Valuetainment - Episode 329： Is Fake News Real？

00:00:00.360 30 seconds. One time for the underdog.

00:00:04.360 Ignition sequence start.

00:00:06.980 Let me see you put them up. Reach the sky, turn the stars up above.

00:00:11.100 Cause it's one time for the underdog.

00:00:15.020 One time for the underdog.

00:00:17.300 I'm Patrick Bedevi, host of Vali-Tamer, and today I'm sitting down with Jack Murphy, former Army Ranger, and we talked about, is fake news real?

00:00:24.160 Jack Murphy, good to have you on Vali-Tamer.

00:00:25.740 Thanks for having me.

00:00:26.400 Yes. So, listen, I know I'm a big fan of the movie Wedding Crashers, and I don't know if you've seen Wedding Crashers, or I know military, we've watched some certain must-watch movies in the Army, right?

00:00:36.100 So Wedding Crashers, and the stories about Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crashing weddings.

00:00:42.100 Yeah.

00:00:42.340 And that's pretty epic on what they've done. But in the movie, they never crashed a terrorist wedding, you know?

00:00:47.840 What do you do when you crash a terrorist wedding? I read about you crashing a terrorist wedding.

00:00:51.580 Yeah.

00:00:52.100 What is that all about? Do you kind of say, let's go find the ladies at this terrorist wedding?

00:00:55.000 That would have been one way to go. I think she was about 16, so it wasn't probably us.

00:01:00.220 But it was also an arranged marriage. It was a different part of the world.

00:01:04.080 And, you know, the difficulty in finding terrorists, of course, is they're trying to stay below the surface and underground.

00:01:10.860 They're trying to do everything they can to stop us from finding them.

00:01:13.540 This was 2009 in Iraq, so they had gotten used to being hunted down by special forces teams.

00:01:18.760 But we had intelligence information that told us where and when he was getting married.

00:01:23.920 His name was Abu Ghani. He was a terrorist facilitator doing IED strikes, all sorts of really nasty stuff.

00:01:31.280 And we found out he was getting married in Mosul.

00:01:33.540 So we came driving in in Humvees, crept right up to the compound where he was getting married, busted in the front door, raided it with our Iraqi SWAT team counterparts.

00:01:45.800 There was a...

00:01:46.740 How many people are there at this wedding?

00:01:48.260 I'd say something about maybe 25 people or so.

00:01:51.100 The dowry, the goat, was sitting there in the courtyard panting the entire time.

00:01:55.300 I've seen that so many times when I lived in Iran. That was very normal.

00:01:57.780 Yeah, yeah. Very common.

00:02:00.220 The bride, they had already been married. The bride was in the other room with the women.

00:02:04.840 The men were out front. They were getting ready to start drinking, actually, which is another custom after they get married.

00:02:10.860 But Abu Ghani had not consummated the marriage yet, as we came to discover.

00:02:15.160 So we kind of got there in the nick of time. We detained him.

00:02:18.280 We also detained his father, who I didn't know this until we got him back to the base.

00:02:23.060 He was very nonchalant. Like, didn't care at all.

00:02:26.420 His son's wedding just got raided by special forces, and he seemed like he had not a care in the world. It was weird.

00:02:33.220 When we got back to...

00:02:34.000 In what way, though? Not caring like I'm used to this or not caring like...

00:02:38.220 Like laughing, joking, like he didn't take it seriously.

00:02:41.880 No fear.

00:02:42.840 No fear at all. No, none at all.

00:02:44.460 And I don't speak Arabic very well at all, so I couldn't communicate with him on that level.

00:02:48.400 But just through the mannerisms, it was very clear.

00:02:51.080 Interesting.

00:02:51.420 He thought it was a joke.

00:02:52.340 When we got back to the compound in Talafer...

00:02:56.340 You took both of them.

00:02:57.040 We took both of them.

00:02:58.140 One of the Iraqi SWAT team members was talking to me.

00:03:00.660 We were smoking cigarettes in the bunker.

00:03:02.960 And he said, yeah, the old man, he killed my cousin.

00:03:06.300 And I was like, what?

00:03:07.580 And he said, yeah, yeah, he killed my cousin.

00:03:09.560 He killed a lot of people in Talafer back in the day.

00:03:12.460 And I was like, what are you talking about, man?

00:03:14.260 He's like, yeah, the old man, he's even worse than the son.

00:03:16.800 He was putting fatwas on people, having police officers assassinated.

00:03:21.360 Wow.

00:03:21.920 And we went back there and found out, yeah, he was.

00:03:23.640 He was like a serial killer.

00:03:24.780 And you didn't know that at the time?

00:03:25.700 No, at the time, I had no idea.

00:03:27.620 Interesting.

00:03:28.140 So you went in for the son, realizing the father was more vicious than the son was.

00:03:32.020 The son was more active at the time in terrorist networks.

00:03:35.020 But the father was probably just as prolific.

00:03:38.520 Under the new Iraqi laws and the American agreement with them called the Status of Forces Agreement,

00:03:44.040 we had to release both of them to Iraqi custody pretty much immediately.

00:03:47.840 The father disappeared.

00:03:49.260 I never saw him again.

00:03:52.000 Because he's now released into the custody of the police force that he had been terrorizing all those years.

00:03:56.860 Never saw that guy again.

00:03:58.080 Meaning when you say never saw him again, what are you saying?

00:04:00.520 Are you saying he's dead or are you saying he's free?

00:04:02.880 It was intimated to me that he was disappeared into the desert.

00:04:06.540 The son was handcuffed to the cell and we would come back months later and he would still be wearing that same wedding suit handcuffed standing up in the cell.

00:04:15.820 Months later.

00:04:17.960 So the entire city hated these guys.

00:04:20.120 Yes.

00:04:20.900 And it was out of our hands.

00:04:22.640 It was out of American hands.

00:04:23.640 Not to excuse myself or push the culpability elsewhere, but under the Status of Forces Agreement, we could object.

00:04:30.840 But we had no power to intervene.

00:04:32.420 Very interesting.

00:04:33.080 Well, I mean, that's a different kind of a wedding to crash, but, you know, more power to you.

00:04:38.420 So let me ask you.

00:04:39.260 Let's go back.

00:04:39.980 Sure.

00:04:40.440 You know, some people joined the Army because the family's all Army.

00:04:44.880 Like I'm talking to General McChrystal.

00:04:46.260 His dad's a two-star.

00:04:47.280 His uncle's this.

00:04:48.260 Everybody's this.

00:04:49.040 Everybody's the military.

00:04:49.660 So, you know, from the moment I was a kid, I kind of knew I was going to join the Army, right?

00:04:53.760 Some joined the Army because of GI Bill.

00:04:56.260 You know, I'm going to go get my GI Bill.

00:04:57.500 Some joined the Army for benefits.

00:04:58.680 Some joined the Army because it's a safe place.

00:05:00.960 And then some joined the Army because of an event took place that inspired them to want to join the Army.

00:05:06.260 A movie, an event, a crisis.

00:05:08.480 What was the reason why you decided to serve?

00:05:10.280 You know, I think I was one of those weird ones.

00:05:12.120 I was one of those anomalies.

00:05:13.260 I came from Westchester County, New York.

00:05:15.300 My graduating class, I believe I was the only person who joined the military.

00:05:18.920 Really?

00:05:19.520 Yeah, it's not a common thing around here.

00:05:21.020 It's not something that people do.

00:05:22.740 But for me, although I didn't have any family members who were in the military, it was something I always wanted to do.

00:05:28.920 Since I was a little kid, I knew this is who I wanted to be.

00:05:32.180 Do you know why?

00:05:32.780 Do you remember a movie?

00:05:33.660 Do you remember, like, any, like, did you watch a movie over and over again?

00:05:37.000 Well, I was a big fan of all kinds of movies.

00:05:39.680 Predator.

00:05:40.380 I mean, all those classic films.

00:05:42.560 Aliens, the space marines are so cool.

00:05:44.580 But there's one thing that got me interested in special operations.

00:05:48.160 I think I was probably, like, eight years old.

00:05:49.900 You remember the movie Patriot Games with Harrison Ford?

00:05:52.760 There's that scene in the movie where the British SAS comes out through the desert, and they raid this terrorist camp in Libya.

00:05:58.640 And, you know, the guy back at CIA headquarters is watching it on the satellite feed, and he's sipping his coffee.

00:06:04.780 He's like, yeah, it's a kill.

00:06:06.260 And my mind, as a little kid, I was struggling to understand, like, this isn't war like the World War II movies we see.

00:06:12.280 What is this I'm looking at?

00:06:13.420 And I asked my mom that I was watching it with, and she was like, secret mission.

00:06:17.240 I was like, secret mission?

00:06:18.100 You can do that?

00:06:18.920 And she was like, yeah, of course.

00:06:20.740 And that was, I think that—

00:06:21.940 How old were you at the time?

00:06:22.480 I was like eight, maybe, eight or nine.

00:06:24.240 Well, you remember this vividly, this conversation with your mom?

00:06:26.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:06:27.220 And that was a moment where I was like, I want to be one of those guys.

00:06:30.420 Did your mom have any problem when you joined the Army?

00:06:32.240 Was there any mom-son situation?

00:06:34.160 She had trepidations about it, of course.

00:06:36.600 I'm, you know, her only son.

00:06:37.820 I can't blame her for that.

00:06:38.880 But she was very supportive.

00:06:40.360 My family is always very supportive of me joining the Army.

00:06:42.520 So who were you in high school?

00:06:43.460 If I was in high school with you, who were you?

00:06:44.960 I'd be the weird kid that put together computers, listened to electronic music, this anti-social weird kid.

00:06:52.440 Yeah.

00:06:52.780 From that to the Army?

00:06:54.340 Yeah, for sure.

00:06:55.080 And you knew you were going to go in at some point?

00:06:57.380 Mm-hmm.

00:06:57.980 Okay, so now you go in the Army.

00:07:00.140 What—at what point did you go 11 Bravo, Ranger, Special Forces?

00:07:04.900 When did that happen?

00:07:06.100 Immediately, because I signed what's called an Option 40 contract.

00:07:09.060 So that puts you into the pipeline to go to infantry basic training, airborne school, and then the ranger indoctrination program.

00:07:15.640 So it gives you a shot at going to a ranger battalion.

00:07:18.260 So pre-MEPs, when you signed your orders, you knew you were going to go through that.

00:07:21.440 That was pretty much what you were signing up for.

00:07:22.940 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:22.960 But you did mention, you know, a catalyzing event.

00:07:25.600 For me, I had—I knew I wanted to be in the military.

00:07:28.440 I knew I wanted to go to war.

