Erik Prince - The Rise and Fall of Blackwater | SRS #029

ladies and. gentlemen it is 4th of July. weekend I'm in Portland. Maine getting ready to release my next. episode with somebody that has been on. my wish list to interview for a very. long time he's a former boss of mine. former Navy. SEAL CEO of Blackwater did a ton of work.

with Central Intelligence Agency until. they ousted him we get the full story. ladies and. Gentlemen please welcome Mr Eric Prince. and if you want to be a patriot this 4th. of July. weekend leave me a review on iTunes and. sign. up for our free email newsletter we push. out all kinds of free content on the.

newsletter links in the. description other than that that's all. I'm. asking have a great Fourth of July. weekend and God bless. America cheers love you. all promise to uh solemnly swear that. the testim amid fresh reports of. Reckless Behavior by Blackwater in Iraq. blackwater's CEO Eric Prince made no. apologies to a Congressional.

investigating committee I disagree with. the assertion that they acted like. cowboys and it says three Senators Joe. Biden Chuck Hegel and John KY the future. vice president secretary of defense and. Secretary of State respectively posed. while waiting for Blackwater rescue. their US Army helicopter got lost in a. blinding snowstorm and sat down in. Taliban territory on the side of a. mountain do not ever discount the.

Iranian influence on the Biden Obama. administration then as there is. now he said Mr President give us the. authorities and a billion dollars and in. 3 weeks the Flies will be walking on the. eyeballs of our. enemies Prince said his employees act. with restraint and professionalism he. boasted that none of the US diplomats he. has paid to protect have been killed or. wounded it was a great honor that they.

turned to us cuz it was a very important. mission right cuz the CIA is the ones. who made that Victory possible for the. unit States we've had a better response. from Blackwater than we have from the. state department we fought back on all. fronts the one place that they had us. over a barrel was with the state. department Witnesses say the two SUVs. were ambushed as they drove through town. another Convoy of guys that got ambushed. and shot up on the Baghdad Highway the. contractors worked for Blackwater.

security a company that protects. Coalition Personnel knowing that the. clowns at the state department and the. Obama Administration did everything they. could to block a program like that cuz. it's not something they directly. controlled it is such a mess it is such. a FedEd swamp Trump is right to call it. a swamp it is. [Music].

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man Eric Prince welcome to the show. thanks for having me Sean so I work for. you under Blackwater worldwide. Blackwater USA and um after I left all. that I started this and not realizing. what it would turn into and you. were actually the number one person uh. that I wanted to interview I never. actually thought it would happen.

so this is all very surreal for me so I. just want to say thank you for coming. it's a me real honor to have you here. I'm it's always great to see guys that. have worked with us pivot to something. else spectacular and do well thank you. so congratulations thank you for that so. just a little introduction you were a. Navy SEAL on the officer's side you were. the founder and CEO of Blackwater the. largest private military Contracting. Company company in the world still to.

this day uh also the only PMC company to. ever not lose an asset or a a a protect. yeah. protecte uh a. billionaire. until far from that one's that that's a. gross. Distortion that's a massive inflation of. my net worth well thank you for being. honest uh until recently the head of a. private equity Equity Firm Frontier.

Resource Group you are on the Iranian. hit list and well known uh in the media. is the guy behind the CIA assassination. program and a father of 12 which I. recently thought seven but 12 so we have. a double Brady Bunch. [Laughter]. family. um if you're old enough to have. remembered the Brady Bunch I am all. right I am.

and so in doing some of my research I. talked to some of your colleagues one of. which had mentioned that you are like a. modernday Bruce Wayne you sit at home. and you think of out of the-box ways to. solve a lot of the things that are going. on in the world and uh I actually. thought that was a fairly accurate. description so I wanted to bring that up. but um before we get into the interview. which we're going to talk about a lot a. lot of different things I get everybody.

a. gift oh there you go thank. you all. right gummy bears those are gummy bears. those are fantastic vigilance legal in. all 50. states all right yeah good to go I'm a. sucky for I'm a sucker for G bear okay.

perfect. um so I have a subscription group called. on patreon under the vigilance Elite and. I give them an opportunity to ask each. guest a question and I pick one and I. thought this was a a fairly good. question with the way the economic with. the way the economy is today everybody. is waiting for the brug to kind of get. pulled out from under it and nobody. really knows where to put their money. where does Eric Prince and invest his.

money other than your personal business. ventures. um the stock market seems certainly uh. overhyped because of the amount of. liquidity that's been pumped into. society and it to me I guess it comes. down to what do people have to buy to. survive right in in a in a world of. um uh turbulence it comes down to people. making choices as to nice to have versus.

have to have and so investing in um if. you can do any kind of value investing. into things that people have to buy. versus want to buy that's uh that's. probably the safest bet. interesting and and in this argument of. cryptocurrencies versus gold and all the. rest here the fact is gold has for. Millennia been a valued medium of. exchange and it's never been worth zero. it's never uh it's never quite.

collapsed and so uh having a. um uh having part of a portfolio in a in. actual hard currency like gold or. someone even say in brass or in loaded. ammunition components or look look at. the look even what the cost of that has. been uh over the past few years as the. cost of copper has gone to $10,000 a ton. and um you know driving all those prices. upwards so it's it's not a bad Hedge. interesting are you into crypto at all.

yes a bit you are you think it's here to. stay uh I think it is because. um the increasing cartelization of big. Banks and their leverage over people. that cryptocurrencies will um will find. a way to be an alternative medium of. exchange to the detriment of big Banks. which is good um if you think about. monetary history in the United States. states there used to be lots of.

different privately issued currencies. right I mean even after the American. Revolution you had the Continental. dollar and you had other people issuing. dollars usually based on issuing. currencies based on some kind of backed. by some kind of uh silver or gold or. backed by a gold mine or something and. so it's not unusual to have a lot of. different competing currencies as you. see and in the crypto world yes there's. a lot of noise there's a lot of uh. nonsense to it but there's some.

underpinning uh value stuff like Bitcoin. uh and some of those uh mainstream coins. they're very much here to stay you think. ethereum's here to stay ethereum yeah I. think so interesting I wasn't expecting. you to say that but the more I dive in. the more the more open people are to it. it's I find it fascinating that I feel. like we're on a currency Revolution yes. we are I think if so one of the things.

that in Africa right you have a thing. called empa which is cell phone Banking. and it was hugely empowering for poor. across Africa that didn't have a bank. account but they had a cell phone even a. little flip phone because they could. transfer or receive a couple of dollars. a few cents small amounts of. money um and because it it reduced their. transaction costs they didn't have. access or even proximity to a bank to do. that let alone the corruption or other. nonsense that might go with with banks.

in some of those jurisdictions so an. empa account allowed them to buy and. sell Goods or their labor and and Bank. it I think cryptocurrencies are going to. do that for the rest of the world with. secure wallets with exchanges that um. people will. um be able to buy and sell Goods uh. rapidly and effectively and for all the. noise also about cryptocurrency being. used for uh for Crime it's the ultimate.

in transparency right because it's a. blockchain it's you can trace every. transaction and where it's gone and um. and and who has it so well thanks for. sharing that so as far as the interviews. concerned I would like to we have so. much to cover I want to talk a lot about. current events towards the end but what. I really want to do at the beginning is. talk about just your career up to this. point and then get into some of the. current events so you grew up your dad.

was a monster entrepreneur uh very. wealthy not a lot of people can relate. to that and very many people are. interested in that kind of lifestyle and. in your book I think you give a great. description of what that was like and. some of the lessons that your dad talked. to so can you go can you go into a. little bit of your childhood what was. that like sure well let me first start. by talking about my dad cuz both my. parents certainly shaped me and uh I'm.

100% Dutch born in Holland Michigan and. um it was a Dutch Colony it was a Dutch. Community founded in the 1840s from some. religious pilgrims that came from the. Netherlands but it's a very hardworking. very industrious area and my dad's my. dad's dad died when my father was 13 and. that was kind of in the Great Depression. and so he was thrust from being a kid to. being the man of the family and my.

um uh my grandmother had a um as a widow. with three kids was very independent and. was not accepting or looking for any. welfare from anybody not from the state. not from the church not from anybody and. so you know my dad installed the hot. water heater in their house at age. 14 by himself I mean literally taking. one length of pipe at a time going to a. local hardware store measuring it. cutting it coming back and and you know.

sweating the joint and he put it in it. still worked so my dad worked 40 hours a. week in middle school and high school. already and he he played Sports One. season um he played football one season. but the rest time he worked he was. managing a car dealership at 16 and he. put himself through college and um was. off in the Air Force for a couple years. after college because it was draft then. he was in the he was in Air Force photo. workon. officer but the man knew how cuz he had.

to work to. provide and. when he was uh he went to work for a. machine tool maker they made big diecast. machines and the business was sold he. didn't like the new ownership and so he. left with six other guys and took now my. dad already had three kids mortgage on. the house and he remortgaged everything. okay and and his mother who'd managed to. save $10,000 as a single mom in the 40s.

and 50s put $110,000 on her son as. Equity into what became Prince. Corporation and my dad started making. diecast machines and then in the early. 70s they patented the lighted sun visor. um one of the Smart Guys of the company. con Marcus developed the you know when. you get in a car you tip the visor down. you lift the lid up with the lights with. the mirror the lights that come on that. was that was their patent. and.

um they made the first 5,000 for. Cadillac before they ever made one W uh. because Dad said they sold it on a Bola. wood. model and these Cadillac said yep we'll. take 5,000 and then it was a scramble to. figure out how to make those things and. um and they just did it they figured it. out and so the the prince Corporation. made um all kinds of stuff inside of a. car and that so that the environment I.

grew up in um I. remember. um and my dad got invited to go to uh to. Eastern Europe and to to Russia right. because they wanted to buy his machines. and he went to Moscow had the whole. surveillance tale and he hated the whole. fit and feel of the place and he came. back and after that we did a long van. tour he shipped a a. 1975 Chevy van. to Europe and we did a a six- we road.

trip One Summer and we drove through. Western Europe and Eastern Europe uh and. I had my my seventh birthday in East. Berlin and I'll never forget that as a. seven-year-old and the guns the dogs the. minefields the tank traps all of that. facing in on East Germany literally a. national prison camp keeping people from. escaping and I think it had a a pretty. uh direct effect on me because I kind of.

figure out that communism is not such a. great idea if you had to have that level. of control to keep people from leaving. wellow figured that out at 7 years old. well yeah you know and it probably. stimulated my interest in history and. and reading and all the rest and I. remember we went to Normandy um in 1980. and uh as so as 11-year-old I was the. kind of the family geek that gave the. tour right this is sword gold Juno Utah. Omaha Beach there's Pegasus bridge and.

yeah so I uh I I kind of lived and and. read and consumed that kind of. information I was uh was kind of a loner. growing up um I hunted and trapped I had. a a cousin Derek who was a great. Outdoorsman and his dad the whole side. of the zweep family were Outdoorsman and. that's where I got it from and they. um uh you know shooting uh shooting. water water bugs with a uh with a BB gun.

and um I hunt I trapped muskrats and. raccoons for 3 years so you know as a as. a fourth fifth and a sixth grader I was. out in my bike early in the morning. going to check my traps before school it. was a it was a good. experience were you involved in the. family business at all not at all not at. all not interested or a not interested. but B was also policy that you have to. go do your own thing. so even if I was really interested there.

was never never even an option so my. dad's policy for my sisters and I is. that he had to go do something else. before you ever come and work in the. family business at what point did that. become clear what age uh it was I think. since birth I was just never yeah I mean. as the business grew and became very. large it was 5,000 employees by by the. late 80s by about the time I was. graduating high school I'd always wanted. to be in the.

