratheon.

01:02:02.000 The way to do that is to sell a lot of missiles to make sure you have the connections to keep these things going.

01:02:07.000 I think that's why you have woke generals now.

01:02:10.000 The American public actually doesn't want to be in never-ending wars anymore either.

01:02:13.000 Both sides. It's actually a bipartisan issue.

01:02:15.000 That's exactly right. Rather than their exit for the generals isn't like a board seat at Raytheon, now it's a board seat at Disney.

01:02:22.000 The way to do that is by giving Disney what they want, which is woke bullshit. 0.97

01:02:27.000 We have a senior leadership problem in the military. 0.99

01:02:29.000 Full stop. And in fact, when Millie was talking about white rage, I think...

01:02:33.000 I mean, I was in the thick of running for Senate at that point.

01:02:35.000 But I think that there's a tweet out there from me prior to the collapse of Afghanistan.

01:02:39.000 I think I said something like, maybe you should stop focusing on white rage and start focusing on withdrawal responsibly from Afghanistan. 0.90

01:02:48.000 Two months later, Afghanistan completely collapsed.

01:02:50.000 And by the way, the intel was completely wrong.

01:02:53.000 We thought that the Afghan National Army could stand on it.

01:02:55.000 Well, this... But you knew they couldn't, right?

01:02:58.000 No, I did, yeah. And I know guys on both sides.

01:03:00.000 I have other friends that served over there that have gone to great lengths.

01:03:04.000 They had an interpreter or someone that they fought to get in there.

01:03:08.000 But you've seen the opposite.

01:03:10.000 You've had a story where...

01:03:12.000 There are Kandaks, what they call battalions, that can stand on their own, that are courageous, that are elite fighters.

01:03:17.000 They're great. You want them by your side in the trenches.

01:03:20.000 But, Don, you don't have...

01:03:23.000 You don't have an army unless you can pay them, water them, feed them, sustain them, supply chains.

01:03:29.000 Afghanistan is so corrupt, I knew in my heart of hearts that they would never have that. 1.00

01:03:33.000 Because 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.

01:03:43.000 And Afghanistan is largely tribal, so it's very, very corrupt. 1.00

01:03:47.000 But I knew that an Afghan collapse was imminent. 0.99

01:03:53.000 Well, by the way, again, I knew nothing about it and I knew it was imminent.

01:03:58.000 Then we give them...

01:04:00.000 Let'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. 0.85

01:04:06.000 They're going to do the right thing because they're good human beings.

01:04:08.000 Remember, 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. 1.00

01:04:15.000 They would put journalists in cages and douse them in gasoline and light them on fire.

01:04:20.000 And we're going to leave them $86 billion in U.S. equipment.

01:04:23.000 How much of that equipment will be used to oppress...

01:04:27.000 Good people in Afghanistan.

01:04:29.000 Murder, maim, pillage for generations to come.

01:04:33.000 It'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.

01:04:37.000 They'll get 30 years out of a truck that we've used for two years.

01:04:40.000 And look, when I say we have a general problem, we do.

01:04:44.000 There'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.

01:04:53.000 So what made that happen?

01:04:55.000 I think that there was a shift in focus in our military.

01:04:59.000 If 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.

01:05:07.000 So I think we have, to a certain extent, too many chiefs and not enough Indians. 0.93

01:05:11.000 And 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...

01:05:21.000 I had never even heard about white rage before.

01:05:23.000 I was like, that's weird.

01:05:25.000 I'm watching congressional testimony, and it's like a made-up phrase to satisfy woke...

01:05:30.000 Those are not...

01:05:31.000 Here's the thing. In combat, people's lives are on the line.

01:05:35.000 I don't care if the guy is black, blue, green, purple... 0.86

01:05:39.000 I just want the best fighter in my foxhole.

01:05:42.000 Seems pretty logical.

01:05:43.000 Yeah, 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.

01:05:49.000 No, stop. You still have men and women in the field. 0.87

01:05:54.000 The men and women that serve this country are America's most precious resource. 0.99

01:06:00.000 And you have them out there front towards enemy while you're on Capitol Hill talking about some liberal bullshit. 0.95

01:06:07.000 Two months later, an entire country collapses. 0.98

01:06:09.000 And oh, by the way, we've been there for 20 years.

01:06:12.000 We've spent billions and billions and billions of dollars in Afghanistan, like blood, sweat, and tears in Afghanistan. 0.89

01:06:19.000 I've lost probably 30 of my friends since I came into the military, 30 of them.