00:07:29.840 Yeah.

00:07:30.200 But before 9-11, that wasn't happening.

00:07:32.280 We had a very peacetime military.

00:07:34.060 So I was thinking about joining the French Foreign Legion, and I was planning on that.

00:07:37.720 And then 9-11 happened, and everything changed.

00:07:40.360 I was like, well, the U.S. military is going to war.

00:07:43.120 It's happening now.

00:07:44.560 So went in and, yeah.

00:07:46.220 Did that juice you up when that happened to you?

00:07:47.980 Like, did that piss you?

00:07:50.540 What was the emotion that you saw?

00:07:52.220 It made me angry because the brutality of it and the number of civilian casualties.

00:07:58.340 That's indicative of Al-Qaeda.

00:08:00.120 I mean, it's a death cult.

00:08:01.860 That's what they want.

00:08:03.160 And it's almost killing just for the sake of killing.

00:08:05.160 But you know how you hear these stories like, you know, football players still, you know,

00:08:09.160 I saw it.

00:08:10.440 I couldn't stand it.

00:08:11.340 I was so—I wanted to do something to serve my country, and I wanted to go get the enemy.

00:08:15.880 Was that where the fire came?

00:08:17.880 Like, I cannot believe they just did this to my soul.

00:08:20.400 You are not going to do this to my homeland.

00:08:21.980 Was it that emotion?

00:08:22.840 At the risk of maybe ascribing more hindsight than foresight, even as a teenager, I could

00:08:31.620 see that terrorism was escalating in the United States.

00:08:35.040 We would see these events, the USS Cole, from Cobar Towers to the first World Trade Center

00:08:40.680 bombing.

00:08:41.500 You'd see these escalating events, and it seemed like our government was not really taking it

00:08:45.800 seriously.

00:08:46.440 We weren't aggressively pursuing these guys, these networks overseas.

00:08:49.620 So 9-11, the fact that there was an escalating, a larger attack was not necessarily a surprise.

00:08:56.920 You know, I want to come back to this, because I want to know, one, what could we have done

00:09:02.700 to prevent a 9-11?

00:09:03.980 And number two, are we set up in a position today where another 9-11 could happen today,

00:09:09.520 or are we in a safer place where it can't happen today?

00:09:11.720 Matter of fact, if you don't mind just touching up on that, because I talked to Carrick, I've

00:09:15.980 talked to a few people that were involved in the whole 9-11 thing.

00:09:19.100 Bernard Carrick was the commissioner at that time when he was involved with this.

00:09:22.420 But when you say America wasn't fully prepared or looking for protecting against attacks like

00:09:30.680 that, what could we have really done differently at that time?

00:09:33.740 There's been a lot of information coming out of the 9-11 commission report, even recently

00:09:38.120 declassified documents about the Saudi involvement.

00:09:40.980 And the Saudis were watching these guys, we were watching these guys, the CIA had some

00:09:46.600 awareness of what they, that they were part of a cell and that they were planning something,

00:09:51.540 that there was these transfers of money through Malaysia and elsewhere.

00:09:55.560 I think there were many different opportunities to disrupt the network had we tried.

00:10:00.460 But again, this is, hindsight is 20-20.

00:10:03.380 And then, of course, we could have been more aggressive in pursuing al-Qaeda abroad.

00:10:07.000 There were opportunities to kill Osama bin Laden in Sudan and elsewhere.

00:10:11.760 And I think the Clinton administration was a little risk-averse in pursuing some of those lines.

00:10:17.100 Meaning?

00:10:18.360 Meaning that they didn't want the potential political fallout.

00:10:22.040 The 1990s comes on the tail end of Iran-Contra.

00:10:25.540 A lot of consternation about covert operations, about assassinations during the Reagan years.

00:10:31.020 So I think the administration saw the end of the Cold War happen, and they didn't want

00:10:35.640 to go back down that road.

00:10:37.300 You know, one of the things that I wonder is, from the outside, it's almost like, you know,

00:10:45.160 if you make the decision and say we take somebody out or we go extremely aggressive to prevent,

00:10:51.140 like for instance, I remember back in 76, 77, Carter was campaigning around about the whole

00:10:56.220 human rights thing, right?

00:10:57.500 Right.

00:10:57.640 Human rights, human rights, human rights.

00:10:59.040 And they kept talking about that the Shah has 3,000 political prisoners in Iran.

00:11:04.460 This was a whole, and I know you're dealing with something with Iran, that Iran has 3,000

00:11:08.500 political prisoners and this dictator is not being right and is not doing the right thing

00:11:13.160 and he should let them out.

00:11:14.440 And at the same time, Carter was kind of pushing Cuba with the whole Muriel boat lift.

00:11:19.560 You know, you have all these prisoners, you should let them out.

00:11:22.820 And, you know, finally Cuba's like, fine, I'll let them out.

00:11:26.040 Here's a Muriel boat lift, I'll give you all my prisoners and I'll go to Miami, Miami next

00:11:29.040 year, unemployment's, you know, 50%.

00:11:30.700 And Iran, eventually they force those 3,000 political prisoners to come out and that, you

00:11:36.180 know, creates Osama bin Laden, all these ISIS, all these other groups.

00:11:39.040 So how do we, as, you know, citizens who are not in it, how do we differentiate between

00:11:47.720 the right decision and the wrong decision?

00:11:49.560 I mean, we're never really going to know whether the president made the right decision or not.

00:11:53.480 And very rarely is there a clear right and wrong.

00:11:56.500 Any operation, like the 1980 Eagle Claw operation to rescue American hostages being held in Iran,

00:12:03.860 had that mission been a success, we all would have clapped our hands, you know, these are

00:12:08.200 our heroes, you know, the administration's so great.

00:12:11.140 But, you know, it's something I talk about in the book.

00:12:13.060 I mean, it's a fine line between hero and zero.

00:12:15.380 And I'm not saying the men who tried to execute that operation were zeros, far from it.

00:12:19.720 They're actually my heroes because they had, you know, as one author who wrote a book about it,

00:12:23.460 he said they had the guts to try.

00:12:24.840 One Delta Force officer who's retired, he told me,

00:12:29.720 the worst thing that can ever happen to us isn't mission failure, as bad as that is.

00:12:34.460 The worst thing that can ever happen to us is that all those people out there

00:12:38.020 come to believe that we're too chicken to even try.

00:12:41.580 That's the worst thing that can happen to us?

00:12:43.440 That our public comes to believe that we're too chicken to defend them.

00:12:46.700 Has that ever happened?

00:12:47.520 I mean, well, again, with the risk aversion, these opportunities we had to, you know, assassinate

00:12:53.460 bin Laden.

00:12:54.240 But who pulls that out, though?

00:12:55.380 That's not the military.

00:12:56.160 Because from my time in the military, like, you guys are itching for things.

00:13:00.840 You know what I'm saying?

00:13:01.460 It's like...

00:13:01.760 Yes, the military has to be held back a little bit.

00:13:03.460 Yeah, yeah, you have to be held back.

00:13:05.040 Like, it's like a pit bull wanting to fight.

00:13:07.920 And you're like, listen, relax, relax, right?

00:13:09.940 It's coming from a different standpoint.

00:13:11.400 So I don't know if America has that perspective of that happening.

00:13:16.320 Maybe sometimes it is too much brutality that maybe we don't see.

00:13:20.860 You know, when you hear about the whole waterboarding, well, I think they're just not being fair

00:13:24.180 to the whole POW code that we have that you shouldn't be doing that and you shouldn't be

00:13:29.400 doing this.

00:13:29.880 And you talk to guys that are in the moment, they're like, you don't even know what this

00:13:33.140 guy did to that city.

00:13:34.000 You don't even know how brutal a human being this is.

00:13:36.020 Like, the stuff we tell you what this guy did, we didn't even make it in movies.

00:13:38.700 It's the tactical versus strategic view.

00:13:41.100 And tactically, there may be something to be gained from those sorts of interrogations.

00:13:44.600 But strategically and morally on the world stage, we may lose power or soft power or

00:13:50.800 prestige.

00:13:51.460 And those are all things that have to be taken into account.

00:13:54.000 How do you process the two, though?

00:13:55.420 How do you decipher between the two?

00:13:56.760 Are there some things that are better known the public not known about?

00:13:59.720 I mean, I'm a...

00:14:03.520 You know what I'm asking.

00:14:04.160 I know what you're asking.

00:14:05.620 But I'm an advocate for transparency.

00:14:08.440 And I believe there has to be government accountability.

00:14:10.640 There has to be oversight.

00:14:11.880 I think it's incumbent on the American public to know about these things.

00:14:15.140 I think that they...

00:14:15.840 I don't think they can just wash their hands and pretend like they can't send the Jack

00:14:19.480 Murphys of the world to go and do their dirty work and think their hands are clean.

00:14:23.180 That's not OK.

00:14:24.200 It will come back on us and it will impact our country.

00:14:27.140 I mean, you can see what's happening now.

00:14:28.480 All these veterans are coming home.

00:14:30.460 And a lot of them are struggling.

00:14:31.900 Struggling with PTSD, TBI, joblessness, homelessness.

00:14:36.440 We can't just turn around and pretend that we're not responsible for these things.

00:14:41.220 What happened to them with...

00:14:42.520 Taking responsibility for the aftermath of war.

00:14:45.000 That's what I'm getting to.

00:14:46.360 The human damage, the psychological and physical damage.

00:14:49.100 There's no question.

00:14:50.500 I did a podcast with a group of four Marines.

00:14:53.540 And they were talking about, Pat, what do you think needs to happen with this whole,

00:14:57.660 you know, PTSD.

00:14:59.420 So many people are experiencing it.

00:15:00.640 I mean, we've got 30 million veterans right in America right now.

00:15:02.740 And you don't know how many of them are going through the whole ETS.

00:15:05.320 Half the part is not being able to adjust from the military life to the civilian life.

00:15:09.580 That's very tough, by the way.

00:15:11.600 Most people don't realize, like, the difficulties with that.

00:15:13.980 You're accustomed to a system, four o'clock, six o'clock formation, chow, PT.

00:15:19.440 You know, it's like everything is...

00:15:21.140 You're being told what to do next and you're going to the civilian life.

00:15:25.120 So, you know, we spend a lot of time talking about PTSD on different podcasts.

00:15:29.620 But the question I'm asking you is, are there some things that is better off people not knowing about?

00:15:37.240 I guess let me explain it this way.

00:15:39.240 Parents, they do certain things.

00:15:41.120 They go through certain things.

00:15:42.720 Should kids know everything?

00:15:44.420 And they protect their children.

00:15:45.420 Yeah, should kids know everything?