military and I applied to uh Air Force. and navy um I got into. bothies and um I went Navy I was a pilot. I got my uh pilot's license or I sold it. when I was 16 the morning of my 16th. birthday got my license when I was. 17 and uh was hellbent to be a Navy. pilot and in truly showing about how low. profile the seal teams were then this is. me I was a geek that paid attention into. all things military and I didn't even.

know that much about the SEAL Teams cuz. I went to the academy knowing um knowing. I want to be a pilot and that was it was. even the year after Top Gun came out. oh but um I remember a year it was. the it was the spring of my freshman. year ple year at the Academy and these. two seal officers there were the liaison. guys came and gave the brief as to what. SEAL Teams do and they said hey if you. ever want to you know come down and PT.

with us you can be at this field at 5:30. tomorrow and I showed up there at 5:30. and they said okay today we're just. going to run a mile get a partner put. them on your. shoulders I was hooked man I loved it. and I remember uh I remember going to. the pool right CU I I played Sports in. high school and middle school but um I. was not much of a swimmer even having. grown up on the lakes and I remember. swimming the first first 50 m and I felt. like my lungs were going to fall out of.

my chest but uh but 100 m became 200. became you know and I became a pretty. good swimmer but um yeah that that. started my trajectory of wanting to be a. seal but I ended up leave I left the. academy um after three semesters. voluntarily I was not kicked. out um but uh I went to Hillsdale. College and um I had a good experience. there why did you leave the academy.

because I was not convinced it was I. think great leaders went to the academy. and survived it because it was not. producing them and it. was I'd say it was an early indicator of. the kind of political correctness that's. infected the rest of many American. schools right and you know if you think. there's a problem with universities. imagine one run by the federal. government and so this is. 8788 I mean growing up in in Holland. Michigan um I.

was active in school I played I think I. only missed one season of one year. playing some kind of high school sport. at a varsity. level I was involved in all that but I. was so focused on joining the military I. think I missed most of the fun times of. high school experience that most kids. look back on okay still have regrets for. that but. um going to Hillsdale it was a good.

experience um I remember I had a um a. Prof named Alexander stromas who is an. exile he'd been kicked out of the Soviet. Union and so right as the Soviet Union. is teetering on collapse Alexander. stromas had been a law school classmate. of Mel Gorbachev so it was a fantastic. window into what was actually happening. there and so between a really good. economic education right cuz Hillsdale. is one of two schools in the country. accepts no federal funding why don't.

they accept Federal funding because with. Federal money comes Federal. strings so it is it is a fiercely. libertarian school and it was it was. actually one of the first schools in the. country to accept women and minorities. as well really yeah does it still not. accept feral money zero interesting. because I thought about leaving the. academy and trying to go to Roc or you. know some other commissioning source and. they said that's great but you have to.

go to the RC training at Michigan State. or somewhere else but it's not here. because it's Federal money okay so but. while I was at Hillsdale I joined the. fire. department uh probably within two months. of being there and that was a um I would. say I learn more about leadership at the. fire department than in a very. artificial Lab at the Academy right. because in at the Academy they have the. upper class right some classman that's. one or two years ahead of you trying to. teach you.

leadership and what is what is a what. have you what is a sophomore or a junior. or a senior in college done to Warrant. them teaching leadership right there's. not a lot of Mustang former listed kids. that are going to the academy it's. college kids and I would compare that to. the fire department where earning the. trust of the the butcher the carpenter. or the professional firemen that were on. the Squad to perform well enough to go.

inside of a burning building right cuz. Hillsdale County is not a super affluent. County so there was quite a few. structure fires um you know I've got to. do a lot of cool things in my life but. driving a fir Tru to a fire lights and. siren is still up there on the. definitely in the top five list but um I. did that and. um uh I got uh I dove with the county. sheriff's department doing body. recoveries um because people would go. out and the Ice uh in The Lakes during.

the winter time running motorcycles and. um and snowmobiles inevitably at least. one a weekend somebody was going through. the ice and you have to go recover the. sled and sometimes you have to recover a. body wow how many how many bodies do you. think you recovered uh three bodies and. many sleds wow did that affect you do. you think uh it made me pretty cautious. yeah yeah but I was cheap in college and. because I these guys are driving in dry. suits I was diving a wet. suit it was it was epically cold until I.

got smart enough and I took uh some uh. some milk jugs in a cooler that I would. fill with hot water so I'd pour water in. the suit first get you know so you don't. have that uh first 30 seconds of massive. cold as the uh as the wet suit becomes. wet. nice your dad seemed like he was a great. leader as well and so since we're on the. topic of leadership the academy moving. into the fire department and learning. lot of Leadership Lessons there it seems. like your dad was a very.

generous uh guy that took care of his. people gave back to the community to. that carryover to. you yeah you know what my um it was. described of my dad at his funeral that. he was a rising tied that lifted all. boats and um he really believed in. community. and um making the community a. spectacular place that people would want. to live in and they did a a great Care. and Share program where uh when the. company made money if the employees.

wanted to chip in and pick 10 Charities. to support the company would match it. all um he ended up giving uh a big chunk. of the company to the. employees and you know he said and I. I've really taken this on. board that one of the greatest things. you can do for somebody is to give them. a great job where they feel valued. empowered and they're happy they're. proud to go home to their family at. night and he told a story you know there.

was one of the very very earlier. employees was a guy who. was I guess he. was partially mentally disabled right. but the guy was he was having a hard. time sweeping the floors and the guy. would get overwhelmed he didn't want to. quit and my dad said nope you can do it. come on stay at it stay at it say at it. and and and after 30 years and he grew. in the the janitorial division of the. business because of the Employee Stock.

because of when he started the guy. retired as a multi-millionaire wow and. uh it was a a great analogy to how. empowering giving somebody a great job. is that's incredible and employing them. at. their at their best. level well skipping forward just a. little bit then we'll come back when you. when black water was was up and going I. know a lot a lot of those guys were. extremely proud to be a part of that. outfit and and so I definitely see that.

it carried over did did you realize that. how proud a lot of those guys were to. work under that umbrella uh I had been. uh I I was hoping that much of what I. had seen before was replicated in the. best sense of the word yeah and we were. you know I had intended to go farther I. mean you know with um with the whether. it's a Caren chair program for the our.

employees picking local charities that. they cared about and we matched it and. uh we wanted to make our whole area. where we lived much much better so yeah. and it's uh well I'm sure we'll get to. it later but the how the company was. treated and the the political attack on. it is. um uh I wouldn't say it was fair and uh. but it is what it is and for whatever. nonsense I had to put up with and have. the business smashed it pales into. comparison the guys that lost their.

lives or lost their Liberty for a period. of years because of the politics but um. good guys have been dying wrongly in. Wars for as long as people can pick up. sticks and throw them at each other I. guess yeah very. true what's going on patreon. [Music].

join me on vigilance Elite patreon for a. live video. teleconference so back to college you. graduate no so I'm in college I go uh. um I go to intern at the White House. before Monica Lewinsky makes it popular. right it's for George Bush Senior and. I'm there for about 6 months and the guy.

I'm working for gets. fired so I'm kind of uh also at a dead. end so I ended up going to work for a. congressman Dana. roacher who had been an original speech. writer for Reagan and I met some great. people through that. process and I took two significant trips. as an intern in fact while they tried to. hire me as the staffer because his his. foreign policy guy had been mobilized to. go to the golf for a guy became a dear. friend Paul.

Barons but um my dad said don't take the. job don't accept a dollar because it'll. put you in Washington DC's tax bracket. and you do not want to pay taxes there. so I didn't do that but um I took two. trips I went to Croatia well actually it. was to Yugoslavia in March of 91 before. the war started and toured all through. the areas because there had already been. some fighting between croat and Serbian. forces and Slovenian forces. and figured that there was going to be a.

war there uh and then I went to um Dana. warer the congressman was going to do a. um an expose on communist atrocities. during the um uh when the S anas took. over in the early 80s and so he sent me. and another intern down to Nicaragua. immed a contact there it was the first. time I ever had to shake surveillance. because the San anas were still in. charge of the police and the military. there even though the government had. been uh in the hands of vieta choro but.

we have to go Shake surveillance or off. at 4:00 in the morning and and takes us. out to this field and digging away and. sure enough it's a mass grave shattered. skulls arms uh and legs tied at the. waist or at the wrists and it was uh it. was a very sobering moment a great. reminder of of how bad things can get. quickly and a week later I got married. in Alexandria Virginia to uh a girl i'. had met a couple years before to.

Joan and we went on a. um that was a great thing about my. parents is they really encouraged travel. to go see and explore and to do and so. we. went uh on a tour called the Baltic. Liberation tour which was to Lithuania. Latvia Estonia Poland we started in. Poland and took a train through those. areas which was still part of the Soviet.

Union and you could see it was coming. apart and I remember as we were leaving. you have to put your luggage we're. flying so the whole tour is leaving and. we're leaving from Talon Estonia to fly. to. Finland and one of the um one of the. guys in our group put his luggage on the. scanner and you could see this bag go. through and it looks like there's a. complete manhole cover inside of his. bag and this Soviet border guard opens. the suitcase and he says this is very.

big. problem it was an entire bronze bust of. of Lenin that had been yanked off a. building that our friend had bought on. the street and was taking out of the. country oh and our buddy said well how. much to make the problem go. away. $50 done I thought you know what if. they're letting the bust of Lenin go off. of a government building for 50 bucks. this place is not going to last long and. sure enough 4 months later the Soviet. Union collapsed wow so that was yeah.

that was April that that happened and. and you know by August there was the the. tanks in the front of the parliament. there with with yelton the Soviet Union. was done damn so you just missed it yeah. wow so and then back to Hillsdale for. that last year I applied to. OCS and uh and I got in and um yeah and. off to the SEAL Teams I I finished my. last college exam didn't even go to.

graduation and reported OCS in Newport. did that for four months summer in. Newport is pretty nice and um and then. off to buds so how was buds for you it. was good I liked it I mean it it was. hard certainly but I went through. married and my wife was a fantastic cook. and um I'd say the only hard the hardest. part of it was obviously sleep. deprivation because my wife God bless. her she wanted to have a normal social. schedule and she'd been teaching at the.

local Catholic school and she'd have the. nuns over all the time so we'd have nuns. in our house for dinner and they'd stay. till 10:00 at night and I was literally. falling asleep in my. food you know how tired it is you were. going through Buds and uh you so between. uh shining shoes and sharpening knives. and polishing uh you know your CO2. cartridge and all that stuff you got to. do it was um it was good did you make it. through all at once did you get rolled. or made it through uh well yes first.

phase no problem second phase no problem. third phase I fell off the top of the. slide for. life and um the two guys previous to me. that had fallen one broke his back one. broke his ankle and uh I landed on my. hip and they immediately hospitalized me. for two days convinced I'd broken. something they finally let me out on a. Friday I wasn't walking very. well but a uh I I found an osteopath in. San Diego go and sure enough he lined up. my legs and one leg was about 3 in.

shorter and he put me in some weird. position and snapped the whole thing. back into place and uh they still tried. to roll me back but at that point I'd. passed every run every swim everything. else to go to S Clen and so they uh they. let me go and I finished on time nice it. was good and then where did you. go well back then they had sealed. tactical training so I went to the east. coast well went to Airborne first and. then uh reported a seal teammate. got my Trident. there we did a short deployment for the.