01:06:24.000 You know? And all of that, and people ask me all the time, well, was it wasted?

01:06:28.000 It's like, and I think it was.

01:06:30.000 And here's why, Don. And it sounds terrible, but when you look at...

01:06:33.000 And, like, that's not to the soldiers, Don.

01:06:36.000 Yeah, no, no. My men and the men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan...

01:06:41.000 We're amazing. Like, we built schools.

01:06:44.000 We built wells.

01:06:45.000 We did humanitarian distributions.

01:06:47.000 There are little girls that are reading in Afghanistan today because we taught them how to read.

01:06:51.000 Boys and girls working in the economy of Afghanistan never having had that opportunity before.

01:06:57.000 And those girls, by the way, they're not allowed to even get a band of education anymore because we let the Taliban... 1.00

01:07:01.000 Yes, so when I say, no, we did so many great things, but our leadership in Washington broke it.

01:07:11.000 And 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.

01:07:26.000 Like, here's the mission, here's what success and victory look like, and when that's done, we're done.

01:07:30.000 And here's the problem.

01:07:31.000 And this is why I have real issues with Ukraine.

01:07:34.000 Never mind the fact that there's a weird incestuous relationship between Biden and fire the prosecutor and a billion dollars.

01:07:41.000 If it was Don Jr., it would be a problem with this.

01:07:44.000 We're not even questioning whether we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars because we don't know what they have.

01:07:52.000 Seems like a reasonable question.

01:07:53.000 We don't know what they have on us.

01:07:55.000 Is that blackmail?

01:07:57.000 And God knows there seems like there's a lot of it, right?

01:07:59.000 Yeah. Imagine what Hunter didn't put on the laptop, right?

01:08:01.000 Like... Yeah. No, but think about it.

01:08:04.000 I know. You're right. Do we really not think that there's a solid chance that one...

01:08:08.000 Name a foreign nation that probably doesn't have a Hunter laptop.

01:08:11.000 This guy has more laptops than any human being in the world, and they end up everywhere.

01:08:14.000 It's very clear that Hunter and the Biden family are compromised.

01:08:17.000 They are. The media's not reporting on it, but they are.

01:08:19.000 You can't do the things that Hunter Biden was doing, 10% to the big guy, and have that family not be compromised.

01:08:26.000 They shouldn't even have top-secret government security clearances.

01:08:29.000 They should not. But here's the thing about Ukraine and what I was talking about.

01:08:33.000 There are conservatives out there and neocons out there, of which I am not one.

01:08:37.000 I am willing, if our freedom in this country was ever threatened, I'd be the first one in line to defend it.

01:08:44.000 Well, you've proven that. Most of them haven't.

01:08:46.000 I'm not—what I'm saying, Don, is that we just came off of 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:08:52.000 There are already people in Washington trying to send us back into the fight.

01:08:56.000 Like, my kids now will be a part of that.

01:08:59.000 Going to Ukraine where the stakes are much higher, where you've got nuclear weapons, the geopolitical situation is far more complicated.

01:09:06.000 We probably still have Americans trapped in Afghanistan, and we're already trying to start a new war.

01:09:10.000 Well, we— We left them.

01:09:12.000 I mean, it seems to me like the basic tenant would leave no man behind, but we left our civilians.

01:09:16.000 We 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.

01:09:36.000 So listen, Reagan era, and by the way, Ronald Reagan was an amazing president.

01:09:40.000 Foreign policy at the time was incredible.

01:09:42.000 Reagan era, peace through strength doctrine, right?

01:09:46.000 And the idea that the promulgation of democracies all over the world will make the world a safer and freer place is true.

01:09:53.000 It is true. What comes part and parcel with that is trust in government, right?

01:09:59.000 Trust in our leaders, trust in a system that are going to do right by the American people.

01:10:04.000 And we've had Republicans and Democrats, by the way, 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

01:10:09.000 We haven't even done a battlefield assessment, a proper battlefield assessment of what went wrong there because, frankly...

01:10:17.000 There hasn't been enough time that's gone by, right?

01:10:19.000 Let's just get in another one! 0.99

01:10:21.000 Yeah, so let's get in another one before we learn the lessons of the past.

01:10:23.000 And oh, by the way, every American that's watching this, are you willing to sacrifice your son or daughter fighting for Ukraine?

01:10:32.000 By the way, a regime that by any standard is just as corrupt, in some cases rated more corrupt than Russia itself.