00:15:48.100 So, should the populace...

00:15:49.500 Because I...

00:15:50.300 And I'm telling you this, being very transparent with you.

00:15:52.880 I think a person who's a president sits there and says,

00:15:57.640 this is going to create havoc if we tell the media about it.

00:16:01.540 They're going to go nuts.

00:16:02.840 This is going to create havoc.

00:16:04.220 We're better off not disclosing this.

00:16:07.680 Because if we do, it's going to lead to the enemy that we're trying to attack.

00:16:12.120 Knowing about our strategy, our game plan is going to be public.

00:16:14.880 So, how do you decipher between the two?

00:16:17.240 Well, there's definitely a role for government secrecy, military secrecy.

00:16:20.660 All of those things are imperative, I think, for carrying out successful operations.

00:16:24.920 But as a veteran, I don't think it's really our role to come back home and sort of shame our culture

00:16:30.900 or try to make them feel bad.

00:16:33.120 You know, I deal with some things that I witnessed or was involved in,

00:16:37.620 as does most of the guys who are over there.

00:16:39.720 But do I want to put that monkey on the back of, you know,

00:16:43.800 the people I rode on the subway with to get here today?

00:16:46.340 No, of course not.

00:16:47.640 So, I think there is a role in protecting them from that.

00:16:50.640 We don't want those people to have to live with the things that a lot of our soldiers do.

00:16:55.500 It's not necessarily that we're not willing to tell them the truth.

00:16:58.460 It's more that we're not going to just empty all of it onto them.

00:17:01.740 There are moments where you're in the heat of the battle, right?

00:17:07.240 So, there's anxiety levels where it peaks.

00:17:10.720 Okay, you know, you're going to your first war and you land in Iraq the first time.

00:17:17.400 Maybe there's a little bit of, you know, anxiety there, right?

00:17:20.700 Or the first time you do a jump, okay?

00:17:24.280 And it's, you know, whatever, a secret jump you're doing late night at 2 o'clock in the morning.

00:17:28.680 Okay, you don't know where you're going.

00:17:29.900 You have your night vision goggles on.

00:17:31.640 There's a little bit of anxiety there.

00:17:32.760 I don't know if they're going to see us.

00:17:33.720 If they see us, am I going to die and I'm just going to go down?

00:17:35.840 Like, your imagination takes a hold of you.

00:17:38.820 What was the moment for you where you're, if there's a Richter scale like they do in football games

00:17:44.580 of how loud the audience has been, when was it when it just went off the charts

00:17:48.760 and you were fully so much heat in the battle?

00:17:52.500 You're like, I don't know what the hell is about to happen right now.

00:17:55.380 What was that moment for you?

00:17:56.460 Yeah, there was, there was, I mean, when you say that, there's one moment that jumps out at me.

00:18:00.460 It was my first deployment to Afghanistan.

00:18:03.520 And it was a situation where we were on a reconnaissance patrol.

00:18:07.420 I was a sniper at the time.

00:18:09.260 And we had been tasked with tracking down the individual who planned the ambush that killed Pat Tillman, actually.

00:18:18.200 And we went out and I was at what's called a mission support site.

00:18:23.000 It's like a handful of guys who are kind of stationary with a radio while a six-man reconnaissance patrol is out actually reconning the objective.

00:18:31.080 And what the recon patrol told us was that there was a, they had eyes on a 10-person element, like Taliban, with heavy weapons moving towards our location.

00:18:41.800 And what I made the decision to do was to set in a hasty near ambush on the road so that we could ambush these guys before they got to the MSS.

00:18:51.800 So we went down the road a little bit.

00:18:53.520 I had one other American with me and about 10 Afghan paramilitary soldiers who had been trained by the CIA.

00:19:01.120 I put them all down in the prone position behind trees, trying to get them down behind cover, even though they all wanted to squat and fire from the hip, trying to get everybody down, trying to get everyone positioned, trying to do the ranger school thing, as difficult as that is in real life.

00:19:16.160 And then I got down in the prone behind a tree.

00:19:18.440 And I remember sitting there looking over the scope of my sniper rifle down at the road.

00:19:25.240 It's probably like 15 meters in front of me.

00:19:27.540 I'm like, man, like we're really going to be on top of these guys and they're about to come down the road any moment.

00:19:34.180 And that was a moment for me where like fear, just abject fear, it was like a physical fear.

00:19:39.540 I don't think it was even my mind.

00:19:40.460 It was like my body telling me, you're about to die.

00:19:43.620 And it just washed over me.

00:19:45.860 It was a kind of a pivotal moment for me, I think, in the sense that I made a decision right then.

00:19:52.140 I knew I was about to die and I said, well, I'm going to take as many of them with me as possible.

00:19:57.760 And then I was calm.

00:19:59.740 Like whatever that was, I just, I had pushed through it.

00:20:02.080 And I feel like something changed inside me that day.

00:20:05.420 How long was that process?

00:20:06.320 Like as you're going through it, you know what I'm saying?

00:20:07.920 I'm like, oh my gosh.

00:20:08.540 Less than a minute.

00:20:09.260 Less than a minute.

00:20:10.080 Less than a minute.

00:20:11.060 Yeah.

00:20:11.400 From high anxiety to being calm.

00:20:13.380 Yeah.

00:20:13.600 Like you accepted the fact I could die right now.

00:20:15.360 Screw it.

00:20:15.740 I'm going to have to do my best.

00:20:16.760 Yeah.

00:20:17.260 And you do what, you know, you were trained to do.

00:20:19.940 And unfortunately, this story doesn't have a happy ending.

00:20:22.880 But amazingly, it could have been much worse.

00:20:25.220 It was a friendly fire incident.

00:20:26.500 Because what happened was that the reconnaissance patrol walked into the hasty ambush that I had set up.

00:20:32.860 The result was a fairly substantial firefight.

00:20:37.540 Bullets chewing into the tree that I was taking cover behind.

00:20:41.340 Dirt being kicked up in my face.

00:20:43.160 The Afghans started jumping up and down, talking on the radio.

00:20:47.000 There's something clearly wrong, but we didn't understand what.

00:20:49.920 And eventually, it came across, no shoot, no shoot, stop, stop, stop.

00:20:55.240 But because of the language barrier, we did not have communications with our recon patrol or our MSS, the mission support site.

00:21:04.200 And because of the language barrier, it's difficult to talk to the Afghans.

00:21:06.960 So, at this point, the only thing to do, which I was remiss to do, because you never stand up in an ambush, but somebody had to sort this thing out.

00:21:15.600 So, I told the one other American with me, like, look, I'm going to stand up, I'm going to go down there, and I'm going to figure out what's going on.

00:21:21.920 Yeah.

00:21:23.040 I didn't feel like, you know, I had any other choice at the time.

00:21:27.200 So, I stood up, walked down to the road.

00:21:31.280 Literally like this.

00:21:32.280 You have to hold up the weapon, or what are you doing?

00:21:33.920 Because if you go like this, I think you're going to shoot me.

00:21:35.900 I held my weapon in my hand, because I didn't know who was down there.

00:21:38.580 Okay.

00:21:38.860 And I walked down to the road, and as I got down there, I came face to face with my good friend, Paul, who was on the recon patrol.

00:21:47.900 And he looked at me, and I looked at him, and we both said, what the fuck just happened?

00:21:51.980 Anybody got killed?

00:21:53.060 No.

00:21:53.540 Oh, wow.

00:21:54.420 One person was shot.

00:21:55.600 One person was shot?

00:21:56.480 I shot them, yeah.

00:21:57.600 You shot the one person as a sniper?

00:22:00.320 Wow.

00:22:01.220 So, how does a military handle situations like when you go back?

00:22:05.120 Like, seriously, is there like a meeting, hey, what is wrong with you guys?

00:22:08.080 I'm sorry to laugh, because of the seriousness of the situation.

00:22:11.060 And one soldier was hurt, although it was a flesh wound, thank God.

00:22:14.980 But the military doesn't necessarily know how to handle something like that.

00:22:20.960 They launched an investigation, you know, right off the bat.

00:22:24.160 Which, you know, with cause, there's good reason to.

00:22:26.920 So, they sent an investigator down and interviewed us, and then they made a determination.

00:22:31.960 They didn't necessarily fault me for it.

00:22:34.220 They acknowledged that I made sensible tactical decisions.

00:22:38.600 There were some things that could have been done differently, both tactically and communications-wise,

00:22:43.180 that could have stopped that incident from taking place.

00:22:45.240 But I carried out the rest of the deployment doing my job.

00:22:49.780 Good for them.

00:22:50.680 Yeah.

00:22:51.080 Yeah.

00:22:51.360 They had every reason to make me a human sacrifice, and they didn't.

00:22:55.800 Well, let me just tell you, your comrades, your peers, told the story.

00:22:59.360 It's something I'm very grateful to the Ranger Regiment for giving me a second chance,

00:23:03.380 because they didn't have to do that, and the regiment isn't known for giving second chances.

00:23:07.340 Really?

00:23:07.880 It's not.

00:23:08.300 You know, so that they gave me the opportunity to prove myself or redeem myself is something

00:23:15.520 I'm very grateful to them for.

00:23:16.480 How many times were you in a situation where you actually had to go up against the enemy

00:23:20.240 and take the kill shot?

00:23:22.660 How many times were you in situations like that?

00:23:23.940 Many times.

00:23:24.880 I don't think I necessarily killed anyone, but many times in firefights.

00:23:28.780 The next deployment was 2005 to Iraq, where it was a very hot deployment.

00:23:33.920 We were in Mosul.

00:23:34.900 We were doing what was called TSTs, or time-sensitive targets.

00:23:38.620 So the intelligence was being developed so quickly.

00:23:41.600 The churn was happening so quickly that sometimes we would get to go into a room and have a brief

00:23:46.880 and say, okay, this is where we're going.

00:23:48.660 This is a basic plan of action, scheme of maneuver.

00:23:50.940 A lot of times it happened so quickly, they just gave us a grid.

00:23:55.540 Here you go.

00:23:56.500 And you get on the vehicles and go.

00:23:57.740 There were times where they told us to just get on the vehicles and go,

00:24:01.620 and I didn't get a grid until we were on the way there, until we were already outside the gate.

00:24:06.340 And I know because I was towards the second half of the deployment,

00:24:09.040 I was what's called the TC, the tactical commander, tank commander is what it comes from,

00:24:13.800 on striker vehicles, these eight-wheeled, you know, they're like 25-ton vehicles.

00:24:18.580 I would have the laptop open with the GPS and the map on it.

00:24:23.280 There's a program called Falcon View.