Haiti invasion in. '94 I came back and as a as a as an. officer I got to go to sniper school oh. really which was fantastic that's rare. yeah I'd say dollar for dollar it was. good money spent by the SEAL Teams. because when I later got out I really. wanted to place a a place to go shooting. long guns at long range as it was one of. the reasons I wanted to build Blackwater. so but um so short deployment and then.

long deployment to um on a carrier to. the med to the Middle East to. Bosnia and well before that deployment. my father passed away. unexpectedly. and and so then the the the poll of. trying to help my mom cuz he had a large. family business and there was. no there was no plan about what to do. next or there was you. know I sure there was certainly some.

indecision about what we should what the. family should do next and then uh when I. came back from that deployment my wife. was pregnant with her second and uh she. was diagnosed with breast cancer at 29. wow which is a uh you know not not a not. a experience I recommend yeah. so man that's a lot to deal with it in a. short amount of time yeah I got I. remember I got a really bad case of. hives for a few days it was the stress. was peeking pretty hard yeah when in.

your book you talk about a jet showing. up and you had kind of concealed I had. managed to keep the success of my father. pretty much a secret and I'd say the. only nice thing I had was I had a. Suburban right and so guys like that. vehicle but I didn't have a sports car. or anything like that but yeah I. remember we've been training out in. Fallon doing um seesar and um pilot.

rescue stuff and uh and and also the air. to ground strike air to ground work for. the uh the strike aircraft and the. carrier and um we got I think we were. done training on Thursday and the na. aircraft wasn't coming until Monday so I. asked my boss hey can you know there's a. my mom wants me to come back for the. weekend there's a bunch of family stuff. after my dad died cuz this was just like. 3 weeks after he died he goes yeah sure. no problem we'll see you back there and. uh a couple guys from my Pon drove me to.

this little airport and I was like okay. guys thanks I got it from here no no no. it's okay M Mr P we we'll help you in. with your bags and um and they walk and. there's one of the pilots with his you. know uniform on with a tail number 131. EP which are my dad's initials but also. my initials and then that they kind of. scratched their heads and I got a lot of. questions the next week after that oh. bet yeah were you concerned that they. cat was out of the bag at that point. no not really I mean look they knew who.

I was they knew I was the same guy. whether I could retire then or not that. didn't that didn't matter to them I I. didn't let it matter to them. okay so your dad died and then how how. much time was it in between your wife. being diagnosed with breath with uh. breast canc he died in March um of. 90 95 and a year later she was diagnosed. with bre less than a year later and how.

how how long after that did you get out. of the SEAL. Teams uh I got out 6 months later six. months later yeah cuz that actually uh. I'd already got orders to my next or. yeah uh I got my assigned to the next. platoon my OIC platoon. and yeah I had to undo all that to get. out and sort out the family. business when the doctors have mentioned. to your wife that they needed to. interrupt the pregnancy and she had she.

didn't want any part of that it sounded. like right that was with our third child. and because she'd had um all kinds of. treatment but they were really uh the. doctors were really adamant that she'd. not get pregnant again and they said you. need to interrupt this pregnant. pregnancy and she said well when would I. resume it and um yeah that was never a. question and and uh you know my wife was.

was Resolute on that so how did you feel. about that were you 100% behind her yeah. I supported absolutely not not all. friends and family did but uh on the. life issue my my wife was absolutely. Resolute she's a beautiful person it. sounds like it yeah it really. does wife has breast. cancer new baby. you're out of the SEAL Teams the idea of.

Blackwater yeah you know in my. experience in working up for those. deployments um we moved around a lot and. I so I thought train training was very. fragmented you're going to Tennessee. Nevada West Virginia. Virginia bouncing all over the place. Puerto. Rico and I'd thought a lot about uh well. seeing what the SEAL Teams a private. facility in Tennessee Midsouth right. where the SEAL Teams used to go maybe. they still do I thought now someone has.

to do that on an industrial scale and um. I was in an unusual position to do that. right I mean so in the late 90s you have. this peace dividend and defense cuts and. and they're closing a major base per. week across the country right whether. it's an Army Navy Air Force Marine base. there was bases closing and ranges. closing and all the rest so this idea of. building a private facility was counter. into inuitive to most like every smart. financial adviser I ever said said.

that's a terrible idea but build it and. they will come I didn't know anything. about development Land. Development anything about Government. Contracting or really anything about. business but new had a pretty good idea. that there was a demand and and that the. teams needed something like that and you. go kind of go back to the well that you. know of the people you trust right so I. hired the two training officers from. seal team8 K via and Jim serowski Jim.

Jim came later cuz he wanted to go be a. cop after he. retired but um uh Ken and a guy named Al. Clark and we got Jim deart who had uh. had been the facilities guy at Dev group. I mean uh you know unknown secret is. that the our first shoot House was built. by all the dev group maintenance guys. who came out on weekend on the weekends. with for pizza and beer and they welded. up one of the largest and still most. effective shoot houses in the country. so it. was um you know Finding land I wanted to.

have it within an hour drive of Norfolk. to make it easy for people training or. living in norfol to come and train do. what they have to do and still make it. home in time for their you know dinner. with their. families and we had to go through all. kinds of ass pain with the two counties. because one County rejected us the other. County accepted us Camden accepted us. and so. uh went through all the the Mas of that. and then uh built it and actually our.

first customer was from the West Coast a. West Coast heal platoon that came to uh. to Blackwater and it just kind of ground. along for the first few years and it was. really our Target business that saved. the business early on because we had. very destructive customers who destroyed. everything that we'd ever bought in the. outside and Jim. Dart and uh a very practical downto. Earth I would say solid state mentality. built these steel targets which were.

indestructible and other customers that. came loved them and so I remember at the. end of the fiscal year one night on. September 30 at 11:55 p.m. the fax. machine started and out came a an order. from the FBI oddly enough to equip like. 15 field offices with our Target systems. and that uh that really kept the lights. on at Blackwater for that for the year. because training business wasn't strong. enough to to pay the bills so training. and targets kept it going together and.

then when Coline happened we ended up. building a big. um a big mockup uh of a fighting City we. built it out as a high school and we it. was called are you ready high school. because you know the thing about Coline. is you had all these police departments. Columbine was a was a active shooter. incident early in the 90s before. unfortunately it became a more common. place Place. event we did all these Deo all these.

departments all this nice gear standing. around outside and nobody going in to. solve the immediate threat and so I. guess our contribution in our own way. was to train tens of thousands of SWAT. officers from a surrounded negotiate. mentality to a whoever's there take a. stack of two men or four men or however. how many you could put together go move. to the sound of the guns and put that. fire out and um that. was it was the first big volume program.

we did um our first classified program. was for the Coast Guard oddly enough. teaching him how to shoot drug booat. Motors out of a uh out of a helicopter. with a 50 cal right because you had all. kinds of drug boats and the helicopters. would interdict them and they'd say stop. and they'd say yeah [ __ ] off right and. they would keep going and keep going and. so uh we taught the Coast Guard how to. shoot each of those Motors out with a 50. cal so that by the time they were. arrested the drug Runners were very. happy to be arrested and rescued um and.

then after in October of 2000 the USS. coal was blown. up you know a billion dollar warship. that the Navy had optimized a fight at. 100 miles not at 100 meters it had. gotten the Navy had gotten so risk. averse that they were using unloaded. weapons sorry that they were training. only with laser simulators and boot camp. anymore cuz guns were not. safe and the s that were guarding the. ship that day in Yemen were holding. unloaded weapons that they hardly ever.

fired before and so the Navy came to us. in a hurry after that and said please. put together a a curriculum a way for us. to train a 100,000 Sailors how to. protect their ships and to retake it if. there's an incident so we did that and. that was our first government contract. how long. from breaking ground to first government. contract how long did that take what. time um well when I say any I mean look. the first SEAL Teams that would come. would be a platoon here and a platoon.

there or maybe an A Team or a a marine. platoon or a SWAT team and they would. pay with a credit card so that'd be a a. 25 to maybe a $50,000. purchase uh we broke ground. in N May of. 97 about 6 months after I got out of the. Navy and our first customer was in early. 98. and obviously the Navy came about three.

years later so yeah it was. lean find a way to survive for the first. two or three years you know you have you. have. to find a way to become indispensable to. your. customer for somebody that's claims to. not know anything about business the it. seemed very strategic the location close. to the SEAL Teams on the East Coast. close to Washington DC close to. at the so my when my father died.

um we sold off the big Automotive. business and that had gotten most of the. attention for decades the original. business he started made diecast. machines which is a big machine that. squeezes a mold and you shoot in you. inject in at high pressure Al molten. aluminum or magnesium and you make a a. rim for a car or a engine block or a. transmission casing or a gas. grill so he made the machines that did. that and that business had not gotten a. lot of love and attention it was just.

kind of lumping along and so I bought up. a bunch of the shares from my family and. we took that through a lean um. transformation and I read two books one. was called the machine that change the. world um which is about the Toyota. production system and the other one was. the goal by Ellie Gold rat I still. remember him and there are two things. about how do you how do you make a. manufacturing operation better more. efficient and make it run. with great. precision and so we focused on taking.

out cost and and buying smarter and. Engineering out dumb stuff that had just. kind of always been accepted and that. business had it best year ever in 2000. and we sold it and so parallel to kind. of building Blackwater I'm doing I'm. trying to help a manufacturing business. get. better and so and I got to think about. Blackwater it was a training facility. but then as you think okay how do you.

grow beyond that how do you serve the. customer more what and I thought what is. a military do right it recruits it vets. it equips it trains deploys and supports. people to do a difficult job in a. difficult. place so laying out Blackwater I said ah. especially when we got our first job our. first overseas job was a security job. which was for for the agency after.

911 um your first contract was with the. agency yeah I did not know that first. first overseas job first first time that. we deployed anybody. anywhere and early in those days the the. the agency's direct the the director. detail had been customers they came. because they liked we were kind of a. allinone spot shoot houses and ranges. and space and. privacy and so they came and so there's.

a guy named Buzzy cron guard who'd been. um uh he'd been a $1 a year adviser to. the director and then he became the. executive director because Buzzy and. himself had a fantastic life career. All-American at Princeton Marine CIA. case officer started at Alex Brown in. the mail room and Rose to become the. CEO and had been a knock for the agency. his last few. years and and um the right kind of guy. you want near or at the Helm of the CIA.

and so he'd been helping tenant and. because well and this ties back to to. who I was working for when I was. interning in Congress right Dana wacher. knew all the Afghan opposition. guys the the Northern Alliance the the. Warlords in the. north and he got me to sponsor a peace. conference already in SW in Switzerland.

in. 1998 right so we were trying to get the. king then Zahir sha to return to. Afghanistan to have a peace conference. this is long you know three years before. 9911 okay to have a big conference. called the loyal. Yuro the King was too comfortable sadly. in Rome and uh we couldn't pull it off. but it would have been an amazing an. amazing um turn of events if we could. have prevented 911 by uh by returning. some kind of normal seat to Afghanistan.

but anyway I was in contact with. atanur and uh moek and massud and doam. and and those kind of people in fact. Dana roacher had a meeting with the with. the with Ki rice the National Security. adviser the morning of 911 warning. saying hey they just killed massud. Al-Qaeda did something bad is going to. happen obviously the meeting was. canceled because the bad thing happened. but between having met.