01:10:41.000 I'm not saying Putin's an angel, but we're creating a billionaire oligarch class who's taking care of it.

01:10:47.000 Now, I understand that a lot of this is a kickback to big war.

01:10:49.000 Big war watched big pharma get rich over the last two years. 0.98

01:10:52.000 They're saying, bitches, it's my turn again. 1.00

01:10:54.000 I want to get back at the trough. 1.00

01:10:56.000 Putin 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.

01:11:04.000 The man had peace in the Middle East.

01:11:07.000 I never thought I'd ever see that in my lifetime.

01:11:09.000 That was the holy grail of geopolitical accomplishment.

01:11:13.000 And 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.

01:11:20.000 Only guy advocating to end the never-ending wars.

01:11:22.000 Only guy, frankly, right now, in and of the Republican side, even too, being like, Hey, uh, like, what's the ending of Ukraine?

01:11:28.000 He's pursuing peace.

01:11:29.000 Peace is the responsibility of anyone with enormous power.

01:11:33.000 But he's also the only one. They weren't floating balloons over, despite what, you know, despite what they said.

01:11:38.000 They tried that story last week.

01:11:39.000 Oh, there were multiple balloons under Trump.

01:11:40.000 Really? Where? All of a sudden, that disappeared really quickly once you called them out.

01:11:43.000 But you also didn't have Russia invading their neighbors.

01:11:46.000 They did under Bush. They did under Obama.

01:11:48.000 They're doing it again under Biden.

01:11:49.000 They didn't do it under Trump. Because they understood resolve and strength.

01:11:53.000 That'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.

01:11:59.000 Yeah. Right? I mean, especially when you look at the threat of China.

01:12:02.000 We're spending resources and missiles and depleting our...

01:12:05.000 Look at what we just... Look at what just came out about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

01:12:09.000 Yeah. It looks... Well, that's an act of war, by the way.

01:12:11.000 It looks like... With a nuclear power.

01:12:14.000 With a nuclear power.

01:12:15.000 And... So we basically destroyed a pipeline that supplied natural gas to almost all of Europe, right?

01:12:25.000 So 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.

01:12:34.000 We 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.

01:12:45.000 We sat there and said, okay, Germany, oh, you want Russia oil?

01:12:47.000 Okay. 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.

01:12:59.000 We'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.

01:13:03.000 In that case, Angela Merkel. It's insane that we're even having these conversations.

01:13:08.000 And Trump was the only guy to be like, this is bullshit. 0.99

01:13:10.000 Trump was the only one, the only leader that we've had in my lifetime that pursued peace. 1.00

01:13:16.000 And 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. 0.95

01:13:27.000 The Biden administration said it.

01:13:28.000 It's exactly right. We have not been this close to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

01:13:33.000 That's exactly right. And everyone's like, ah, that's fine.

01:13:36.000 Let's keep giving money to Ukraine. 0.93

01:13:38.000 I'm sure Zelensky's a wonderful, you know, he's not corrupt at all, right?

01:13:42.000 Despite everything we know.

01:13:43.000 What 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.

01:14:02.000 They're the representatives of the people.

01:14:04.000 Well, 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.

01:14:15.000 So you do that with a nuclear power who's sitting on a 6,000 nuclear warhead arsenal.

01:14:20.000 You've backed a...

01:14:24.000 Dictatorial strongman into a corner.

01:14:25.000 I 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.

01:14:36.000 And now we're here a year later.

01:14:38.000 The Ukrainians have put up a good fight.

01:14:41.000 We're in a proxy war.

01:14:42.000 I mean, we're basically at war with Russia, whether we're going to pretend to or not. 0.62

01:14:48.000 You know, this is like...

01:14:50.000 Where does it end? That's the question.

01:14:52.000 When does Russia say, you know what? 1.00

01:14:53.000 Fuck this. We're actually fighting the U.S. Let's do something about it. 1.00

01:14:56.000 Or Europe.

01:14:57.000 I will tell you that Russia is not going to break contact in Ukraine.

01:15:02.000 And what it's looking like...

01:15:04.000 It's because of the personalities.

01:15:05.000 It's different than the U.S. where everyone's a participant...

01:15:08.000 I grew up in Eastern Europe.

01:15:10.000 I understand there's a strong, tough guy mentality.

01:15:13.000 They wouldn't do it just to save face.

01:15:15.000 It's a cultural thing as much as anything else.