00:24:25.060 And the grid would come over the radio and I'd have to plug it into the computer.

00:24:29.600 Like, oh, okay, that's where we're going.

00:24:31.060 And then lead the convoy to the target.

00:24:33.200 So things were happening so quickly.

00:24:34.940 And we were getting in a firefight so often.

00:24:37.880 It was three months of, it's supposed to be a marathon, but it felt like a three-month sprint.

00:24:43.960 We were just exhausted.

00:24:45.420 By the way, Pat Tillman was the NFL guy, right?

00:24:47.340 Correct.

00:24:47.700 I said Spielman.

00:24:48.500 I don't know why I said Spielman.

00:24:49.680 Maybe there was another linebacker with that name.

00:24:52.280 But Pat Tillman.

00:24:53.040 So, you know, how much of it today, because when I think about it, I'm like, okay, when

00:24:58.280 you think about war today, how much of it is airstrike?

00:25:01.720 It's the same idea with bayonets and, you know, you would have to go do the bayonet exercise

00:25:06.860 and boot camp and, you know, marksmanship and, oh, you're an expert, you're this.

00:25:11.880 How much does, you know, foot on the ground still have the same effect versus today?

00:25:18.320 It's just an airstrike.

00:25:19.400 Hey, get the grid, you know, make the shot, you know, attack the enemy and it's game over.

00:25:24.720 How much of it has changed with airstrike versus ground?

00:25:27.620 Yeah, I mean, I think even since the Vietnam War, things have changed substantially because

00:25:32.240 of the technology, precision-guided munitions, our ISR with drones and satellite coverage

00:25:38.180 and everything else has improved things significantly.

00:25:42.000 But with that said, we find ourselves fighting in urban built-up areas.

00:25:46.240 We end up finding ourselves fighting counterinsurgencies.

00:25:49.300 Like I was talking about before, TSTs or high-value target strikes, where you're trying to capture

00:25:54.560 the leadership of these terrorist networks, or even things where you're doing something

00:25:58.460 that involves hostage rescue.

00:26:00.100 Not that I was involved in that specifically, or if you're trying to do counter-proliferation

00:26:04.440 and secure weapons of mass destruction.

00:26:06.380 These are all things that robots cannot do for us yet.

00:26:09.320 So there's still a necessity to put boots on the ground.

00:26:12.720 There's things that only human beings can do.

00:26:15.420 And going into, you know, raiding a high-rise hotel and pulling a terrorist out of a certain

00:26:22.640 room is something that, you know, robotics and satellites and artificial intelligence can't do

00:26:27.960 and probably aren't going to be able to do for at least a few more decades.

00:26:32.580 At least a few more decades.

00:26:34.480 Okay.

00:26:35.240 But eventually you're thinking the whole thing's going to go into, you know, technology in the

00:26:40.240 next few decades.

00:26:40.640 Yeah, I think so.

00:26:42.260 You can see Special Operations Command right now is developing what's called the TALO suit,

00:26:46.840 which is an exoskeleton.

00:26:48.460 Runs off of, at least the last I knew, it ran off a combination of gasoline, electric engine.

00:26:53.360 It was designed to mitigate the fact that we have operators, we have soldiers entering and

00:26:58.380 clearing rooms, and guys are getting shot going through the doorway.

00:27:01.940 Guys are getting blown up when they go into rooms by IEDs or suicide vests.

00:27:06.500 So they had this idea, we'll develop this exoskeleton and it'll help protect our soldiers.

00:27:11.400 But if you think about it, the exoskeleton itself is really just a stepping stone to having

00:27:15.740 autonomous androids that do the room clearing for us.

00:27:18.500 I mean, that is the next logical step after the exoskeleton.

00:27:22.320 I don't think we're far off from it.

00:27:23.660 I don't think it's something that we're far off from it.

00:27:25.920 You know, it's so crazy.

00:27:27.300 You watch movies and you say, oh my gosh, that's crazy.

00:27:29.940 It'll never happen.

00:27:30.720 And you just, 20, 30 years later, it's becoming a reality.

00:27:33.600 It's in our lifetime.

00:27:34.620 Yeah, it's in our lifetime.

00:27:35.420 I agree.

00:27:36.060 I think it's in our lifetime.

00:27:37.160 So, you know, I talked to my buddies who were in the military, you know, and I asked those

00:27:42.660 who went to war and actually experienced stuff and they were part of stuff, right?

00:27:46.200 Whether it's Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein or any of this stuff.

00:27:49.980 And I asked them, I say, so what you saw when you were a part of it versus what the media

00:27:57.640 talked about, how do you feel about it?

00:28:01.280 And I've had certain answers I've heard, but I want to hear from you.

00:28:05.020 How, what is the level of accuracy of what the media says versus what actually happened?

00:28:10.120 Well, the media are, I said-

00:28:11.640 So now you're part of the media, right?

00:28:12.960 Yeah, yeah.

00:28:13.500 I work as a journalist, but I won't parse my words on it.

00:28:16.840 I mean, I think the American media overall, they're fairly accurate with their facts.

00:28:23.100 And this is the thing that you have to explain to people a lot of times is that your facts

00:28:27.240 can all be right, but the story is still wrong because it's contextualized in a certain way.

00:28:32.220 Interesting.

00:28:32.760 And the press a lot of times misses that context.

00:28:36.400 Sometimes it's because of a bias.

00:28:38.400 Sometimes it's just because they're in the moment.

00:28:40.320 They have to report that one story, get it in, make their deadline, move on to the next story.

00:28:44.800 And they don't have time for that really like in-depth reporting.

00:28:48.740 So you end up with something that's sort of ahistorical.

00:28:51.680 It doesn't really give you the context of what's happening.

00:28:54.520 But as far as my experience versus what I see in the media, that was something I tried

00:29:00.220 to capture a lot in the book because I think there's just such a difference between what

00:29:05.320 we experienced in the moment in combat versus how we come to feel about it in the decades

00:29:10.560 afterwards.

00:29:11.460 And we know, we know more information in the decades afterwards than we did at that time

00:29:16.020 when you're that guy on the ambush line.

00:29:19.580 You have very limited information.

00:29:21.160 But, you know, as you come to learn more and more about what was going on, both tactically

00:29:26.400 or geopolitically, you come to know a lot more.

00:29:29.140 And sometimes as veterans, what we do is we use that information we've acquired after

00:29:33.680 the fact to color our experiences.

00:29:36.440 And that leads to maybe an inaccurate perception of what was happening at the time.

00:29:41.240 So when you watch media right now, who do you trust?

00:29:45.440 For instance, let me explain to you what I mean.

00:29:47.220 So I don't position it as I'm trying to pigeonhole you to saying CNN, Fox, or MSNBC.

00:29:51.960 That's not what I'm asking.

00:29:53.380 Let me preface what I'm asking.

00:29:54.760 Sure.

00:29:55.000 So back in the days, you know, you would hear about, in Iran, we had a TV guy who was my

00:30:00.800 father-in-law, my sister's husband's father, who passed away Sabatimani.

00:30:05.600 He would tell the news and it was just telling the news.

00:30:08.600 Here's what happened, right?

00:30:10.520 Cronkite would tell the news and here's what happened.

00:30:13.640 Today, it's I'm telling my news on what's going on, right?

00:30:18.420 Because I'm emotionally attached to one side or I'm emotionally attached to my own political

00:30:22.380 beliefs.

00:30:23.300 And no one's a dummy.

00:30:24.520 Everybody knows Fox leans to the right.

00:30:26.960 CNN leans to left.

00:30:30.000 And MSNBC is maybe further left than CNN is.

00:30:32.900 And New York Times being here, it's pretty much all left.

00:30:35.540 Business Insider is probably going to be independent.

00:30:37.200 You know, you can go through all these things on where they're going to be at.

00:30:39.960 Time is going to be on the left.

00:30:41.280 New York Post is going to be on the right.

00:30:42.580 Washington Post is going to be on the left.

00:30:44.260 All these things you look at.

00:30:45.900 Who is the fairest today that is actually telling the news that when you look at saying,

00:30:52.700 this person is being fair here, who would you say it is?

00:30:56.200 You know, I don't really put any stock in any particular news outlet, especially, you

00:31:00.400 know, the bigger ones are staffed by many different editors, many different points of view,

00:31:04.860 many different, you know, potential agendas.

00:31:06.620 So I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket one way or the other.

00:31:10.360 I think in the realm I work in, in the defense or special operations news, there's very few

00:31:15.940 people who bring the meat and potatoes, I think.

00:31:18.380 There are a few out there that I've read that I think are pretty good.

00:31:21.560 I think Sean Naylor is a pretty good journalist.

00:31:24.200 I think Kevin Maurer is another guy who's done some really good work.

00:31:27.520 And I think they do their best to tell the truth.

00:31:29.900 You know, of course, what the truth is depends on where we sit.

00:31:33.280 You know, I might have a different perspective than somebody else, but I think those are

00:31:37.000 a few who do their best.

00:31:38.920 Yeah.

00:31:39.120 So you went to Columbia University and your major was political science, I believe.

00:31:43.220 Yes.

00:31:43.400 You did poli sci.

00:31:44.180 Yeah.

00:31:44.280 And why?

00:31:47.120 What happened?

00:31:48.040 What's the reason post-military to go into journalism?

00:31:52.560 Because, you know, for me, again, what I'm curious to know is that something happened for

00:31:57.280 you to say, I think I can do it better.

00:31:59.760 I think the truth needs to be told.

00:32:01.280 I think the integrity of journalism is gone.

00:32:03.580 What inspired you want to go that route?

00:32:05.120 I wish I could say that my reasons were so noble, but I really, it was something that

00:32:10.040 I kind of stumbled my way into.

00:32:11.880 I came out of the military like a lot of other veterans, not really necessarily knowing what

00:32:18.440 I was going to do with myself.

00:32:20.020 My girlfriend was pregnant.

00:32:21.960 We were going to have a baby.

00:32:23.280 Very excited about that.

00:32:24.660 But now I have to completely re-figure out what I'm going to do with myself.

00:32:28.140 So I started college.

00:32:29.100 I started at Mercy in Dobbs Ferry, which is just up the line here.

00:32:34.120 It's a good school.

00:32:34.900 Did my first year there, but I figured I'd take advantage of my GI bill and do the best

00:32:39.360 I possibly can.

00:32:40.320 So I applied to Columbia and NYU, and I ended up going to Columbia.

00:32:46.360 Went there, got my degree.

00:32:47.620 Initially, I was getting my degree in history, but I got kind of frustrated with the history

00:32:51.360 department, as I write about in the book a bit, and changed my major to political science,

00:32:56.560 which was good.