Buzzy from his time um coming to. Blackwater and he asked Gary Jackson the. the president of Blackwater who owns. this place how did this get here he said. well you should meet Eric so I had lunch. with Buzzy a few. times um early in those days and uh he. became a a great friend and. Mentor um but then when 9/11 happened I. said Buzzy anything you need anything. agency needs if you need somebody to. sweep a floor I'm your man just we want.

to help I think as any American wanted. to help yeah. right and at the same time the the. Warlords are calling saying hey we want. to help the USG please connect us so I. gave those numbers to Buzzy and and. eventually they uh those maybe they were. in touch with them already I don't know. but um we had current cell cell phone. numbers for all those guys in the nor. Alliance that wanted to kill Taliban and. kill Al-Qaeda which was a good thing to. do at that point yeah so and then um I.

got a call in about late March or April. I'll never forget it because um I was. just sitting down to dinner with the. family and um the a weird number a. blocked a weird blocked number rang. through my phone and I answered it right. as we sitting down to dinner which I. normally wouldn't do but uh it was a. good call I I I I took and he said hey. can you find a bunch of guys like. yourself I said absolutely he said be in. my office tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. and that's what he had just come back. from from a tour of all the agency.

facilities in Afghanistan and he. um they needed security right because. the US military wouldn't do it they. wanted to do it with 150 people and and. we did it with 18 in the first runch and. that's what that's what started that. whole process how many other government. contracts did you. have we had uh obviously a lot of. training stuff for various soft. and we were just starting uh that. regular Navy training contract and the.

department you wound up getting the. Department of State no Department of. State didn't come for years later what. about. Katrina well that was in 2005 so this is. 2002 we're talking okay so yeah so the. business really. compounded um in those years and the. work we did for the. agency um in Afghanistan and then in. some other. places um pulled us to.

Iraq and because of the work we did in. Iraq as DOD was trying to send Paul. Bremer or whoever they were going to do. to try to the the Coalition provisional. Authority they asked the agency who you. running for security and that's how we. got pulled in to protect Remer with the. first that was really the only no bid. contract that we had I think it was the. first six months was no bid. and um and we did that and um yeah it.

just compounded and we you know I I. there's another early book on business I. read on um there's. there's to be successful in business. right you either have to be super. focused on efficiency to drive out every. bit of way so you can be the lowcost. provider or you have to be the next you. have to have the next product that. everybody wants to buy right so I guess.

the efficiency model would be Walmart or. the product Innovation would be the. Apple model or there's the customer. intimacy model right where you so become. part of your customers process that they. can't do without you like UPS does with. all their Logistics and product returns. and. warranty and I'd say we focused on on. one and three being hyper efficient. applying that Toyota. Automotive efficiency and discipline to.

what we did recruiting vetting equipping. training deploying and then. also serving our customer so well right. if the contract said do this well do. this right perform above and beyond. don't go back to your lawyer for every. every variation just serve the customer. and we really prefer doing firm fixed. price contracts versus Cost Plus right. all the typical Beltway crowd likes to. do Cost Plus because it actually.

incentivizes them to spin the meter to. make it more expensive because they get. to add their fee on top of it that's why. the United States spends more money than. the next 17 countries. combined it's terrible right I preferred. to run the business and every chance we. had we do firm fixed price and then then. the discipline and the risk is on us. whether it's providing an aircraft or. whatever and um well aside from the. politics the The Operators the people we.

serve in the field were damn happy with. us. yeah how fast was it growing at this. point when you picked up the CIA. contract huh our Revenue I remember went. from well the first Year's Revenue was. 400,000 second year was 800 and then a. million2 and then a million 6 and then. it went to 12 12. million uh.

35 160. 400 I mean so there was a few years it. just it really rocked rocketed and so. that's. a that kind of growth also causes. enormous stress to an organization right. there's cash management there's people. there's all the rest but we had a we'. built a pretty good engine which could. process right so a go again going back. to the well that you know I hir more. guys that I went to buds with Bill.

Matthews Chris Burgess Jeff. Gibson um guys I had served in the teams. with and because there were a known. quantity and in those cases they'd been. off to law school or gotten NBAs and. worked in other ports of corporate. America so they kind of know what that. expectation was and they brought that. they brought a soft mentality to a. corporation and that was the merder. and uh we had a we had a very very. capable organization I would I would put.

our management team up against any. management team in the country we could. punch way above our weight at the height. at the height of Blackwater there's. rumors that you had more spec operators. under the Blackwater umbrella than the. United States military had at active. duty is there any truth we had probably. it probably more in our database meaning. we could have deployed them but but no I. mean no. look the SF command has 10 or 20,000. Green Berets we we or you know in the.

range Arrangement is a few thousand so. we didn't exceed no we didn't exceed. that number by any means. but we had a uh a pretty capable potent. vertically integrated process that we. could recruit we could vet we could. train we could equip and and the only. acquisition that we actually made as a. company was an air operation and that. happened in. 2003 uh with Richard perir Tim chry and.

the guys from presidential. Airways and they had it was they had a. team of six and two least Casas right. and a casa 212 is like a little shrunk. C130 um and we bought them uh we bought. the. business and it was a fantastic fit and. they because they came from the. nightstalkers right they came from a. tf60 army special Aviation Army special. operations Aviation. mentality and so their culture fit.

perfectly with ours and uh away we went. and those guys carried right over the. best pilots in the world and we and I. built them their own hanger I built them. their own runway on the. compound well yes I built them a proper. Runway because I'd been remember I'd. been a pilot since I was a little kid. and I was making that Weekly commute. from Northern Virginia down to the. Blackwater compound which which was 242. Mi each. way and uh so I bought a little bush.

plane early. on and um I would fly that down so we. ended up scraping off uh a few of the uh. the some of the burm the last part of. the KD. range um and so that was the original. Blackwater Runway was the back half of. the KD range and uh and then we built a. proper concrete one but I even landed on. that KD range at night and uh use an old. uh missionary or a bush trick with uh.

made a uh made our my own um um uh vzy. right a vertical approach slope. indicator to know uh to how to line up. and get on the right Glide slope and and. land fully blacked out I just have Tony. the facility manager sitting at the end. of the runway with the with the brake. lights on so I know where the end of the. runway. was nice nice but then so yes so I had I. guess the first Blackwater aircraft with. that but um but then when the Richard.

and the boys came on board it was a. proper part. 135 part 145 uh operation and it grew to. 73. aircraft um that we owned and operated. in all the garden spots so ranging from. a light strike aircraft like a super. Deano all the way to a. 767 so how were the how horrible was it. to recruit guys to get in there and I.

mean cuz it was growing so fast and I. was in the sealed teams when I believe. Blackwater was at its prime 2005 2006. yeah time frame your busy years and the. rumors not really rumors but the word. going around the team was uh you know a. lot of guys were still going to ukom a. lot of guys weren't doing exactly what. they joined the SEAL Teams to do or SF. to do. and word got around that hey you're.

going to go you're going to go over. there you're probably going to see some. action you're going to get. paid three or four times what you're. getting paid here and so it it seemed. like and I had a lot of friends that got. out and jumped they left the SEAL Teams. just to go to work for. you they there was a lot of guys that. left but when they do the analysis there. was not a a a higher departure rate than. normal but instead of guys going off to.

school or going after another job yes. they came to work for companies like us. but at the same time right the the Navy. came to us and said how because we were. already doing training on their firearms. and tactics side but they said how are. you able to. recruit the right people to do this job. I said well why do people rob banks it's. where the money is right so if you want. to find the right next. seal EOD diver boat crewman whatever go.

to the places that those are more likely. to be and so we actually put together a. mentor. program to take former seals that looked. the part to go to the Bud Light. Triathlon series or like the Wyoming. State Wrestling Championships like the. Wyoming Montana wrestler at the state. level were the most likely to make it. through buds in the first pass. statistically right they kind of a an. early attempt at Big Data yeah finding. finding the right candidates and so by.

doing that we're able to to fill the. pipeline with a lot of qualified. candidates to to make it through and to. increase the the throughput of buds. without changing the standards you were. a part of that we built that program wow. I had no idea yeah that was a black. water contract with our mentors all over. the country and there's still a version. of that still functioning interesting. yeah. so but again applying we were a private.

company we had a contract we had to put. so many people with so many. qualifications in that. job so we had to offer competitive pay. we couldn't waste their time we couldn't. we can't press gang them right we can't. stoploss them so it is truly a volunteer. program and so you have to take care of. them and respect them and you know and. so we wanted guys that would work hard. for us and they want to go see their. families and so we wouldn't belabor the.

point of by the time they leave the. field to where their home again and they. and they do it in in in digestible. enough chunks right as you know you. deployed 60 days 90 days but then you. know you leave Baghdad and you're you're. back in the in the arms of your wife. within a day and a half. yep um there's a there's a misconception. about our pay versus what active duty. was getting paid if you compare apples. to apples of what total compensation. was yes our apparent cash compensation.

was much higher but when you look at all. the other. allowances housing allowances base um um. um The Exchange the. insurance uh all the other stuff our pay. was. comparable but not higher to what an. active dutc would be getting but it's. just the apparent upfront cash was much. more visible yeah it definitely. definitely. was how long was it before you started. seeing all these other competitors pop.

up like Triple Canopy MVM D cor were. they were you you were first correct no. D cor had D cor was kind of the. established um State Department. contractor they'd been doing all that. service. stuff uh. to to that kind of that ex installed. customer base but as the Afghan issue. flared and then Iraq flared it so. outstripped their ability to grow and I.

would characterize dinec cor is a very. typical Beltway run. company and um quite bureaucratic and. quite perfect for the state. department and when the I would say very. urgent and very compelling needs for. more security right cuz it was on it was. dangerous times in Baghdad when all that. you know when they they started asking. for it I mean we we were contacted. originally by the dod after the senior.

un Diplomat in Baghdad had been blown up. the summer of 2003 right they blew him. up with a truck bomb inside of a. concrete mixer was like a 2,000 pounder. wow and so all the people in Washington. said okay it's real now and I remember. we had immediately had two people that. went out with Bremer and his original. detail was from um some National Guard.

unit. and they just had really had the. training or the uh the equipment or the. the wherewithal to to accomplish that. mission and the Secret Service came out. because they thought they were going to. assign the Secret Service to do that. mission and they no way are they you. know the Secret Service mentality is. they can shut down everything around. their protecte and create a huge. bubble um and just lock down entire. roads entire routes and they just own it.

all you can't really do that in an. active war zone and so you had to have a. bubble that could move and flex and and. and go with it so between the the ground. element and the aviation element uh they. no no federal agency wanted to touch it. and so the state department turned to us. and we did it. so one of the one of the fascinating. things about you that that that that I. find. is you don't mind getting your hands.

dirty and so when the when the CIA. contract was starting up you were out. there on the ground running operations. correct yeah it was one of the first 18. yeah and do you want to talk a little. bit about that what that was like being. it's your company you're on the ground. running missions and I look it was a. great honor that they turned to. us cuz it was a very important Miss. right cuz the CIA is the ones who made. that Victory possible for the United.