01:15:17.000 Like, Putin's not going to lose on a world stage like this without probably escalation.

01:15:22.000 Dmitry Medvedev has literally said that, the former president, who was basically the stooge

01:15:26.000 they put in there while Putin had to take an obligatory couple of years off.

01:15:29.000 Like, Russia's not going to break contact.

01:15:31.000 They're not. And so what it looks like, we're going to be in a 10, 15-year stalemate in Ukraine.

01:15:38.000 And that's not an ideal situation.

01:15:39.000 And 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.

01:15:49.000 What does a negotiated settlement look like?

01:15:51.000 No one's even asking, not at one single question!

01:15:54.000 Because as long as there's this much money floating around...

01:15:57.000 It's going to continue. You know how to get peace talks going?

01:16:00.000 Hey, there's a finite, we're cutting this off at XYZ point in time.

01:16:04.000 Literally, otherwise, they're going to say, hey, we're using America missiles, we're going to send this away.

01:16:09.000 There's going to be nothing left.

01:16:10.000 The loss of life is disgusting.

01:16:13.000 But until we say, hey, the blank check ends at a certain point, you better get to the table.

01:16:18.000 It'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.

01:16:29.000 That's my opinion, but it just seems, like, so obvious.

01:16:33.000 And nobody in the media is asking questions about it.

01:16:35.000 I 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.

01:16:47.000 And it's also the most plausible, right?

01:16:50.000 I remember when that happened, I go, oh, of course, like, I sort of, I mean, no evidence, right?

01:16:54.000 But I was like, of course we did that.

01:16:56.000 Like, they're like, well, maybe the Russians did it. 0.93

01:16:57.000 I 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.

01:17:05.000 Maybe 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. 1.00

01:17:09.000 They don't have the sophistication to do that.

01:17:11.000 So I'm sitting there being like, oh, yeah, the Russians did it to themselves. 0.94

01:17:14.000 You read Seymour Hersh's report.

01:17:16.000 It's unbelievably rigorous and detailed.

01:17:21.000 It's like... It's like Wuhan lab leak.

01:17:25.000 Of course it came from the Wuhan lab leak. 1.00

01:17:28.000 No, no, no, bullshit. It came from three feet outside of the lab. 1.00

01:17:32.000 It came from a bat. Someone ate a bat sandwich outside of the lab.

01:17:35.000 It clearly didn't come from the lab that studies the fucking virus. 1.00

01:17:39.000 The coronavirus, yeah. And we've been funding with Game of Function Research for like... 0.99

01:17:43.000 It came from right outside.

01:17:45.000 And if you were a doctor and said, but wait, but this is like, you know, Ackman's razor, right?

01:17:50.000 This is obviously where, like, you know, the most plausible answer is probably the answer.

01:17:54.000 There's a coronavirus lab there.

01:17:55.000 You'd lose your tenure, you'd lose...

01:17:57.000 That clearly didn't come from that.

01:17:59.000 Like... Of course it's the most plausible.

01:18:01.000 But we're at a stage where we're incapable of even talking about the obvious.

01:18:06.000 I agree. I agree.

01:18:07.000 And it's scary. It's dangerous.

01:18:08.000 And so that's why...

01:18:10.000 Look, freedom is worth fighting for.

01:18:13.000 America's worth defending. But we also have to be careful about...

01:18:17.000 We can be smart. Yes, absolutely.

01:18:19.000 There's a way to fight and be intelligent.

01:18:21.000 I think China does that. 0.97

01:18:23.000 I 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. 0.91

01:18:29.000 While we're sitting there worried about the 9,476 genders, they're securing every cobalt mine in the world. 1.00

01:18:37.000 I'm not saying they're doing it in good ways.

01:18:40.000 I think it's the most corrupting ever, but they're doing what's good for them to secure their future, and the notion that...

01:18:47.000 Putting America first is terrible.

01:18:48.000 Sean, how could you possibly do that?

01:18:50.000 You know, the globalist agenda, it's crazy.

01:18:52.000 I 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.

01:19:02.000 Like, they can't afford groceries.

01:19:04.000 Gas is through the roof.

01:19:05.000 You know, you talk about kitchen table issues.

01:19:08.000 There 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.

01:19:19.000 Well, 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.

01:19:26.000 I remember, I think it was Tucker.

01:19:28.000 You told a story about sort of being just, again, sort of this unvetted Yeah.

01:19:33.000 Immigration with some of the people that you've been over in Afghanistan.