00:32:58.140 It was a good call.

00:32:58.740 I enjoyed that.

00:33:00.460 Then I had written a novel.

00:33:03.140 I had this idea that you have these thriller writers out there, and some of them are very

00:33:08.660 good, but most of them didn't serve in the military at all.

00:33:11.680 And here I did all these things, and Rangers and Special Forces, why don't I take a stab

00:33:15.840 at it?

00:33:16.180 So I wrote a book, the novel, and then that got me kind of found by other people who asked

00:33:22.180 me to start writing weapons reviews and gear reviews, real basic stuff like that.

00:33:26.760 That's what kind of got me into online media.

00:33:29.620 And then at a certain point, I was working with this former Navy SEAL who proposed, let's

00:33:34.240 go off on our own, start our own website, own news and information website.

00:33:38.320 I agreed.

00:33:38.880 And that was kind of the genesis of it.

00:33:41.640 And as it evolved, I realized, you know, I was like, look, we need to do, if we're going

00:33:45.620 to be credible, we need to do real news.

00:33:48.140 We need to start going abroad, not just writing about our recollections, telling war stories

00:33:52.800 from the good old days.

00:33:53.600 We need to start going overseas, we need to start shaking hands, meeting people, interviewing

00:33:57.920 people, and doing some real reporting.

00:34:00.600 So it was a progression that happened somewhat accidentally.

00:34:04.920 Every industry has a certain set of guidelines that they're held accountable, whether it's

00:34:10.580 a fiduciary responsibility or whatever they have.

00:34:14.120 What responsibilities and guidelines do journalists have?

00:34:17.740 And who holds them accountable?

00:34:20.620 Like, you know, financial, we're in an insurance side, you're going to be, you know, state department

00:34:26.840 of insurance holds you accountable.

00:34:28.380 Okay.

00:34:29.220 Lawyers, state bar, you know, is going to hold you accountable.

00:34:33.540 Securities, securities, you know, SEC, FINRA holds you accountable.

00:34:38.260 Who holds journalists accountable?

00:34:40.800 Yeah, well, that's a great question.

00:34:42.240 And the question also involves, do we hold people accountable for exercising their freedom

00:34:47.980 of speech?

00:34:49.500 And that's something that we can apply across society at large.

00:34:52.680 Yeah, but the difference is, I'm not a journalist.

00:34:55.260 Let's just say...

00:34:56.000 Right, should the standard be higher?

00:34:57.520 Of course.

00:34:58.320 I mean, for me, first of all, if you, on your Twitter account, if it says journalist, I have

00:35:04.700 to hold you at a higher standard because you're getting paid for it, right?

00:35:07.840 Somebody that's not getting paid for, you know, sharing their thoughts, that's a different

00:35:11.740 story, but you are a professional journalist.

00:35:14.320 Who holds you accountable?

00:35:16.720 You know, in an ideal world, I think editors would hold their employees accountable.

00:35:22.340 Publishers would hold their editors and employees accountable.

00:35:25.220 But at the end of the day, I think it's the public that has to hold journalism accountable.

00:35:30.420 And the public right now is at a time and place where they are addicted to the outrage,

00:35:35.960 and they're probably not at all well-placed to hold journalists accountable.

00:35:40.560 So, yeah, we're in a challenging time right now for journalists, and not to speak bad

00:35:45.260 about, you know, some of my peers, I suppose, but journalists can be incredibly self-indulgent,

00:35:52.080 self-involved, and self-righteous.

00:35:54.100 And in some ways, these journalistic institutions come to resemble the power structures that they

00:35:59.640 claim to speak truth to.

00:36:00.880 They engage in a lot of the same type of behavior.

00:36:02.940 So, I think we're in a period right now of readjustment.

00:36:08.420 And, you know, I don't even know if our generation is really going to figure that out.

00:36:13.200 That might be our kids that are able to grapple with the internet and social media and finding

00:36:20.060 some sort of sanity in there.

00:36:21.680 You know what I'd like to see?

00:36:22.840 Here's what I'd like to see.

00:36:23.740 I wouldn't mind seeing this.

00:36:24.680 Think about, Mario, think about if journalists, you have a, you know how FICA score, everybody's

00:36:33.220 got a FICA score, and you go Experian, TransUnion, Equifax.

00:36:36.560 Okay, you got a 620 score.

00:36:38.260 I'm the bank.

00:36:38.860 I'm not going to give you a good rate, but I'll give you 6.1%.

00:36:41.380 You got to put 25% down instead of 10%.

00:36:44.160 Whatever.

00:36:44.680 You know, your credit score is 820.

00:36:46.600 No problem.

00:36:47.160 What do you need financing?

00:36:48.480 Here's a million dollars.

00:36:49.540 You got your house.

00:36:50.160 You're good to go because your credit score is good.

00:36:51.720 Based on your last 10 years or 7 years, you paid everything on time.

00:36:55.700 You're solid.

00:36:56.220 You paid off one house.

00:36:57.420 Another house, you paid off four cars.

00:36:59.500 You're good.

00:36:59.880 We trust you.

00:37:01.240 I mean, I would love, like, you know how you have Yelp Pulse businesses accountable.

00:37:05.540 You know, you got some of these places that hold, matter of fact, it's a business opportunity.

00:37:09.980 If there was a website, like Pew Research is middle.

00:37:14.040 Like, Pew doesn't come out and lean right or left, right?

00:37:16.560 When CNN says polls came out, President Trump's State of Union speech was horrible because,

00:37:22.340 you know, and then Fox comes out and Trump's State of Union speech historically is going

00:37:27.140 to be known as the greatest State of Union speech of all time.

00:37:29.500 Okay, the truth is somewhere in the middle, right?

00:37:31.380 Okay.

00:37:32.100 Pew Research is there.

00:37:33.080 I would be so curious to know about a scoring system that scores the validity of journalists

00:37:39.540 and who's telling the truth and who is so emotionally caught up in what they're telling.

00:37:45.320 So you can simply pull it up and say, oh, now I realize who are the guys that score the

00:37:49.480 highest because these guys tell the truth.

00:37:51.080 They don't have their opinion to it.

00:37:52.600 And this other guy's emotional.

00:37:53.980 I'm not going to listen to this guy anymore.

00:37:55.840 Yeah.

00:37:56.060 By the way, that's an opportunity for business, just so you know.

00:37:58.100 But now you're asking to, you know, objectify truth.

00:38:02.320 That's a difficult, you know, how do you put a meter on that?

00:38:04.180 Not necessarily.

00:38:05.260 Not necessarily.

00:38:06.180 I like, for instance, if you put that barometer on Alex Jones, okay, if it's going to be based

00:38:12.960 on file, like, you know, I don't know if you're a sports guy.

00:38:15.000 You're a sports guy.

00:38:15.580 No, not particularly.

00:38:16.640 Okay.

00:38:16.660 You know, big debate.

00:38:17.700 Oh, who's the greatest?

00:38:18.460 Michael Jordan or LeBron James?

00:38:19.620 It's like a modern year, right?

00:38:20.600 Now everybody, you should talk about Jordan against Kobe.

00:38:24.720 Today's Jordan against...

00:38:25.240 But you can look at their stats.

00:38:26.380 But there are elements that you can't look at stats.

00:38:29.540 For instance, who's a better teammate, right?

00:38:32.480 You know, some may say, well, people like playing with LeBron more.

00:38:36.300 Well, what does that really mean?

00:38:38.000 You know, they like playing with LeBron because he's a better locker room guy.

00:38:41.160 He's nicer.

00:38:42.140 He's cool.

00:38:42.780 He's chill.

00:38:43.180 He's a guy you can go hang out with.

00:38:44.900 But people saw the killer instinct of MJ.

00:38:47.980 How the hell do you measure killer instinct?

00:38:49.500 You can't measure...

00:38:50.480 You can't say, here, take my blood.

00:38:51.880 I'm a positive KI.

00:38:54.260 What's KI?

00:38:54.800 I'm killer instinct.

00:38:55.960 I score at the highest level.

00:38:57.400 So for me, on the journalism side, I think there's going to be some that's going to be,

00:39:01.700 here's how many lies have been told this year.

00:39:04.660 97, okay?

00:39:06.040 And then the other side will be sensational lies.

00:39:08.740 What's sensational lies?

00:39:10.080 You'd probably put Alex Jones in there.

00:39:11.640 You'd probably put a bunch of different guys in there from both sides.

00:39:13.960 So I think there's got to be a way to hold your industry accountable because it's getting

00:39:18.300 very annoying.

00:39:19.540 I'd agree with you there.

00:39:20.700 And when I'm telling you it's getting very annoying, it's getting very annoying because

00:39:24.880 I don't even want to turn on Fox or CNN.

00:39:28.180 I turn off all the notifications on my phone.

00:39:30.640 I don't want to see it anymore.

00:39:31.620 So I, all I'm, and again, I'm giving you a rant a little bit because every time I talk

00:39:38.320 to anybody from any industry, I speak freely on what I think about your industry and then

00:39:42.160 you can do whatever you want.

00:39:43.140 One of my good friends, Phil Heath, who's a seven-time Mr. Olympia, he and I were going

00:39:47.200 back and forth on text last night and just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

00:39:52.520 And he brought up and he says, you know, because of our conversation we had on what you thought

00:39:56.520 about the Mr. Olympia, I have made these different adjustments and here's what it's led to.

00:40:00.740 It's led to this business, to that, to that business.

00:40:02.920 But, you know, I sit there myself, here's what I want.

00:40:08.040 I want somebody to do news the following way.

00:40:11.120 This is my, this isn't a perfect world.

00:40:12.860 This is utopia for me.

00:40:14.140 This is nirvana, right?

00:40:15.360 This is like I'm living with unicorns flying all over the place.

00:40:19.240 Listen, for me, it would be a journalist to say, hey, here's where we're at.

00:40:25.780 Democrats look at this as the following five things.

00:40:29.000 Democrats are going to say, he did this, he did that, he did this, he did that, he did that.

00:40:32.920 Okay?

00:40:33.440 That's what they're saying.

00:40:34.640 Okay?

00:40:35.200 And that's what they're bothered by.

00:40:37.280 Republicans are going to say, ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

00:40:40.500 Here's what they're comfortable with.

00:40:41.940 Here's what they're not happy with.

00:40:43.480 Here's what Democrats are going to say.

00:40:45.020 Now, let me give you some of the stuff that neither is paying attention to.

00:40:48.080 Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa.

00:40:49.360 This is what they're not paying attention to.

00:40:51.240 These are the things that we have to really pay attention to.

00:40:53.740 I think Republicans make good points on these two.

00:40:55.660 Democrats make good points on these two.