States right and let me digress a. minute and say and this this goes in. keeping with what I've been saying for. the last 10 years at. least after. 911 while the Pentagon was still. smoldering right Bush goes to meet with. his National Security cabinet at Camp. David and the Pentagon you know what. their best option was to go to. Afghanistan they want to do bombs. missiles in a ranger raid and they. wanted to wait 6 months until the.

following April and do a conventional. mechanized invasion of Afghanistan via. Pakistan that is what the United States. military came with the most expensive. military on the. planet it was the agency it was kofer. black and his team kofer was the head of. the counterterrorism center and because. of his experience doing unconventional. warfare hybrid Warfare against Soviet. Targets in in Libya and Chad and Angola. in the DRC in.

the80s he said Mr President give us the. authorities and a billion dollars and in. 3 weeks the Flies will be walking on the. eyeballs of our enemies right so us the. and obviously Bush made the right. decision said okay we're doing that. that's why we had such a lightning. victory in Afghanistan it was a 100 soft. guys and agency guys let off carnivores. let off leash backed by air power and. they smashed the hell out of the Taliban. and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were truly.

running for their lives and that worked. for 68 months until bogram became a. saluting Zone and you had all the. conventional officers show up okay no. when the no beard policy starch cammies. goes into effect we repeated that same. failure for 19 and A2. years if they'd kept it small if Bush. had the discipline and the foresight to. say no Pentagon you don't get to go play.

now leave this to to that we're not. doing nation building but we will play. whack-a-mole. severely the Afghans would have. understood that and it would be vastly. better there today then be it is truly a. terror Sanctuary again you have the hiis. that have high Bounty they're high. Bounty terrorists now running the Afghan. government is he interior. Minister did you enjoy running. Blackwater as a CEO more or running.

operations under the CIA. contract both both sure it was a macro. and a micro how were you doing that. simultaneously. um the management team of blackw was. spectacular right so I might be the the. guy that put the money up that put made. Blackwater possible but it. was Gary Jackson and Danielle Morrison.

and Bill Matthews and Chris Burgess and. Jeff Gibson and all that team that made. it run and they and and there's a. hundred other names I should list but. they ran the business and there was a. reason right the normal Beltway thing. would be first of all nobody had. invested in a training facility. right like the dine cores. everybody would have a security contract.

for the government and they'd try to. rent this range over here or this track. and they have to send medical over here. and all the rest and so in keeping with. what I was talking about with a lean. progression right recruit vet equip. train deploy black order was designed to. be a machine with everything in house. literally within walking distance and so. you hopefully you experienced that when. you recruit recruited the training the. equipment the medical all was pretty. damn close to each other yeah right so.

we didn't lose days or weeks moving. people through that process and so that. management team was able. to um efficiently produce a product. meaning a trained and equipped guy to go. do something or an aircraft that could. do XYZ job or a construction crew to do. something they did that in a concise. organized discipline way. vertically. integrated it's just I still don't I. just don't understand.

how I mean cuz those are. some intricate operations yeah that. we're doing out there and but we. recruited from people that had done. intricate operations I remember I flew. over um the first I flew over on the one. time the USG provided airlift for us to. send aircraft to Iraq was the first time. and uh so we got our Birds our little. birds that were going to go do the. protection for then.

Bremer we loaded them in Charleston. South Carolina and uh flew over up in. the the top deck of the C5 with the. guys and um we land at like 2:00 in the. morning after the the blacked out. approach into Baghdad and the guys are. offloading the. stuff and a bunch of them were tf60. veterans many of whom had been at Black. Hawk Down just 10 years before in their. career and they said Mr P thanks so much.

for giving us the opportunity to do this. again this is what we're good at wow and. that that was the great thing. about starting running whatever. Blackwater is given people that were. really good right the Michael Jordans of. their skill set giving them the chance. to do that again so they get to work. with people they like to work with. they're paid well for their job in the. risk that they take they're given the. right equipment in a no [ __ ].

environment that's that was my goal at. BW. worked at the at the High Point the. absolute peak of. Blackwater how many contracts did you. have and what agencies were they. with I don't know about the total. contracts number but it was everything. from. well we'll go by by buckets of of stuff. train and equip advisory.

work. for Afghan Army Iraqi security forces. and a host of other friendly partner. Nations around the world so and that's. train advisory everything from like. bodyguard training to. um to sniper to every kind of law. enforcement or military Special. Operations unit up to. including company and Battalion siiz. infantry operations even artillery on.

the air side we did that as well like. soft Aviation capacity building so. teaching teaching partner Nations to fly. on night vision goggles and do you know. night Ship boarding or night insert of a. team by by goggles or by. fastro um obviously. security is what the company got um. known for and recognized for and that. was a uh Big Driver of Revenue and sadly.

a Big Driver of problems you know one of. my biggest regrets is ever going to work. for the state department because I just. didn't think they appreciated the work. that we did for them and so if ID said. no the company would still be uh going. and flourishing and and carrying on and. and maybe the maybe State Department is. is more maybe dcor is a better vendor. for them. I can understand that yeah so at Peak we. probably had.

3500 3500 people deployed people. deployed 3, 3500 that's between Iraq. Afghanistan Aviation and this also. includes we had for Hurricane Cina we. had about 700 guys deployed for about a. year what were you guys doing down. there so we never had any plan ever to. be in the domestic security business. to do anything like that inside of. America but I remember I was actually. doing a surveillance exercise for that.

other team I was doing right the last. chapter in my book and I had the radio. on I was talking about well and I'd been. in South Florida when Hurricane Katrina. went over South Florida so i' had still. been there and then up the the the. hurricane still rolled and it smacked. the uh you know New Orleans. area. [Music]. um and we were just is taking delivery. of a puma a big helicopter a little bit. bigger than a Blackhawk and I remember. calling our air boss Richard perir I.

said hey put the put the air crew to bed. reset their crew rest and as soon as. they can in the morning fly to New. Orleans it was just figured. out. and sure enough they started flying and. one of our management staff had been in. a Harvard course a Harvard executive. course with some senior guy from the. Coast Guard so he literally reached. across the hall across the aisle of his. classroom and said hey we got a.

helicopter we can help you guys out in. New Orleans Roger so November 505 our. helicopter became Coast Guard 505 by the. time they made it to New Orleans and. they evaced 128 people and again it was. a great case of of putting the right. people with the right attitude with an. objective right it was it was a uh it. was objective based leadership our goal. is to go help and make good things. happen. and so they did and. um but then after um they've been.

working for a few days all the Coast. Guard provided us was fuel we you know. we we sent that. Grace um it moved a bunch of people our. Casas were flying a bunch of stuff down. from um from. moak and then uh the private sector. started calling right Walmart Bell South. insurance companies because there had. been a total breakdown of of law. and chaos and so we ended up surging 145. guys from 36 uh from Six States.

away um we did it in about 36 hours we. beat the Louisiana National Guard into. the French Quarter incredible our guys. arrived and found bodies in the streets. not from the storm but from violence. from looting and so yes our guys went. armed and um you know fall on body armor. cuz they were even shooting at aircraft. but um within a couple days the the. plates came off and it was just down to.

uh to sidearms but then F so you were. able. to get back to Law and Order within a. few days of just being down there with. 145 guys well yeah so we weren't we. weren't there to we were there to to. secure specific objectives right like. Walmart called cuz I think they had like. five or eight stores looted picked clean. and they had a central distribution. facility was going to be next next and. so in that case we dropped like a. Commando team meaning they had we.

dropped them off with food water satcom. and uh Rules of Engagement right and a. copy of our quickly um uh licensed. Louisiana private security and um. investigations firm right so we went. there with the right. licenses and they they go and they guys. just sat there and prevented any looters. right because looting only happens when. people knock on the door and nothing. happens and you call 911 and nothing. happens and and they.

go so then FEMA came to. us all right the Federal Emergency. Management agency which was tasked to. stabilize this whole. debacle and they because they contacted. the Federal Protective Service which is. this federal police force as part of. DHS and they were supposed to send down. hundreds and hundreds of police officers. federal police officers to secure all. these areas. and their employee union said no the. conditions are too rough and too unsafe.

they wouldn't. go so FEMA asked if we could do it and. we said uh okay sure right because our. default answer was yes and we're going. to figure it out how to make something. happen and so yes but then that you know. the number became 700 quickly but we had. to provide all the life support all the. logistic. support and and I'm so proud yet again. of the team that just figured this out. out because at that point between Iraq. and Afghanistan every kind of military. tent was on back order for years so what.

they do they went and bought circus. tents and they put them up in various. parking lots Jim deart and his crew of. maintenance guys took car trailers okay. and and put in shower and sanitation. facilities inside that with a water. treatment and we just figured it out how. to support guys in the field and they. ended up buying an RV and put a vat. antenna uh satellite system on the top.

of it so that became the Mobile Pay. Wagon in office which could visit all. these sites and it was uh it was not the. perfect solution but it was a damn a. damn bit better than nothing wow how and. that all that was stood up how fast. days and and we had and and you know. what we had no plans again there was no. prior. staging your organization say let's have. a domestic response Force ready for no. nothing like that basically the first.

145 guys we could pull inventory off the. warehouse of what we would do to provide. contractors with you know radio or a. firearm or body armor or whatever it is. we just kind of cobbled it. together incredible how how long were. you guys down there I think we're there. for 3 years three years yeah at least. two but it was it was far far longer. than than we ever thought necessary so. it got cleaned up in a couple of days.

and then they kept it they kept black. well yeah because there was a lot of I. mean it was almost like refugee camps. morg cash distribution offices there was. a lot of things that needed security. because it far outstripped local law. enforcement's ability to to handle it so. did you did Blackwater ever work in that. capacity anywhere else in the US. no. um no we had one there was one other.

good story that came out of that that. evacuation CU we were actually contacted. by Bill Gates. office who had they had lost touch right. I think like Melinda Gate's sister lived. along the Gulf. Coast. and phones were down no satcom no. nothing and so a former CIA associate of. ours had been working at that office and. he called us and said hey could you send. somebody to just go a make contact and.

bring them. supplies to see what's up check so the. guys loaded up an ATV with a trailer. Inside of. aasa and they flew to an Airfield which. was actually closed right because of all. the storm damage and I think they ended. landed short on a damage Runway or they. land on a taxi. way and off they go miles and miles away. from their destination cuz it's as close. as they could get so they go Overland.

chainsaws cutting down trees as they go. to this specific address knock on the. door hey we're from Blackwater Gates. family sent us here's a satcom call them. dropped off generator food fuel medicine. left mission complete off the go back in. the Costa back to Virginia back to North. Carolina we ended up with a nice ATV out. of that but uh the the the gates job. paid for the. ATV nice but it was again it was a it.

was an example of you give the right. people uh with a clear Mission an. objective based right get to them like. like that like that thing you hopefully. read in the military somewhere the the. message D Garcia right when when the US. had to get a message to Garcia who was. somewhere in the hills of Cuba right to. organize some kind of resistance against. the Spanish they just sent a guy to say. your job is to get a message Garcia not. to ask me 10 steps of what to do get it.

there make it happen black water was. good at making it happen. yeah which is in this day and age of of. bureaucracy and the foreign policy. establishment in in a in in Washington. they're not very good at making good. things happen yeah I got to be honest it. seems like the common denominator here. or maybe the motto of Blackwater should. be. efficiency. uh not even efficiency but uh I would.

say. um um a. real uh a desire to get a mission. done what is the mission well we'll find. a way to make it. work one last question then we'll take a. quick break. but what you have built up to this point. is just it's. undescribable and I want to know where. you're Drive comes from because I do. know back to your family and the success. of your dad he said you're not getting.

anything till you're 30 you can't be a. part of this until you're 30 you got. through the SEAL Teams came home and uh. or or at some point my timeline might be. uh a little off here but uh that kind of. went away after you became a seal so you. didn't have to do all this what was the. driving. Factor it was uh great. um look I'm a. patriot uh I love.

America. um the the US government the US military. needed our help and we were honored to. help in any way we could and working. with the people was great with our. people right and and it was uh you know. I would I like to think that working. with the BW crew was like working with. the best elements of a soft unit. so people are not they're not thinking. you know it's not at 4:00 and they're.

not looking for the door at the end of. the day if it's you know um 7 to s 7 is. a half day right everybody wants to get. the job done there yeah I mean. everything was uh it was competitive it. was people like to run hard we as a. company we didn't do golf outings we. didn't do that kind of team building. stuff we did 12 and 24-hour Adventure. races the whole management team. and um and I and I we kind of picked. those kind of races not.

triathlons because that's just an. endurance exercise but having to make. decisions in an Adventure Race where you. have to navigate and you have to make um. incomplete you have to make decisions. based on incomplete information and live. with the consequences was very analogous. to our life into our business life fair. enough yeah all right let's take a break. get up. it took me to to my most. vulnerable point in my entire life for.

context of where the substance comes. from it comes from the the back of a. soran desert. toad these are the two toxic glands. right here behind the eyes the sorin. desert toad native to Arizona and it. holds a reputation this toad is the. second most toxic toad in the world that. was so powerful I I can't imagine people. not having a.

breakthrough this substance does bring. you to almost like a Heavenly State the. price to pay is in order to get there. you have to die like a part of you needs. to go away for you to experience that. thing that might always be there but. there's a barrier between. it you have to trust that it's going to. be okay. you know I I think 5 Meo is really. really like the red pill from The.