01:19:36.000 Tell 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.

01:19:47.000 It'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.

01:19:55.000 And let's just say this, too.

01:19:57.000 The United States of America is the most generous country on the face of the planet.

01:20:02.000 We let millions of legal immigrants into this country.

01:20:05.000 There's not another country in this world that does that.

01:20:08.000 So, like, right then and there, like, we're xenophobic. 0.99

01:20:13.000 It's ridiculous. Like, let's just, we're an amazing country. 0.88

01:20:17.000 People would die to come here.

01:20:19.000 Yeah. But we do have to secure our southern border.

01:20:22.000 And you talk about the people that are coming across the border.

01:20:25.000 Specifically, we talk about Afghan refugees.

01:20:28.000 Refugees. 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.

01:20:38.000 If you talk to...

01:20:39.000 An Afghan, like out in Paktika Province, and ask them how old they are, they often don't know when their birthday is.

01:20:46.000 Because 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. 0.88

01:20:54.000 There's no economy, at least where I, there's 90% of Afghanistan, no paved roads, no running water, no electricity.

01:21:01.000 They cut down wood in the summer, and they burn that wood in the winter to stay warm.

01:21:06.000 They've got a bazaar where they do trading, but that's it.

01:21:09.000 And 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. 1.00

01:21:18.000 Well, so you had a particular story, I guess, with an Afghan interpreter, sort of turned on...

01:21:23.000 Yeah, 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.

01:21:34.000 As 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?

01:21:39.000 And I'm not saying that we shouldn't take care of our interpreters.

01:21:41.000 We should. I had great interpreters in Afghanistan when the fall of Afghanistan happened.

01:21:48.000 We worked overtime and put the Senate campaign on pause to work our asses up to get them out.

01:21:52.000 I remember you speaking to me about that. But these are guys that we knew and we vetted.

01:21:56.000 And 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.

01:22:08.000 And 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.

01:22:24.000 My 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.

01:22:36.000 I wasn't there. All of that was made possible from an interpreter who turned on us. 1.00

01:22:42.000 And so I'm not saying that America shouldn't work hard to save the people who are good for us.

01:22:49.000 I'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. 1.00

01:23:01.000 And you see that playing out in New York City now, where you've got the mayor of New York City.

01:23:06.000 I can't remember his name now. I'm drawing a blank.

01:23:09.000 Yeah, he's...

01:23:10.000 Handing out train tickets to Canada.

01:23:13.000 We want them, but not here.

01:23:17.000 Sanctuary cities everywhere else, but not here.

01:23:19.000 This is too much. I'm like, wait, so you expect others to take millions and you can't take a few?

01:23:23.000 It's like, well, that's going to stress our area.

01:23:25.000 All 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.

01:23:33.000 It's like, wait a second. Let's take a step back.

01:23:36.000 Let's have a plan. There wasn't one in place.

01:23:37.000 And we're seeing some tragedies play out now where we have Afghan refugees that are getting in trouble, getting arrested, assaulting people. 1.00

01:23:46.000 I think some of you have been arrested for murder.

01:23:48.000 Well, look at Europe. I mean, the rape statistics and all these things.

01:23:51.000 They're coming from a very specific demographic, and you're not allowed to say that, and that's a terrible thing.

01:23:54.000 I mean, I got... I got in shit. 0.99

01:23:56.000 In 16, I put out a meme, basically, a bowl of Skittles. 0.99

01:24:00.000 If one of these were poisonous and you'd die eating it, would you still chance it?

01:24:06.000 I mean, it's one in a thousand. If that's one in a thousand, it feels like the left has plenty of things.

01:24:12.000 Well, if it could save one life, it could if we just go through a process.

01:24:17.000 Here's the thing that kills me.

01:24:18.000 The left conflates legal immigration with illegal immigration.

01:24:23.000 To them, it's the same.

01:24:25.000 There's a process by which we bring people to this country.

01:24:28.000 Go through the process. My mother went through that process. 1.00

01:24:31.000 Yes. They're like, oh, you're anti-immigrant.

01:24:33.000 I'm like, I don't know, my mom's an immigrant.

01:24:35.000 What are you talking about? My grandmother's an immigrant. 0.59

01:24:39.000 My dad's current wife's an immigrant. 0.99

01:24:41.000 I know. It's just common sense, but common sense is not so common anymore.

01:24:46.000 It's not so common, especially inside the Beltway on Capitol Hill.

01:24:50.000 So tell me about your new podcast.