00:40:57.360 But these three points, you may want to go research for yourself a little bit more.

00:41:00.440 I don't see a lot of that today.

00:41:01.740 See, I couldn't agree with you more.

00:41:03.120 I'd love to see that.

00:41:05.080 The problem right now is that the market is speaking.

00:41:07.660 And the market doesn't want that.

00:41:09.560 The market could go and just read wire reports off Reuters and AP.

00:41:13.740 I don't know about that.

00:41:14.360 Is it micro?

00:41:15.120 You know who I'm talking about, micro?

00:41:16.020 Yeah, dirty jobs.

00:41:16.780 Yeah, he would write stuff on Facebook.

00:41:19.480 600,000 shares.

00:41:20.800 Yeah.

00:41:21.160 And he's just kind of telling you the simple middle.

00:41:24.240 I don't put the guy as Republican.

00:41:25.900 I don't put the guy as...

00:41:27.160 I put the guy as the middle.

00:41:28.380 And the market says, we like it.

00:41:30.240 I wish he would do more stuff that we can read about.

00:41:33.300 Do you think they would open their wallets for it?

00:41:35.260 Do I think they would open up their wallets?

00:41:36.720 Would they pay for that content?

00:41:38.480 No, I think they don't open up their wallet not because they don't want that to be told.

00:41:43.720 And I'm being very honest with you.

00:41:45.440 I think they don't want to open up that wallet because they personally don't want that to be told.

00:41:50.500 And I'll explain to you why.

00:41:51.540 Okay, journalists.

00:41:53.420 I'll tell you what a journalist is.

00:41:55.120 Here's how I look at a journalist.

00:41:56.400 A journalist is somebody that the more division there is, the more money they make.

00:42:01.580 Let's just face the truth.

00:42:03.180 The more division...

00:42:04.400 For the publisher.

00:42:05.040 The journalist isn't getting a paycheck increase.

00:42:07.440 Put the guy at the top.

00:42:08.440 The guy that runs the business.

00:42:09.600 The owner of, you know, Turner.

00:42:12.140 Right.

00:42:12.520 You know, Fox.

00:42:13.880 And then that trickles down and they...

00:42:16.420 Yeah, so I'm looking for division.

00:42:18.380 I don't want united.

00:42:20.320 I don't want the United States of America.

00:42:22.940 I make money when it's the divided states of America.

00:42:26.400 I'm killing it with advertisement when everybody is, you know, trying...

00:42:31.780 When I create this image that everybody hates each other.

00:42:34.560 It's not even the truth.

00:42:35.400 Like, we get along today better than ever.

00:42:37.620 But let's create this image that there's really a bigger war going on.

00:42:40.860 So, for me, they would pay for micro because there would be viewers.

00:42:46.500 Look at Joe Rogan.

00:42:47.380 Here's what Joe Rogan did.

00:42:48.660 Joe Rogan said, screw everybody.

00:42:50.860 Screw all of you.

00:42:51.760 I don't want to be on TV and net.

00:42:54.280 I don't need my own show.

00:42:55.240 I'm going to go put my own podcast.

00:42:56.580 And he's killing all of these other guys.

00:42:58.300 I think you're right that what you're seeing with that is that the tide is starting to turn

00:43:02.720 and that the public is ready for the sort of long-form discussions that maybe they weren't ready for just three years ago.

00:43:09.640 Now they're ready to sit down and listen to, you know, a Joe Rogan interview for three and a half hours.

00:43:16.180 I don't think people would have been ready for that even just a few years ago.

00:43:19.140 And I think that is an indicator that the tide is starting to change.

00:43:22.760 Yeah.

00:43:23.000 So, now the whole thing is going to be if YouTube is going to be not comfortable with some of the stuff we talk about.

00:43:27.680 You know, we've had a couple interviews we've done where, you know, all of a sudden we'll get an email saying this one's not going to be accepted for advertisement.

00:43:34.480 Many of them.

00:43:34.900 How many emails we get like that, Mario?

00:43:36.240 This is not for advertisement.

00:43:37.920 Do they say why?

00:43:39.100 Oh, yeah.

00:43:39.400 Like, I brought on board Jim Jenkins.

00:43:41.180 Jim Jenkins was one of four people in the room that was part of the autopsy for John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated.

00:43:47.920 And he held a brain.

00:43:49.060 He held a brain.

00:43:50.540 And he told us, and when you see this guy, Jim Jenkins, for 50 years, he's never wanted to have limelight.

00:43:57.500 Ever.

00:43:58.220 He's like, don't bother me.

00:43:59.860 He is, you know how you meet somebody, like, you know how you meet a girl and you're like, ooh, she is extremely flirtatious.

00:44:07.000 Holy moly.

00:44:08.340 I know exactly what she's doing, right?

00:44:10.880 You meet a guy and you know he's a player.

00:44:12.540 It's not hard to figure out when you see a guy and you know he's a player, like he's a woman.

00:44:15.320 I was like, oh, he was a little bit too comfortable with those three girls.

00:44:17.820 You know he can get it done pretty easily.

00:44:19.960 And then, you know, you meet a guy and you're like, that guy's just a good guy.

00:44:23.680 You know, that guy's a simple guy.

00:44:25.700 That girl's a simple girl that was, you know, when you meet Jim Jenkins, you'll say, wow, just a regular guy.

00:44:32.240 He's been married to the same wife 60 years, just sitting there, 55 years.

00:44:37.460 Just, she's sitting right there.

00:44:38.760 Hi, how are you?

00:44:39.620 Good to meet you.

00:44:40.200 Very innocent.

00:44:41.720 And he tells a story and we take him to the whole Dealey Plaza and we show him the whole thing.

00:44:46.100 And he says, no, I think the shot was from here.

00:44:48.460 And we got 600,000 views for a speak.

00:44:50.420 Boom, they shut it down.

00:44:51.520 And then it stopped.

00:44:52.340 And now it's getting 200 views every other day.

00:44:54.120 What happened there?

00:44:55.140 Certain stories.

00:44:55.940 So now going back to you saying, is the public wanting to see it?

00:44:59.740 The public absolutely wants to see it.

00:45:02.240 But who wants to block it from it being seen?

00:45:05.280 That's the question.

00:45:06.620 YouTube's one of the best platforms out there.

00:45:08.460 I love YouTube.

00:45:09.120 I love what YouTube allows us to do.

00:45:10.680 I think it's one of the best.

00:45:11.760 To me, I'm more YouTube than I'm Google, Facebook.

00:45:14.380 I am all YouTube.

00:45:15.680 I love, like, for me, consuming content, it's great.

00:45:17.840 But the point I'm trying to make to you is the following.

00:45:19.840 When you say, are people willing to pay for it?

00:45:22.000 Number one, screw what people are willing to pay for.

00:45:24.880 People are willing to pay for prostitution.

00:45:26.540 I'm not going to go start a business of prostitution.

00:45:29.040 I'm going to start a business because I want to legitimately make a difference in people's lives

00:45:34.140 and tell the truth where long-term I'm going to gain credibility where someone's going to say,

00:45:37.620 dude, when that guy talks, it's the truth.

00:45:39.980 That guy's got a lot of credibility.

00:45:41.680 So I think there is market for it.

00:45:43.760 I just think what we're missing is some brass.

00:45:46.340 For somebody with some brass to come out and say, I'm going to create my own media company.

00:45:49.720 And the way we're going to do it is the following way.

00:45:51.660 We're telling this.

00:45:52.640 And if you go off story and you sensationalize, you're out of here.

00:45:56.340 Go work for CNN or Fox.

00:45:57.640 You're not going to work at this company.

00:45:58.180 We've done that for the last seven years.

00:46:00.040 And I'll tell you, though, it's an uphill struggle.

00:46:01.500 Me as you.

00:46:02.180 Yeah, it's an uphill struggle.

00:46:04.220 You know, people are addicted to their outrage.

00:46:07.240 They want to be angry every day.

00:46:08.740 And there are statistics that they've done at the New York Times and elsewhere.

00:46:14.060 There's a book called Contagion that looked at it pretty in-depth.

00:46:17.260 Contagious?

00:46:18.060 Contagious.

00:46:18.380 The orange book?

00:46:19.000 Yes, yes.

00:46:19.440 It's a great book.

00:46:20.280 Where they talk about, you know, what gets people to click.

00:46:23.020 We've read that many, many times.

00:46:24.440 It was last month we read it, yeah.

00:46:25.960 Yeah, it's a good book.

00:46:27.000 But I do think you're right that the tide is starting to change.

00:46:30.240 But that's going to be a process.

00:46:31.480 It's going to take a while.

00:46:32.420 Yeah, so here's what I believe in.

00:46:34.620 We open up an office.

00:46:35.700 I run a business.

00:46:36.500 I run a financial firm.

00:46:37.480 And we open up an office.

00:46:38.360 We originally started with California.

00:46:40.440 And it was in San Fernando Valley, Glendale, Northridge.

00:46:43.300 We were in that market.

00:46:44.860 So then I decided to go open up an office and go complete opposite side, which is Miami.

00:46:49.080 So we open up the office of Miami.

00:46:50.760 And when I go to my Miami office, this is what they start telling me.

00:46:53.200 They say, Pat, let me tell you, Miami is different.

00:46:56.320 I said, what do you mean?

00:46:56.740 Because everybody showed up late to the meeting.

00:46:59.180 I'm like, wait a minute.

00:46:59.780 What was this all about?

00:47:01.240 Oh, Miami is different.

00:47:02.460 What do you mean by Miami is different?

00:47:03.960 You don't understand Miami.

00:47:05.640 I said, no, no, no.

00:47:06.680 It's not that I don't understand people.

00:47:08.560 Miami.

00:47:09.280 What do you mean you don't?

00:47:10.480 Miami is different.

00:47:11.640 Well, Miami is more chill.

00:47:12.960 And people kind of show up when they want to and all this.

00:47:15.360 BS.

00:47:16.280 I said, let me put it to you this way.

00:47:18.240 Open the blinds.

00:47:19.200 I opened up the blinds.

00:47:20.140 What's this office?

00:47:20.840 I said, how many buildings do you see out there?

00:47:22.600 A bunch of them.

00:47:23.400 How many?

00:47:23.940 Count them.

00:47:24.720 Pat, not enough to count.

00:47:25.780 Give me a number.

00:47:26.560 500.

00:47:27.120 Perfect.

00:47:28.060 Those buildings were built by a group of people that had to be held accountable and

00:47:31.480 stayed disciplined to build those buildings up.

00:47:33.140 Yes, or else no one's going to trust to live in that building because it's going to come

00:47:36.160 down.