[Music]. Matrix the first thing after all the. anxiety and all of that got sucked out. of me the first thing that I. heard. was I swear it was the Earth's. vibration I journaled the entire thing. and I'm putting in it an envelope and. when my son and things get too spun out. of control for them I want them to read. what I.

wrote I want to tell you all about this. badass company I just found called bubs. Naturals bubs Naturals is a tribute. company to Navy SEAL CIA contractor and. former colleague of mine Glenn call sign. bubs dhy who laid his life down saving.

Americans in Bazi Libya Glenn was one. hell of a guy he was best friends to. hundreds of people to include ski bums. outdoor enthusiasts Navy Seals pretty. much everybody in between and yes even. the hippies in fact Glenn made such an. impact on people that his best childhood. friend and owner of the company sha not. me a different Shawn donates 10% of all. proceeds to the Glend dhy foundation and.

on Veterans Day he donates 100% of. proceeds to the Glen VY foundation so I. got into a discussion with sha the owner. of bubs and he says to me he says. Sean I want you to try our collagen it's. good for joint Health Muscle Recovery. and this is my favorite part. he claims you will take the best [ __ ] of. your life after trying their.

collagen so I'm trying it not only that. it also has 20 gram of protein in seven. essential amino acids in one single. ingredient you put it in your coffee you. take it every morning and you stay. sharp so if you're like me and you want. to keep your joints healthy get better. Muscle Recovery work on your gut health. have beautiful hair skin and nails and. take literally the best [ __ ] of your. life go to bubs naturals.com use the.

promo code Shan for 20% off that's bubs. naturals.com use the discount code Sean. that's sh a WN for 20% off. all right so we're back from the break. and I want to go into some of the the.

incidents that got major press and. probably what led to the government V. vilifying you and I'd like to start with. March 31st fuia. okay so that was March 31st. 2004 so that's about. um 8 n months. after the US originally invades. Iraq and we had I'd actually been to.

that area just three weeks before it. happened and we had uh four guys that. were just. escorting some trucks to go move some. food equipment that's all it was it was. nothing more elaborate or exotic than. that and. they uh had met with the the supposed to. be the the the reliable trusted Iraqis. to give them guidance about where to go. and you know these are remember the.

areas of fua and raditi had heavy. fighting after that because they'd never. really been pacified they'd never really. been cleaned out right the maneuver. Warfare lightning approach of the US. invasion in 2003 bypassed many of those. spots of hot resistance and fuah and. raditi were where a lot of uh it was. affect L Iraqi Republican guard. retirement area right so there was a a. real hot bed of people that were not.

happy and the guys were um basically L. into an ambush and um they. were shot up immediately and their. bodies desecrated you know the terrible. scenes of them being dragged through the. streets and hung from the bridge it was. all done. for uh the propaganda effect to try to. terrorize the US. um presence in the. country and I'll never forget it um like. I said I'd been there I I knew some of.

those guys like I'd been with zco every. day for 10 days prior to that. happening and I actually went and. because I knew him I uh I immediately. flew to do the notification for his. family in uh Cleveland Ohio that. night and Gary went and took care of. um uh um one of the the the seal. um uh that was lost and one of our.

aviators went and took care of Mike. Teague and so it was it was personal for. all of us we never I never lost anyone. under my command or authority when I was. in the SEAL Teams and this was the first. for us as a. company. and it was um you know early in the Iraq. days it was went from quite peaceful. after the initial shock until the the. Insurgency kind of exploded. um March 31 are those guys are ambushed.

in fuia 3 days later our guys are. ambushed on the road between Baghdad and. the. airport and at least two or three of our. guys are killed and one of them put on a. a a a literally a na Navy cross level. performance which saved them. and and then like by the 4th of. April in fuia sorry in nja right you.

have a thousand plus Shia militia men. attacking a coalition facility and they. initiated attack by attacking by taking. a Colombian Soldier stuffing a grenade. his mouth and pulling the pin that's how. they did that yeah okay so it was on and. we had eight we we were not supposed to. be protecting the facility down in a jaf. we. had um we had eight guys there providing. PSD support for the lead Diplomat that.

was there and that's it but between and. I'll never forget that phone call I got. at like 2:00 in the morning and it was. our air boss Richard perir saying hey. boss um our guys are are in it and. they're surrounded and they're running. out of. ammo and we'd like to send the little. birds I said of course send them he says. but remember we're not insured right. because 3 weeks before the.

um uh there was a DHL cargo jet that had. been shot down by a missile flying out. of. Baghdad and their insurer was our. insurer who promptly told us hey uh. we're canceling your insurance policy um. we were on a firm fixed price contract. so I couldn't just say oh by the way I'm. going to add another million and a half. dollars to our insurance policy to our. charge and and buy insurance no so they. canceled it so the aircraft were. self-insured by me if they were shot. down I had to replace it you know within.

days to have it going again so he was. tell calling to tell me to say hey it's. on us it's on me we're sending these. aircraft um if it's okay with you I said. absolutely and so off they go and again. the right people with the right. experience and the right Mission the. tf60 guys had already taken it upon. themselves to have a cache of heavy. weapons ready to go staged right there. next to the ramp so that when the alarm.

bell went up there was no drama they L. at the birds asked for volunteers downo. the three. helicopters and um evacuated a um a. marine who had been shot through think. the Marine Corps gave him a silver star. and bronze stars to bunch of the other. soldiers that day and the theod didn't. give any of our guys Awards we gave them. Awards but that's that also kind of. started our tradition of presenting. Awards to our guys that that went above. and beyond the the Call of.

Duty remember we um we ended up coining. a. metal and it was an image of a St. Michael the Archangel with a sword. stepping on a demon and on the top of it. just said servium right cium is the. Latin word for I will serve because our. guys were ultimately. volunteers what was going through your. head on March 31st 2004 and when did you. see. [Applause]. that um I'd gotten phone calls that they.

were. missing that we had a a team that was. not accounted for and were missing and. then when the the video came in of a. mitsub bishu Pajero Pajero on fire then. it was yeah we knew it was. bad it's a that is the ultimate gut. punch. yeah you just it's it's awful and then. to fly to see his parents remember I.

told his brother and sister-in-law first. and then his parents came to their. house and um we had a a connection with. the US Marshall so I had a marshall come. with me and he just waited outside just. so I guess the people knew it was a it. was an official thing but um yeah just. terrible were those bodies ever. recovered yes thanks God to the Marine. Corps. good moving. into the incident which undoubtedly was.

the downturn of Blackwater 2007 Nour. Square. yep what's your. take well. look the. um the Iraq War was a maelstrom. of conflicting forces right you had. angry sunnis you had angry Shia you had.

constant Iranian presence and the irgc. and the ks forces the. Iranians uh special Min special units. were very very active in the country um. stirring up hate and discontent to make. it impossible or difficult for the us to. stay and you know for people that think. it's all peace love and happiness in. Baghdad at that time that this that our. guys just started shooting willy-nilly. unprovoked and all the rest it had been. a very dangerous week for us just in the.

seven days prior right we had uh another. Convoy of guys that got ambushed and. shot up on the Baghdad Highway uh. another one that had been hit by an efp. right an efp is an explosive form. penetrator it's a a copper plate in. front of a uh a coffee can full of. explosives and when you initiate that. the explosive go goes off at 22,000 ft. per second turns that copper plate into. a slug of copper going 8,000 ft per. second and bored right through their.

armored. vehicle fortunately didn't kill any of. our guys that time but it sent them to. the. hospital uh we had a helicopter shot. down just days before that and then the. day of niss square a car bomb goes off. where we had a team it went outside of. it went off outside of a venue where he. had a. team um protecting a US a official and. instead of hard pointing at that. facility um which they normally would. all the Iraqis had run away so they.

decided to move and so you know in the. in the chaos that follows Raven 23 one. of the teams is called and I'm not going. to try to redescribe the the masterful. description you did sitting down with. those guys but just suffice to say that. traffic circles in. Baghdad are like the trail intersections. if you're hunting deer right if you're a. deer hunter and or if you're an. Insurgent trying to hunt Americans you. hunt the traffic circles and so they go. to block the traffic and um uh some.

traffic doesn't stop and uh and and. shooting and Tails what I can tell you. though. is how badly the Iranians wanted the us. out and how badly they wanted Blackwater. out of. Iraq um in. 2004 already early the head of the Iraqi. intelligence service came to me a. fantastic guy named Muhammad.

Shani that's another guy you should. interview here okay a true Iraqi Patriot. and a great. warrior and he. um he said he came with his agency. Handler and said the Iranians are. setting up all kinds of direct action. cash offices political influence. operations they're doing in Iraq what. they did in Lebanon with. Hezbollah to exert control and we the. Iraqi government we the Iraqi. intelligence service want to stop it so.

please put a program together to help us. do that and so he priced the whole thing. up gave it to them they loved it the. agency was going to fund it and it was. stopped by Kandi rice in the NFC no the. Iranians are not our enemy we have to. let the Iraqi political process Play Out. All the Rest I think that's a real. sliding door moment in the history of. Iraq because if we had. severed those Talons of Iran sinking. their hooks into the Iraqi state things.

would be very very different in Iraq. right. now so they hated us look still to this. day I've been denounced in person or. I've been denounced by name twice by the. Supreme Leader of. Iran probably why they put me on their. sanction and hit list yeah what up to. that point though it's my understanding. Blackwater had a a phenomenal. reputation yeah correct look we did I. mean look any.

anytime in terms of use of force versus. total total missions run it was it was. Tiny I think our guys used used Firearms. less than onet of 1% of all those. missions right and so this is in a war. zone in an area where people are. shooting uh insurgents are attacking. Americans and you're kind of carrying. the most uh I would call it Alero worthy. targets right if they could kill a. diplomat it makes a huge Splash for uh. for the.

enemy the other problem we faced is. every Convoy every PSD was considered a. blackwat convoy yeah and so we. had dozens of of of times per week where. someone call and say ah these Blackwater. guys are doing something bad in bazra uh. we don't have anybody in bazra or so we. you know we literally put trackers on. all the vehicles to help delineate where. our guys were versus anybody else and as.

a company for the non-state Department. work that we did we put cameras on all. the vehicles we had asked specifically. from the state. department to put veh to put cameras. like a like a cruiser cam like a police. officer has a in the dash cam in his car. to put those in all our vehicles to keep. to take away the he said she said claims. of these disputes and we had a number of. times where if our guys were in a in a. shooting event outside of the state. department stuff where the do would come.

and check the tapes and say yep no. problem that's a absolutely Justified. shooting if we had had those cameras on. the vehicles that day I don't think the. whole debacle of niss square for the guy. for the Raven 23 guys ever would have. happened so you think that whole. political agenda to the the the anti-war. left in the Vietnam War went after. troops mhm and this time they went after. contractors.

and sadly a Blackwater represented. everything they love to hate I. represented everything they love to hate. I was a white male married to a woman. Roman Catholic with a bunch of kids I. was a soulle owner of the business I. never tried to to make the business. about me or personalize it but I was the. sole owner and I didn't have a whole. Board of former generals or former. connected d people it was it was run. with a pretty simple chain of command we. never paid lobbyists we didn't have the.

whole. DC appara footprint that is the norm in. Washington and that was our undoing look. we focused on doing a great job for the. US government in the most difficult. places in the most dangerous places. without. excuses and it turns out like Bill. Donovan said in his book right the. founder of the OSS of all the enemies he. faced the Imperial Japanese Army the. Nazis the Soviets the most dangerous.

enemies he faced were in Washington DC. the state department the FBI and the war. department some things don't change in. Washington there's a lot of speculation. whether it was status Force's agreement. that was uh the major agenda behind it. or I know there was some oil contracts. going on at that time. uh the Iranian influence do not ever. discount the Iranian influence on the.