01:24:52.000 Oh, yeah. So I've got this new podcast.

01:24:54.000 We've got nine episodes out. You guys got to check this out.

01:24:56.000 Yeah, so it's a podcast called Battleground.

01:24:59.000 And, I mean, we just have, we've had some incredible guests on.

01:25:01.000 We had Pete Hegseth, Lisa Booth, Joe Kent, Amber Smith.

01:25:04.000 I mean, probably a lot more coming.

01:25:06.000 We have Nick Palmashano. We've got to get you on the podcast, too.

01:25:09.000 But it's awesome.

01:25:10.000 So, you know, please subscribe to my YouTube channel.

01:25:14.000 Like, we'd love to have you.

01:25:15.000 And we just basically... And you're on Rumble, right?

01:25:17.000 Yeah. We just started a Rumble channel, too.

01:25:18.000 Because, like, listen, in all fairness, after they watch this, they're going to probably throw you off YouTube.

01:25:22.000 Just, you know, pro tip.

01:25:24.000 I know. Pro tip.

01:25:26.000 I don't know that I can put all my eggs in that basket.

01:25:28.000 I know, you're right. You're right. You're like a straight white male.

01:25:31.000 Like, you're probably screwed. 1.00

01:25:32.000 Yeah. I'm sorry. 0.99

01:25:34.000 So yes, I did start a Rumble channel and go subscribe to the Rumble channel too.

01:25:40.000 But look, we have super interesting, great people on.

01:25:43.000 We talk about life, leadership, overcoming adversity.

01:25:47.000 In a soundbite culture, you don't get to learn a whole lot about the people that you see on your TV every day.

01:25:54.000 And so on my podcast, we talk about that stuff.

01:25:57.000 Yeah, and that's what's interesting. I mean, I think we had this conversation sort of earlier.

01:26:00.000 We've known each other a long time, but we're so used to being the interviewee.

01:26:04.000 We're also so used to being like, you have four minutes to make 97 points.

01:26:08.000 Like, get it done. And they're like, Don, you talk so bad.

01:26:10.000 You're very good at it. Yeah, you're very good.

01:26:11.000 I've got to crank that shit. I'm from New York first and foremost, but I've got to get it all in there. 0.99

01:26:15.000 So it's cool to have this format.

01:26:17.000 It takes some getting used to actually...

01:26:20.000 Trying 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.

01:26:27.000 So it's a cool format, but I think the long form thing is actually really interesting.

01:26:31.000 I 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.

01:26:37.000 You've got four minutes on Hannity, and you've got a picture, and it's like...

01:26:40.000 And, 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.

01:26:49.000 One of those ways you can do that is podcasting.

01:26:52.000 And so I started this podcast.

01:26:54.000 We've only been doing it for a month, but it's been a pretty amazing journey.

01:26:57.000 I've been doing it myself. It's fun.

01:26:59.000 It's fun. I think it's important.

01:27:01.000 I think the industry of podcasting is in its infancy.

01:27:05.000 And, yeah, it's great.

01:27:06.000 Help me out. Subscribe to it.

01:27:08.000 That'd be great. Yeah, it's Battleground with Sean Parnell.

01:27:10.000 You're right. I think it's interesting also that even the mainstream media, and even conservative mainstream media, you can see their agenda.

01:27:18.000 I used to be on all the time, and then they were like, well, we don't really like that.

01:27:22.000 We're going to go a different... You don't even get asked anymore.

01:27:24.000 I know. I was like, wait a minute. I don't know.

01:27:25.000 I think I have a pretty big voice. And you can see that's their sort of hand, no different than politics, trying to control.

01:27:31.000 They want the power back. They want a candidate that...

01:27:34.000 They really own. Because they need them to actually do it.

01:27:37.000 That's why Trump's a threat. He doesn't need the money.

01:27:39.000 He doesn't need the airtime. He sort of has his ability to get it.

01:27:41.000 And 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.

01:27:50.000 We believe in it. I didn't need this shit. 1.00

01:27:52.000 You know what I mean? I had a pretty good life. 1.00

01:27:54.000 My dad definitely didn't need this shit. 1.00

01:27:56.000 Well, now I'm in the fight. Now we're not going to stop. 1.00

01:27:59.000 Now I see what we're up against.

01:28:01.000 You know what's interesting, though, Don?

01:28:03.000 You think about some of the people on the left are some of the most unqualified individuals ever.