00:47:36.380 Yes or no?

00:47:36.780 Yes.

00:47:36.920 So they have to show up on time or else they're going to get fired.

00:47:39.180 Yes, yes.

00:47:39.600 And there's deadlines, right?

00:47:40.520 Yes.

00:47:41.140 Everything you're saying, I don't agree with.

00:47:43.400 I told these guys.

00:47:44.200 I said, there's always a market for somebody that's willing to do it right.

00:47:48.580 To do what other people aren't willing to do.

00:47:50.120 Yeah.

00:47:50.440 And I'm telling you right now, my opinion, my opinion today, my opinion today, there's

00:47:56.460 a massive opportunity.

00:47:58.680 I'm not in your world.

00:47:59.660 Like, I'm not saying I'm going to do it.

00:48:01.180 I'm telling you.

00:48:02.040 So maybe this does something for you to, you know, go and say, look what this guy admitted

00:48:05.960 that he's an insurance guy.

00:48:06.980 But here's what he said.

00:48:07.860 I think there's a massive opportunity for someone to say, hey, here's what's going on.

00:48:16.280 Here's our scoring system.

00:48:17.840 This is what we do.

00:48:19.300 We make a bad score.

00:48:20.900 Our guys publicly, we get a lower score.

00:48:22.580 I think there is, it's a place where the sensationalized journalists would hate to work at.

00:48:30.820 But it would be a place where I would pay $99 a month.

00:48:35.160 Every month I would pay for you to send me an email on a daily basis with everything that

00:48:39.840 took place structured in a way where I hear both sides.

00:48:42.340 I would pay $99 a month.

00:48:43.840 And I'm willing to bet thousands of people would also be willing to pay $99 a month to

00:48:49.020 understand both sides and hold everybody accountable to say, okay, fair, this is good.

00:48:55.280 There is an emerging market for that, but I think that you may be overestimating the size

00:48:59.980 of it right now.

00:49:01.180 I don't think the average person is ready for that.

00:49:03.720 I think it would freak the average person out, actually, to have their emotions removed

00:49:07.000 from their political beliefs.

00:49:08.540 I mean, that's like tearing someone's religion away from them.

00:49:10.960 Let me have the emotion, not you, the journalist.

00:49:13.980 I don't want you to have the emotion as a journalist.

00:49:16.460 I want the journalist to tell me the truth.

00:49:19.280 Let me have the emotion.

00:49:20.680 Your job isn't to tell the emotion side.

00:49:23.460 The journalist is to tell me what took place.

00:49:26.140 We have a relationship.

00:49:27.560 You're the expert.

00:49:28.360 I'm not the expert.

00:49:29.560 I don't have time to go run a research and do everything.

00:49:31.980 By the way, I'm not calling you out.

00:49:33.540 I'm telling you, I'm not calling.

00:49:34.640 It's an important conversation.

00:49:35.460 I watched your videos.

00:49:36.320 I saw your business insider.

00:49:37.620 Here's the guns.

00:49:38.640 This is the one people don't like.

00:49:40.020 I like this one because this one works this way.

00:49:42.440 But the most common weapon is AK-47 because even till today, AK is the best one because

00:49:47.780 it's simple.

00:49:48.700 It's easy.

00:49:49.360 It's duplicated.

00:49:50.040 But the gun I would always carry is a 9mm because you can always find the ammo no matter

00:49:53.880 where you're at.

00:49:54.300 I watch this stuff and it makes sense.

00:49:56.860 I'm not saying anything by your approach.

00:49:58.880 I'm talking about the industry you represent.

00:50:01.100 No, no.

00:50:01.440 I mean, these are valid criticisms.

00:50:02.860 And I think it's going to take a while for us to evolve out of this pit we're in right

00:50:07.560 now.

00:50:07.980 I just hope we can do it quickly enough before we devour, cannibalize one another.

00:50:12.880 I can talk to a guy like you forever.

00:50:15.380 I'm always curious and have so much respect and admiration for somebody that's willing to

00:50:19.920 put their life on the line.

00:50:20.860 for me to be able to go build a business and, you know, live my dream life.

00:50:25.740 I can't do without a guy like you.

00:50:27.360 Every time I see somebody in a military uniform in the airport, I just say, hey, hey, come

00:50:32.180 here, I'm going to tell you, listen, you're amazing what you're doing.

00:50:34.680 Thank you for what you're doing.

00:50:35.440 Oh, that's cool.

00:50:35.920 You have to do it because I don't think they get enough.

00:50:38.220 But, you know, for me, I think there's a massive opportunity today for that world.

00:50:42.880 And I'll explain to you who would be your audience.

00:50:44.640 When you build a business, you look at who's your audience.

00:50:48.140 You don't look at, well, you know, such and such people don't have my product.

00:50:51.800 I started selling insurance and I was a Middle Eastern.

00:50:55.820 And the first thing Middle Easterners would say is, Pat, no Middle Eastern buys life insurance.

00:51:01.360 Why?

00:51:02.080 One, it's a religion thing.

00:51:03.900 Two, they don't like it.

00:51:05.060 Three, the husband thinks that you're hooking up with the wife.

00:51:08.260 Four, there's a lack of trust.

00:51:09.580 Five, you know, they're not Americanized.

00:51:11.700 So to them, it's like wildlife insurance.

00:51:13.520 Why would I want to leave my wife money when I die?

00:51:16.060 No way.

00:51:16.580 So all this stuff I heard.

00:51:17.780 And I'm being honest with you.

00:51:18.660 All this stuff I heard.

00:51:19.820 So I sat there.

00:51:20.520 I'm like, man, maybe this isn't for me.

00:51:22.120 Maybe I shouldn't be doing this.

00:51:23.500 And then I said, you know what, Pat?

00:51:24.840 No, who's the customer?

00:51:27.140 Who is your customer?

00:51:28.640 It doesn't have to be the Middle Eastern.

00:51:30.440 You are Middle Eastern.

00:51:31.940 Phil Jackson is 60.

00:51:33.060 He doesn't recruit 60-year basketball players.

00:51:35.440 So for me, if the target for you was executives and people who are so super busy that are trying to get the information, who have influence over others.

00:51:47.460 So they don't have to distill all that information.

00:51:49.520 I'm telling you I would pay for it.

00:51:51.340 And I'm telling you there are hundreds of thousands of people like me that would pay for it who don't have time.

00:51:55.900 And I just want to trust.

00:51:57.780 That's all I want.

00:51:58.760 So if you create, literally, when I'm visualizing this, like the email comes this side.

00:52:04.260 Here's what Democrats will say.

00:52:06.640 Here's what Republicans will say.

00:52:07.940 And you quote four Democrats, you know, Maddow, Cooper, Maher, whatever you put.

00:52:13.500 Here's what Republicans are saying.

00:52:15.540 Hannity, Riley, you know, whatever.

00:52:17.440 You put their names here.

00:52:18.940 But here's what we're seeing.

00:52:19.940 And then some policy analysis.

00:52:20.920 I am telling you right now, if you started something like that, I would subscribe.

00:52:24.940 I'd be your first customer.

00:52:25.960 If you took that approach and you held the integrity that you are responsible for, not me.

00:52:33.160 Journalists are dividing this country.

00:52:34.880 And that is a very big opportunity for a journalist to come out and say, this is not what we do.

00:52:40.180 If we screw up, we talk about it.

00:52:42.280 This was this.

00:52:42.940 And we create a scoring system.

00:52:44.520 Nowadays, you go hire two predictive analytics guys from Stanford.

00:52:47.980 You pay them some money.

00:52:48.860 You raise a couple million dollars.

00:52:50.120 You're a military guy.

00:52:50.920 You have credibility.

00:52:51.760 You go to a few guys.

00:52:53.000 You're in New York.

00:52:53.640 I'm sure you can put up two to five, ten million dollars to raise over here.

00:52:56.920 You go raise some money.

00:52:57.780 You get two, three, four predictive analytics guys.

00:53:00.460 You create a scoring system for journalists that they're going to be not good or not right.

00:53:04.680 And you put a top 100 scoring system.

00:53:06.760 Every week, I'm going to be checking that.

00:53:08.600 That gamification would make that website one of the top websites for news in the world that you'd be looking at.

00:53:13.920 So, I think it's more or less, look, all I'm hoping for is for someone to be inspired with this.

00:53:19.420 All I'm hoping for is for somebody to say, freaking A, this makes sense.

00:53:22.100 Let me see what I can do with this.

00:53:23.340 Go for it.

00:53:23.700 I don't even want the credit for this idea.

00:53:26.020 I'm just telling you what I want.

00:53:27.340 I've got three kids.

00:53:28.080 I've got a wife.

00:53:28.620 I've got two boys and a daughter.

00:53:31.300 I want me to be able to say, go watch this and read this.

00:53:35.860 No emotions.

00:53:37.040 Read it.

00:53:37.980 Then you'll see exactly why they said this, why they said this.

00:53:40.980 You would be the most hated, the most hated news site out there by everybody.

00:53:47.440 But who would trust you is those people who are EF Hutton's who have influence in their own community.

00:53:53.240 I'm purely giving my opinion.

00:53:55.020 I may be absolutely wrong on what I'm saying, but it's just my thoughts.

00:53:58.380 There are centrists out there, more than people think, who would definitely read that.

00:54:03.240 I think there's a market for it.

00:54:05.240 So, anyways, if you don't do it, someone's going to do it.

00:54:07.940 I hope so.

00:54:09.100 I think hopefully something will take place with that.

00:54:12.000 So, what's next for you?

00:54:13.420 What are you up to nowadays as a journalist?

00:54:14.940 I see your stuff with Business Insider.

00:54:17.520 I see your stuff that you do with them, the articles you're writing.

00:54:20.300 Matter of fact, you're working something right now with Iran to create a revolution there, right?

00:54:24.820 Yeah.

00:54:25.260 Talk a little bit about that.

00:54:26.240 What's going on with the research you've been doing on that?

00:54:27.960 Yeah, I've been working on this article about Iran lately, looking at the various contingency planning that we've done.

00:54:34.780 Because it looks like the Trump administration and his national security advisor, John Bolton, have an interest in going back and revisiting this topic.

00:54:43.080 So, I've been going through the reports.

00:54:45.280 I've been talking to some sources about it.

00:54:47.100 And it's very, very interesting.

00:54:49.140 In my opinion, it's a bit of a fool's errand.

00:54:51.720 I don't think it would end very well.

00:54:53.220 Why do you say that?

00:54:54.700 There would have to be a massive air campaign.

00:54:56.740 It would put shock and awe in 2003 to shame.

00:54:59.820 And then you have all these underground WMD facilities that special operations soldiers would have to go in and secure.