Biden Obama administration then as there. is now why was the Obama team so quick. to get in bed with the Iranians and. literally send them pallets of cash and. make a make a bad nuclear deal with them. why do they so badly want to do. something with the Iranians now again I. don't know they have a a misplaced trust. in the mulas do you have any more more. insight on that on on. how look all I know is that there was.

[Applause]. uh there was other surveillance video. there's other stuff that I've I've been. told is out there that were never able. to get our hands on that would have been. very clear that showed a lot of mozzle. flashes um you know oh they deleted the. Drone footage what I what I meant was I. mean look even when it says wow these. guys weren't shot at and why was that. vehic. disabled look they pulled an AK round. out of the radiator the FBI did right. and and when you when you hit a radiator.

and the coolant drains out unfortunately. with a modern electronic engine no. coolant the engine shuts itself off to. preserve itself in this case we would. have taken a damaged Engine That Could. have driven off even if it could have. moved a quarter mile to move off that X. but uh that's part of the unfortunat of. it all what I was referring to is the. Iranian influence or the uh being in. cahoots with the. administration I don't know if it's in. cahoots.

but sadly that could be true I'm not. saying it's not true but the the. Iranians are a very deliberate Society. remember the Persian Society is old and. ancient and and you know they put a. thousand stitches in a rug into a square. inch so they after their experience of. the Iran Iraq War they wanted to make. sure that Iraq as a state would never be. unified or strong enough to threaten. them ever again and so they got their.

hooks in they have built their Shia. militias right it's called the hashash. shabi they're really the ones it's this. it's the Shia Iranian overreach in Iraq. that made Isis an. inevitability and still to this day. there are hashash shabi units paid for. by the Iraqi government using us. provided equipment that are under the. leadership of Iranian irgc K Force.

officers. so the US gets rolled the US plays. Checkers the Iranians are playing. Jess and because we have a a national. security apparatus that doesn't want to. do what it takes to push them back when. that incident happened and you heard. about it do you have any idea what that. was going to turn into I got a call um. already an hour after the incident by.

the country manager hey boss there was a. firefight and there's a lot of noise. here it's in terms of firefights it's. you know it's a lot less that we've been. subject to in the last month here right. compared to what we had just in the. previous week helicopter shot down and. all the rest but he said in case. um um in case you hear about it well. then then the media just picked it up. and whipped it into a uh into a frenzy. were there any signs that they were. going to do that be before that or was.

that basically the no not signs but. there had been. um you know there's always indecision in. Washington about um you know there was. there was legitimately fatigue about. there was a rock fatigue in Washington. and they're looking for skate builds and. looking for bad guys and. unfortunately our company by working for. the state department under their. operational control performing to a. thousand-page. contract uh walked into that X and got.

smacked how long after that did the. indictment. start well that was September. 16. 2007 and I'd say there was something. with then 9 months to a year right and. then there was all kinds of questions. about jurisdiction and and where do they. do it and you know it also speaks to the.

how unjust it it all is that they they. somehow horses shoot it all into trying. them in Washington. DC okay that for four Patriots that have. served their country from around the. country from normal. America if they had a jury of their. peers. in Washington State Idaho Montana. Tennessee Florida normal. America and it took them multiple trials.

to try to find a get a conviction so. it's disgusting I'd funded the company. funded all their legal. defense and uh and still with a DC jury. they managed to get a. conviction what was the aftermath after. that for Blackwater. well look as part of the part of the. onslaught of. Washington there was it really literally.

started a subpoena right so I was called. before Congress early. October. 2004. and they didn't really want to call me. back up there after that hearing again. because I think i' answered their. questions and said we're doing what we. were told this is the contract this. thousand page contract. and um. but then a blizzard of subpoenas started. right everything from Department of. Labor you know um uh treasury Customs.

State Department export issues. ATF even the Department of Agriculture. was investigating us how we ship dog. food are you serious I'm not kidding. literally a blizzard and. so uh it's kind of the DC way right they. uh they hit you with such a with an. ambush from all sides that you try to. make the organization. crumble and we held it together and then. they tried to um well they did they.

indicted Gary Jackson Bill Matthews and. um uh The General Counsel Andy and uh. and two other people over completely. [ __ ] charges and I'll give you. examples right all and and and they said. hey we're not really interested in you. just give us something on Eric Prince so. the political Whipping Boy the political. prosecution persecution just continued. so they indicted um Gary and Bill for.

example on weapons charges right so in. 2004 the King of Jordan had visited. Blackwater hosted by the. CIA because the US was giving Jordan a. big training facility and he wanted to. come and see what black order was like a. few days before guys from the agency. called and say hey um we kind of goofed. we we don't have a gift for the king we. need a gift like well what does he like. he likes guns okay we can do that we. provided him a a kind of a custom tuned.

semi-auto M4 12 gauge shotgun and a. Glock right not exotic not full. auto we gave it to them the Secret. Service took the boxes thank you put. them in the in the US Secret Service. Vehicles they left the property like 6. months later the ATF is doing an audit. they're going through the books they say. what's this oh the King of Jordan was. here and we transferred those to him. they goes ah yeah don't do it this way. next time do it this way no fine no.

drama nothing fast forward to 2007 ah. they indicted us over that they. considered that a straw purchase like. they were giving weapons to a drug. dealer they invite so the same ATF that. said that's an administrative error. don't do the paperwork this way for a. transfer to do it this way when it's. politicized they made it that way so. same another one um the agency.

right the agency wanted to. um uh the the agency had done away with. their paramilitary training as part of. their care case officer program years. before and they wanted weapons calls for. all these students going through the. pipeline and they came to us and said we. want you to do this they said okay fine. give us a contract great we got all the. semi-auto guns no no no has to be full. auto they have to be able to shoot a. full auto M4 and AK like that's dumb you.

don't really need to do that yes they. have to fine make it happen give us the. contract no no figure it out make it. happen so we made a donation right we. already had one law enforcement. organization that had permanent. residence on the compound the Virginia. Beach Police Department leased an entire. building from us in used ranges so we. made a donation to the Sheriff's. Department okay cuz a private. organization can't buy 25 AKs or m4s you. can buy four but not 25 or you can buy.

two samples of. each so the Camden Sheriff's Department. stored those. guns on the premises knowing that they. were there for police to use but also. these federal government employees to. use from time to time when they needed. they would never leave the premises only. for that. purpose the former. Inspector General of the Pentagon signed. off on it the County Attorney signed off. everybody's good nope straw purchase for. illegal weapons that's the kind of.

stupid [ __ ] that they indicted those. guys for which they had. to finally finally grind through and and. so millions of dollars later in their. legal defense when they finally when the. clowns at at the doj finally realized. that I was a knock I'd had all kinds of. authorities from the agency. for this program talked about in the. last chapter of my book and the only. reason I'm willing to talk about it is. because those [ __ ] already leaked my.

name uh you know they they when Panetta. briefed my name briefed me by name to. Congress right when when the agency is. briefing special programs you're. supposed to use code names to protect. confidentiality but he briefed me in. true name and within hours of him doing. that the New York Times And The. Washington Post were calling me for. comment just for the audience Panetta. was the director of CIA at the time. under Obama yes so that's the only. reason I get mention of that now but. when that when the when the realities of.

that finally made it to the idiot. prosecutors and frankly the the idiot. senior leadership at the. CIA then the whole case went away so. there was just there was just a wave of. oh it was it was like termites I mean. did you what did you think what was your. mindset were you ready to combat it were. you did you think it was going to go. away or did you know paying legal so I. uh I I saw that Elon Musk is forming an.

internal Law Firm to fight a whole bunch. of specific cases hindsight I should. have done that it would have been vastly. Superior to me to hire all my own legal. team than to pay all these voracious. other sets of termites of the Washington. DC lawyer crowd that would have so for. anyone that's watching this that goes. through the same circumstance. hire your own lawyers because most DC. lawyers. suck they most DC lawyers are just as. bad as the bureaucrats and Regulators.

that hang out around political parties. so had I done that um it would have been. cheaper the defensive fight would have. been more. effective the only thing we fought back. on all fronts every audit every right. there was even whistleblower lawsuit. suits brought against us by someone. funded by Soros and we fought that went. all the way to the end to the point that. it was a great victory in Alexandria.

Virginia the federal judge said they. have not provided an a cintilla of. evidence of wrongdoing by us and he made. the the the whistleblowers Council pay. our legal fees right so that's the kind. of we push back on everything the one. place that they had us over a. was with the state department with. export regulations right and so Hillary. Clinton's State Department stuck us with. the highest per capita fine in State.

Department. history for our illegal arms exports. right and let me give you some color on. what that looks like so if you're. working for the state department right. you're working for the Bureau of. Diplomatic Security but the export stuff. is handled by the ddtc the directory of. Defense trade. controls so as the state department the. Diplomatic Security guys are demanding. hey I need another 50 guys I need. another 200 guys urgently in this town.

do this Mission because people are at. risk and you have to export them the. body armor the helmets the Firearms. whatever that might be to send to them. the ddtc over here is still moving at. the pace of Peace time or their own. sweet. time and so so even though the license. application was in and we hadn't. received it back yeah if I'm expected to. send 50 guys into a combat zone I'm not. sending him naked and so we'd send body.

armor or helmets or something like that. and so that's what they came back and. find us for. $500,000 per event holy [ __ ] okay so for. all their noise and all their [ __ ]. and a $42 million. fine they acknowledged in the report. that there was no actual damage in any. way to. security it was just a political. punishment wow yeah $42. million I have a pretty big chip on my.

shoulder for that yet I can imagine so. yeah looking back I wish we had never. ever answered the call of helping the. state. department because in the end it was the. undoing of the. company I remember the first Contact we. ever got from the state department was. from the atap program the anti-terrorism. assistance program and they wanted us to. train the uh Colombian presidential. detail and the Greek presidential detail. because this is right before the.

Olympics were going to be in. Greece and um we put the whole proposal. together gave it to State and they. kicked it back to us and said you can't. submit this it's just not credible they. said why they said the price is so. low you can't and and we knew training. we'd been training thousands of guys. thousands of soft guys they said you. can't submit this into our system. because it will not be viewed as. credible it's so. low so we increased the price by 60%. resubmitted it okay that was acceptable.