01:28:08.000 The only thing that they're qualified to do is bloviate and talk about politics. 0.91

01:28:11.000 But rarely have they ever done anything.

01:28:14.000 If you're a leftist, you'd be a White House press secretary or something, which, by the way, is an accomplished position.

01:28:20.000 It'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. 0.58

01:28:27.000 And it's like, well, that qualifies you. 0.98

01:28:28.000 It's like, I got shit last, two weeks ago, another Buttigieg one. 0.93

01:28:31.000 You know, we're going through, like, the fifth transportation crisis. 0.98

01:28:35.000 You know, this is the most qualified.

01:28:37.000 Well, what made him qualified? Basically, my opinion was he was most qualified because he was gay and he was a presidential candidate. 0.89

01:28:42.000 No, this is exactly right. He would have never been qualified to be a president. 0.96

01:28:44.000 He was a consultant and a mayor of a shitty town in Indiana. 0.99

01:28:47.000 Like, that was small. Like, he had no accomplishment. 0.99

01:28:49.000 No one knew who he was. But, like, he was gay. 1.00

01:28:52.000 So, like, obviously you can be a presidential candidate. 0.71

01:28:54.000 You 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.

01:29:11.000 You know, if you're a conservative, if you run for a political office, you lose everything.

01:29:16.000 Yeah, 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.

01:29:23.000 And someone went, like, oh my god, he's attacking people.

01:29:25.000 Of course I am, because he oversaw a supply chain crisis that it was a disaster, right?

01:29:30.000 Like, we've never seen before.

01:29:31.000 Then, in the midst of a supply chain crisis, he goes on paternity leave.

01:29:35.000 I think that's wonderful.

01:29:37.000 Unless 350 million Americans are depending on you to do your job, then maybe you say, maybe we should, you know what I mean?

01:29:44.000 Like, I don't know, I'm fine.

01:29:45.000 If you're a kindergarten teacher and you're dead, like, hey, go earn a paternity leave. 0.66

01:29:50.000 I think it's wonderful. I don't, but like, if that many million Americans, you can't just be like, I'm just going to check out.

01:29:54.000 Then he over... He was on paternity leave for like six months.

01:29:57.000 I understand and we're allowed to chest feed and all this shit today, but you then oversaw 0.91

01:30:03.000 the train crisis. 0.94

01:30:04.000 Then you had what was either a cyber attack, they don't seem to know, but our air traffic

01:30:10.000 control systems were grounded for the first time since 9-11.

01:30:14.000 Where's Mayor Pete?

01:30:15.000 We think we figured it out.

01:30:16.000 If it was a conservative in that position- It would be nonstop outrage.

01:30:19.000 He'd be on trial.

01:30:20.000 I know.

01:30:21.000 And so, well, Mayor Pete, who knows?

01:30:22.000 Maybe he was back on paternity leave.

01:30:23.000 They're beyond reproach.

01:30:24.000 I remember when he took over as Transportation Secretary.

01:30:30.000 I remember seeing this video of him driving up in a suburban close to the White House. 0.99

01:30:34.000 And then the Secret Service pulls out on the bike and he puts on some stupid element. 0.98

01:30:37.000 They said it wasn't true even though it was on video. 0.97

01:30:40.000 So I don't know exactly what happened.

01:30:42.000 But that's the point. What a virtue-sabling idiot he is. 1.00

01:30:45.000 What is that guy doing in that job? 1.00

01:30:47.000 Well, he's a road scholar. Well, that's wonderful.

01:30:49.000 Elon Musk is an incredible rocket scientist.

01:30:52.000 If I wanted to...

01:30:53.000 Go to Mars. He's my guy.

01:30:55.000 I wouldn't let him perform brain surgery on me because they're not the same.

01:30:58.000 I know. The intelligence doesn't equate to actually being able to do something.

01:31:02.000 We know plenty of people that are academically smart that don't do shit in the real world. 0.96

01:31:05.000 The left is filled with well-educated, well-credentialed midwits. 0.99

01:31:11.000 Yeah. You know? So that was...

01:31:14.000 Yeah. That's the...

01:31:17.000 I realize that we're way over time, but that was fun. 0.99

01:31:20.000 Yeah, we're going to figure this shit out, folks. 0.99

01:31:22.000 We've got this. Tune back in. 0.99

01:31:24.000 We're going to do seven more hours with Sean Parnell.

01:31:26.000 I'm coming up in a minute, but...

01:31:28.000 Now, listen, we're going to have to continue this conversation because I think...