00:55:06.460 These are quite complicated operations to penetrate and raid these underground facilities.

00:55:10.800 Then there would have to be some sort of transition in government.

00:55:15.340 And when I talk to people about it, I ask the question, is there a shadow government in Iran waiting to take control and bring forth democracy?

00:55:24.540 And they're like, no.

00:55:25.680 And that's the main holdup to the plan.

00:55:27.400 That's why Obama said no to it in 2013 when it was offered to him.

00:55:30.740 And it sounds very much like a sort of situation we ran into in Iraq where there's that initial moment of jubilation and mission accomplished and then everything starts to fall apart.

00:55:44.060 So, I think we have to be very careful on that subject.

00:55:47.040 But I'm still working on that article and fleshing it all out.

00:55:50.360 Is the worry that, too, it's not a good idea to have a revolution or it is good to have a revolution for the regime to change in Iran?

00:55:58.780 Well, I mean, on one hand, yeah, of course, we'd like to see democracy spread.

00:56:03.440 We'd like to see freedom.

00:56:04.360 But the question becomes, you know, just like during the Cold War, is every anti-communist action we take a pro-America action?

00:56:12.780 This was the question I asked when I visited Damascus and I interviewed President Assad a few years ago.

00:56:18.160 So, I came to this conclusion that, OK, trying to topple the government of Syria might be anti-authoritarianism, but it's not necessarily pro-America to crash this government and have ISIS, essentially, take control of this entire country.

00:56:34.880 That's bad for us.

00:56:35.900 And I think you have to look at it the same way in Iran, that, you know, regime change, you know, we can picture in our mind's eye as a sort of thought experiment that it would be a good thing to topple this regime and try to transition it to a democracy.

00:56:49.340 But we've seen how this plays out for us and just right next door in Iraq.

00:56:54.680 And so, I think we have to be very careful and we have to be very skeptical about what we can realistically accomplish.

00:57:00.000 Are you looking at some candidates that could be revolutionary new leaders that could do that?

00:57:04.160 Are you looking at some names or no?

00:57:05.620 I have not made an in-depth look at opposition parties.

00:57:09.420 There are some opposition groups in Iran, but I'm more looking at it from the American perspective right now.

00:57:15.020 Yeah.

00:57:15.660 OK, got it.

00:57:16.680 So, to be involved or not to be involved or the benefit if we do get involved and mix it up over there to take back to what it used to be with democracy?

00:57:24.620 I think we need to ask ourselves all those questions.

00:57:26.640 OK.

00:57:27.440 1953 is a big date you've got to look at with Mossadegh.

00:57:30.440 Yeah.

00:57:31.360 That's the whole thing with oil.

00:57:32.920 What happened with UK, Britain was bullying them because they owned all the rights to the oil in Abaddon.

00:57:37.760 And then when he was gone because they didn't like him, the CIA was involved.

00:57:43.880 American CIA was involved.

00:57:45.280 It was a pretty, some say dirty, some say necessary.

00:57:48.600 And then the same thing happened with the Shah during the Carter regime, which you're probably very familiar.

00:57:52.760 Right after the toast Carter did with Reza Pahlavi in Iran, I think on December 31st of 1977, next day he left, revolution got started in Iran.

00:58:06.600 It's pretty ugly.

00:58:07.720 There's an audio I suggest you, a book to read.

00:58:11.540 It's called All the Shah's Men.

00:58:13.160 I've heard of it.

00:58:13.700 I've heard of it.

00:58:14.320 Very, very good.

00:58:15.240 And I think it's given perspective on history on what to do.

00:58:18.920 But the one guy right now that's creating his Instagram following is growing.

00:58:23.900 His Twitter following is growing.

00:58:26.060 His videos on Facebook are growing.

00:58:27.800 On YouTube it's growing.

00:58:28.840 He's being interviewed all over the world.

00:58:30.140 BBC is the Shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, who lives in D.C.

00:58:34.200 Wow.

00:58:34.480 The queen, Farah, she's still alive.

00:58:39.040 If you can get a sit down with Reza Pahlavi representing businesses, who are you doing this article for, by the way?

00:58:45.420 The company I work for, News Rep.

00:58:46.820 Okay, got it.

00:58:47.860 I think if you're able to speak to him, he'll give you a complete different perspective of a pro and a con.

00:58:54.320 I sat down with his campaign team that flew into L.A. from France to meet with us.

00:58:59.460 And we went and met with him.

00:59:00.700 Reza Pahlavi, we had a three-hour meeting in D.C. with him.

00:59:02.780 And we went very, very deep.

00:59:04.620 It was never publicized.

00:59:05.620 It's not a public video.

00:59:07.000 But I think he would give you incredible insight.

00:59:09.780 Yeah, I'd love that.

00:59:10.960 Yeah, because there are American Iranians who are pro-revolution, some that are not, some are Khomeini people, some are Shah people, some hate the Shah, some love the Shah.

00:59:21.060 And you have to know both reasons why.

00:59:23.280 It's a very sensitive subject.

00:59:24.720 And once you do write it, please send it to me.

00:59:26.560 I want to be one of the first to read it.

00:59:27.740 I'm very curious about what's going on there with Iran.

00:59:30.840 So final thoughts.

00:59:31.660 Tell us a little about the book.

00:59:32.560 I mean, obviously, we've been talking a lot about the book.

00:59:34.240 Sure, sure.

00:59:34.360 But what else should I expect?

00:59:35.600 Tell us a little bit about the book.

00:59:36.560 You know, I'm pretty proud of the book.

00:59:38.500 I'm biased, of course.

00:59:39.460 But I'm proud of it.

00:59:40.820 I spent a lot of time on it.

00:59:42.440 I think it tells the whole story of a young man joining the military, being popped down in countries like Iraq or Afghanistan, where, you know, you, as a young guy, you don't have the cultural or language knowledge to really understand the full context of what's going on.

00:59:57.900 But suddenly, in a very violent world, to be honest, the romanticism of being a young soldier and going on this adventure and the challenges of trying to become a ranger or a green beret.

01:00:10.860 And I think a lot of the books out there tend to fall into one or two categories because this has been turned into a genre, this war memoir genre.

01:00:19.060 It's either guys bragging about how many people they killed in the Middle East and waving the flag and telling people that America wouldn't be there if not for them.

01:00:27.780 Or you have these sorts of works of literature that are like war apologies, like, oh, I was just a young man and the system used and abused me and left me broken and threw me out on the streets.

01:00:37.500 This book is neither of those things.

01:00:38.920 I think it's from my perspective that, you know, I'm very patriotic, I'm very pro-military, but at the same time, I think my experiences abroad have left me also deeply skeptical about American foreign policy and what we can realistically accomplish when we send young men and women to try to police and govern foreign populations who, you know, they just don't want us there.

01:01:02.160 You know, they don't want a foreign imposition.

01:01:04.420 It's like my squad leader when I was a ranger and we were in Iraq dealing with the insurgency in 2005.

01:01:10.860 He was like, you know, I get it.

01:01:12.700 He's like, imagine if the Chinese government came and sent troops to America and they were patrolling our streets and they said, hey, we're just here to help you out.

01:01:20.540 Don't worry about it.

01:01:21.780 And then they kick in your neighbor's front door.

01:01:24.920 They accidentally killed one of their kids.

01:01:27.880 And now you're in it.

01:01:28.960 And the next thing you know, you're setting off IEDs, you know, on convoys out on I-87.

01:01:34.680 So, I mean, you just have to look at it from their perspective.

01:01:37.140 So, of course, there is an insurgency.

01:01:39.300 You know, from, you know, I love that story that Robert McNamara told about when he went to visit Vietnam after the war.

01:01:46.420 And the Vietnamese general he met with was like, you were trying to turn Vietnam into an American colony.

01:01:53.120 And he's like, no, no, that was absolutely not what we were trying to do there.

01:01:56.820 But from a Vietnamese perspective, there was what?

01:01:59.260 At the height, there was like hundreds of thousands of American troops in South Vietnam.

01:02:02.980 If that's not colonialism, what is?

01:02:05.120 No doubt.

01:02:05.640 I mean, you can see from their perspective.

01:02:07.200 From their perspective, yeah.

01:02:08.280 Yeah.

01:02:08.740 But that was not what we were trying to accomplish there.

01:02:11.280 So, I think those nuances are something I tried to capture in this book and explain, you know, all of the good and all of the bad.

01:02:18.620 And I also wrote it for the perspective of the 18-year-old kid who was in my position when I was his age, thinking of joining the military.

01:02:28.160 I want there to be some actual content in this book.

01:02:30.400 I talk about the mistakes I made, you know, things like a friendly fire incident.

01:02:34.320 Because when that kid who's thinking about joining the military reads the book, I want there to be like some practical, hands-on lessons that they can take away from that and apply to their own military career.

01:02:45.700 And hopefully avoid some of the things I got into.

01:02:48.580 Well, first of all, again, thank you for your service.

01:02:52.520 I simply went as a 63 Bravo.

01:02:54.720 You went and became a Special Forces Ranger.

01:02:58.220 You went to war.

01:02:59.200 You protected this country.

01:03:00.480 You put your life on the line.

01:03:01.520 And I personally thank you for doing that.

01:03:04.120 For those of you that are military people, a lot of people that follow by Tim, you know, there's a lot of pro-military guys.

01:03:09.580 Read his book.

01:03:10.460 You can send him a tweet as well.

01:03:11.780 I know he's on Twitter.

01:03:12.960 Send us a message.

01:03:14.200 With that being said, buddy, thanks so much for joining us.

01:03:16.380 Thank you so much, Pat.

01:03:17.300 Truly.

01:03:17.640 Thank you.

01:03:17.980 Again, it's really rare that you get to do these long-form interviews.

01:03:21.020 So, I really appreciate the opportunity.

01:03:22.620 I appreciate you being open to it and actually sharing your story and your testimony with us.

01:03:26.240 Truly.

01:03:26.520 Thank you.

01:03:26.860 Thanks, everybody, for listening.

01:03:28.380 And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.

01:03:32.980 Give us a five-star.

01:03:34.300 Write a review if you haven't already.

01:03:35.880 And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

01:03:41.780 Just search my name, Patrick MidDavid.

01:03:43.920 And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.

01:03:48.820 With that being said, have a great day today.

01:03:50.560 Take care, everybody.

01:03:51.280 Bye-bye.

01:03:56.860 Thank you.

01:03:57.900 Bye-bye.

01:03:58.240 Bye-bye.

01:04:09.780 Bye-bye.

Valuetainment - June 27, 2019

Episode 329： Is Fake News Real？

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