01:31:31.000 I hope it's refreshing for everyone else to...

01:31:35.000 Stay salty on Rumble.

01:31:36.000 See? They're liking it.

01:31:40.000 We'll have to do this again, but guys, go check out Sean Parnell, his podcast, Battleground.

01:31:45.000 Now that we're competing in the podcasting world, it's okay.

01:31:48.000 I don't know about that. We're on the same team.

01:31:52.000 We're on the same team.

01:31:53.000 A guy like you, it's an honor to be your friend.

01:31:57.000 Thanks, Tom. I hate what happened because I think you'd be awesome.

01:32:01.000 In 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.

01:32:11.000 And I think it's just an honor to call you a friend, and I want to thank you for being here.

01:32:15.000 Yeah, thank you. Guys, I want to thank you for watching.

01:32:17.000 Again, go check out Sean. Go check out his books.

01:32:20.000 Everything that he's done, it's an amazing story.

01:32:23.000 Just a true American patriot.

01:32:25.000 I want to again thank our sponsors of this show, Gold Co.

01:32:29.000 Go check out DonJrGold.com.

01:32:32.000 Go check it out. You know, it's weird doing that, but to actually be able to get out there...

01:32:36.000 You're just crazy, man.

01:32:39.000 You're still laughing about the things that you were saying about Boudiccate. 0.99

01:32:43.000 And guess what? Tomorrow, they're going to try to cancel me, say that I'm being...

01:32:47.000 Show me something that's factually inaccurate.

01:32:51.000 But because he's a Democrat, he's beyond reproach, right?

01:32:55.000 It was like Mueller. Do you remember when they sang the song about Mueller?

01:33:00.000 How come they don't talk about this more?

01:33:02.000 And then you see him get up and testify. 0.99

01:33:04.000 I'm like, holy shit, like... 0.97

01:33:05.000 Joe 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. 0.99

01:33:17.000 You know, just, you could be a Marine, plenty of these, doesn't mean you don't turn into a piece of guard.

01:33:22.000 I honor that service, I think that's wonderful, but it doesn't mean you're beyond reproach for the rest of your life.

01:33:27.000 It doesn't mean you could be a bad actor.

01:33:29.000 You know, Hunter Biden, like, he can get away with anything that I couldn't get away with, and it's fine.

01:33:33.000 Like, Just call it out. 0.99

01:33:36.000 Like, you know, again, I promise you, someone's going to try to cancel me for that one, but I don't give a shit. 0.99

01:33:40.000 Like, bring it. Like, please show me someone with common sense that doesn't, like, even someone on the left isn't like, okay, fine. 0.98

01:33:47.000 Don't cancel me.

01:33:48.000 I can't take it anymore.

01:33:49.000 Don't cancel Sean. I can't take it.

01:33:51.000 I'm not the son of a billionaire.

01:33:53.000 I can't take being canceled anymore.

01:33:55.000 But, yeah, guys, thank you again.

01:33:57.000 I really appreciate it. Go check out DonJrGold.com.

01:34:02.000 Listen to this. The world is going to shit. 1.00

01:34:04.000 It's probably good to diversify your portfolio, to have other options. 0.99

01:34:09.000 And again, it's really critical.

01:34:10.000 A whole tenant of this podcast is going to be shedding a light on those who are willing to support the conservative cause.

01:34:17.000 We've seen how quickly people will cancel that.

01:34:20.000 We've seen how quickly they'll throw you off.

01:34:22.000 We'll see what they do to you, attack your families. 0.93

01:34:24.000 These 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. 0.62

01:34:38.000 Don Jr., D-O-N-J-R, gold.com.

01:34:41.000 It's Gold Co. They've been awesome.

01:34:44.000 They'll teach you about it.

01:34:45.000 You'll learn about it. You'll make your own decisions.

01:34:47.000 Again, 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.

01:34:56.000 I really appreciate them.

01:34:58.000 I really appreciate you guys.

01:34:59.000 It's been awesome. I think we went really late, but I'll do a couple minutes of locals as well.

01:35:08.000 Sean, if you want, I'll do that.

01:35:09.000 You go get a beer. Kimberly will get a beer.

01:35:12.000 We'll come down, hang out, maybe have a cigar before this is all over.

01:35:15.000 Thanks a lot, guys. I appreciate it.

Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - February 10, 2023

Woke Won't Win Wars: Live with Sean Parnell | TRIGGERED Ep. 6

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