60% yeah it's just. disgusting but coming from our. perspective of being vertically. integrated and we knew what our costs. were right one of the. great um disciplines I tried to tried to. push on the team was activity based cost. let's figure out what everything cost us. to do so we're not. guessing and so we we had gotten good at. at um squeezing all the or as many. inefficiencies out of those processes.

that we could and so we could we could. low bid so by doing a a firm fixed price. contract we had very good margins and. doing that by cutting out the waste. meant so we could pay the men and the. women a very good wage for doing their. job let's talk about the CIA. assassination program okay what are they. talking. about well.

um after. 911 there. was you know in that that first year or. two of real spine of seriousness about. going after Al-Qaeda and hunting them. and and not letting another 911 happen. right in that brief show of unity with. all the me members of Congress from both. parties singing a song in Kumbaya on the. front steps of the capital. wonderful um so the agency figured they.

needed some kind of unilateral. capability to. um uh to take out Terror targets even in. places where they were kind of protected. or or allowed to to Exist by. semifriendly. countries like Germany like um you know. various countries where because of local. political considerations they weren't. necessarily playing ball with the agency. and so the agency wanted some mtil. lateral capability and they went through.

some iterations of what that looks like. and eventually they asked uh us to put. something together and um. yeah and it was uh it was a really it. was a really interesting education cuz. it had to be all. unilateral moving documents and people. and all the rest with no ties back to. the US government so I won't go into a. lot of detail on it but it was a uh it. was a hell of.

capability so after all this and I and. and I never would say anything about it. but they briefed me by name to Congress. yeah and. which. um which immediately was leaked to the. media which immediately endangered my. family okay. so for all the noise about the media. making about CIA leakages for this uh. Valerie Jarrett no the the Valerie Plame.

stuff hey I was doing a program that was. literally hunting the Most Wanted. terrorists and so yeah so that wound up. I I wound up in The okaya Hit List from. that um so yeah I do take some issue. with the the typical Washington game of. how they play cuz look I started. Blackwater as a way to stay connected to. the sealed teams and to try to serve my. country we answered the call when the. USG called again and again and again.

from thousands of. people we lost 43 of our men doing that. mission multiple of our aircraft shot. down um and in 43 Kia and hundreds. seriously wounded just like active duty. of the military right people that pay. serious costs for a politician's. decision to send them into Harm's. Way and I ended up behind where I was.

financially having sold the business. because it got smashed in valuation and. in um and and so so what right because. men died men were incarcerated I think. un unnecessarily and unjustly as because. of because of a I would say a very. broken Washington political process. when did you sell the company.

2010 after you sold the company at what. point did you move to Abu. Dhabi uh I'd moved about the same time. we sold it why did you. move uh at that time Somali piracy was. raging off the the coast of Somalia they. were taking 80 to 90 ships per year. taking 1 million to 10 million in Ransom.

per. vessel and the UAE leadership wanted to. do something about it right that's a. seaf fairing Nation they depend on trade. Dubai port and and exporting their. crude and they wanted to do something in. a in a chance meeting um explained what. um what should happen and uh they said. yell let's go and so they didn't want me. directly involved with it they just said. kind of lay out the uh the um the how.

and why to do this and the Poland Marine. police force was built and that unit. went active by early 2012 and you don't. hear much about somale piracy after that. no you don't it's funny how that works. yeah but it wasn't look the the the. typical bureaucratic approach was ships. Chasing Pirates all over the Indian. Ocean. that's dumb right if you have a if you. have a wasp problem in your yard you. find the nest and you deal with the nest. it doesn't take a genius to figure out.

where the Pirates are in Somalia if you. fly along the coast right you don't need. some. kh1 satellite imagery you can fly along. the coast in a King Air and say oh. there's six ships anchored down there. off this fishing village with no Port. must be Pirates right and you go after. the pirate Logistics because when they'. go they go to Sea and they' capture a. vessel they'd have to drive it back to. the coast and they' have to put guards. on that boat and they have to sit on it. for 6 months to year waiting for the. ransom to get paid another book that I.

read called the pirate Coast which la. which laid out the uh how the US dealt. with the barber pirates in Libya in 1804. 1805 same kind of. program a former American or a former. American Army Officer William Eaton. eight Marines 90. contracted um mercenaries French Greek. and Italian right the Marine Corps hmn. goes from the halls of montazuma to the.

shores of Triple E there was eight. Marines on that deal and 90 contracted. mercenaries and that's what ended piracy. for the United States in Libya in this. case um a a contracted police force. working with by and through the local. Somali government a police force to cut. off the Pirates Logistics so they. couldn't pay feed and resupply their. guards and the problem went away so it. wasn't a hit squat no.

okay no in fact it really wasn't that. kinetic at all yeah they were armed I. mean logistically it was hard the first. mission they had to do was 500 km one. way on roads that hadn't been graded or. improved in 30 years so it was um it was. those kind of challenges to solve and it. was it was really South African guys. some ex uh executive outcomes team that. came and did it and they built the. police force and it worked there's a um.

there's a documentary that was shot. through the process called the Somalia. project that answers that. question it's on YouTube and it's. free all right and it actually won an. award at the Toronto Film Festival oh. really yeah well it out knowing it would. be. controversial knowing that the clowns at. the state department and the Obama. Administration did everything they could. to block a program like that cuz it's. not something they directly. controlled it's it's it is such a mess.

it is such a FedEd swamp Trump was right. to call it a swamp it. is going back just a little bit so you. moving to Abu Dhabi did that not that. didn't have anything to do with the. politics that with the political system. smearing your name in in the public was. I sick of the Washington nonsense sure. but I I I I came and went to nights it's. not like I fled I didn't go to Exile I. had I had some kids that still lived in. the states so I'd come back every few. weeks to see them okay yeah I was coming.

and going all over the world for for. those three years okay so and so coming. off of that I started a a small private. Equity Firm to do some exploration and. some mining stuff and uh I got some. interesting experience in Africa and. then while I was raising money for. that um in Hong Kong a uh uh a Hong Kong. businessman contacted me and said hey. please help us build a logistics. business based in Hong Kong to do.

Aviation Transportation kind of. security uh in Africa for a lot of these. big Chinese projects whether they're. building a road or a mine or a port or. whatever and so that was Frontier. Service. Group and as that. company got more and more investment. from the Chinese Mainland it was a. a it was an interesting but alarming. look inside of how the um the state own. Enterprises work that they're very. political.

organizations not really based on Merit. or not not in any way based on Mission. it was kind of the antithesis of what. I'd ever um seen in my professional life. before and so uh I left there a year and. a half ago but an interesting window. that there is nothing we want in in the. United States we do not want to be. czedik-eysenberg.

[Music]. really since. Mau and there's three factions to the. Chinese Communist Party there's the. young princelings of which he's won.

there's the Communist youth league and. there's the Shanghai faction and because. of all the wealth that's concentrated in. Shanghai Shanghai is a likely place for. opposition to ferment to to X's. continued rule so I think Shanghai is in. lockdown right now literally welding. people into their homes with fences. because of that. so. again I think the. um when when Ronald rangan was elected I.

think we're in a. very um similar time to 1976 to 1980 to. the Carter years runaway. inflation the economy is going to the. tank a bunch of for policy. setbacks and then Reagan is elected. on a hey we're gonna we're gonna bring. America back America can do better than. this and in the foreign policy side. right the the policy of the United.

States for 35 years since World War II. until 1980 had been containment we're. just going to contain the Soviet Union. and the spread of Communism and rean. said no we're going to [ __ ] the commies. he actually said that in the Oval Office. we're going to push back on them. economically politically culturally. socially all the rest. there was 20 covert action findings some. of which were even initiated by Carter. because even Carter have the Carter. Administration having had their their.

butts kicked finally came around to. their senses but Reagan fully enacted. that to go after the Soviet Union in all. those ways to take him down not with. conventional military forces but all the. other acts of. subterfuge that the intelligence. Community should be doing and what. happened ' 89. the Berlin Wall the the the Iron Curtain. comes down and by 91 the Soviet Union is. done. okay I think the United States has to.

push back on the Communist Party of. China the same way Chinese people not. our enemy Chinese Communist party is. antithetical to the American way of life. it is antithetical to the US. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and. to the things that we appreciate in. America. that has to stop I 100% agree with you. on that and I'm going to be honest when. I was researching you and I saw that uh.

Frontier what was it Frontier Frontier. Service Group Frontier service group was. so involved with China and building. infrastructure in Africa I was really. surprised did that were you alarmed at. all at how much influence China has over. in. Africa. um they they appear to have some. influence but it's it's really not that. hard to push them back it's not no how. would we do that no no um look they come.

they're they're basically pushing into a. vacuum. meaning Africans African countries need. infrastructure they want electric power. they need a hard surface Road they need. ports they need trade all the things. that we take for granted in the west. right the ability for a farmer in. America to raise his crop put it on a. truck take it to a co-op which can then. sell it on into the stream of Commerce. that in most cases in Africa doesn't.

exist most African families live with. like have less than a 100 watt light. bulb worth of electricity a day wow okay. and so when China comes and Promises hey. uh let us have this all this concession. and we'll build you this port and road. right African countries take that deal. if it's even more controversial right. the the the Chinese do black bag. diplomacy really well meaning they pay. cash. they I'm told that um in the basement of.

the foreign Ministry in Beijing that um. they take African leaders or not just. African any any leader from around the. world that China wants to do business. with or the mining minister or the. energy minister or their foreign. minister and they take him to this big. Vault room and their safety deposit. boxes and they take them to one box and. they have their name on it they open it. up and it's gold bars or cash or. whatever and they'll say this is yours. waiting for you here as long as you play.

ball for us while you're in. office look it's China is an ancient. Society it's a as a as you know remember. over the last 2,000 years China for 19. out of those 20 centuries was the. largest economy on the. planet remember that. so China views itself as the center of. the universe the Middle Kingdom and so. they're trying to restore themselves to. that kind of grandeur in world. leadership and the question is does.

America want to be is are they. comfortable being pushed into second. place by a lot of I would say. self-inflicted wounds to. oursel or are we going to rally and. organize and and do what made America. effective and free and and and wealthy. and return to those basic values and. focuses or do we continue on this woke. Nightmare and drive ourselves into. second or third or or worst place what.

do you think is going to. happen elections do have. consequences and and they have to have. consequences and I think the most. important. thing. um to focus on in the next election is. uh control the bureaucracy. to actually have accountability for the. federal government because I think the. real constitutional crisis is we're. supposed to have three branches of. government right executive legislative. Judiciary but we have four we have a.

permanent state bureaucracy that's. accountable to no one that Congress can. yell at and that really changed the the. the White House can yell at but can't. hire and fire most of the bureaucrats. under its wing CIA is different actually. CIA and the peace score are the only two. federal agencies in Washington where. civil Civil Service rules don't. necessarily apply so the director can. change and fire quickly so the CIA. should be quick to fix under right.

leadership but beyond call it reform and. control of the Civil Service bureaucracy. and to pair it down right I hate the. fact that the five counties surrounding. Washington are per capita the wealthiest. in the country that's a very unhealthy. sign that that much wealth is sponged. off the Imperial City to the detriment. of of the rest of the country where. actual normal work is done and the. second thing is I think we have to.

restore. competitiveness in competition inside of. America the Federal Trade Commission and. the antitrust parts of the government. have to be cleaned out and reworked and. and the amount of of monopolies or. duopolies or oligopolies right you have. a couple of companies that have such. control over the markets that it. squeezes all the competition right look. at look at the beef. industry all the beef in America is.

processed by I think four major. processors all the farmers who do the. hardest part of the work for years. months and years at a time they. absolutely get screwed because all the. processors are controlled by those big. four okay whether it's big beef or big. chicken and the same in the airline. industry the same in in big Tech um. America was great when it was um lots of. small companies with lots of sharp. elbows and everybody scrambling and.

innovating and and really pushing that. competition but when you. have uh when you have Washington. reinforcing and scratching the back of. big Tech and Big B big business it's. extremely dangerous for the future of. the. country back to China or back to Africa. what do they mining. there well remember China um over the. next 5 years will have another 300. million people move from rural.

communities into cities right so you. have to house 300 million people or. almost the population of the United. States you have to build housing for in. the next 5 years so when China goes out. looking for energy right CU they import. 90% of their energy their hydrocarbon. energy they have to build. right if you're doing even green energy. you need an enormous amount of copper to. transmit the power from where you. generate it to where you're using. it and iron ore for for steel for rebar.

for all the things you build a house. with um so they're going out to find. those those resources China as a country. uh as a government has made a very. concerted effort to kind of Leap Frog. past the internal combustion engine. right. because it was going to be a cold day in. Hell before China could build a better. car engine than Porsche or Toyota or or. even a us one right so they have gone.

all in on battery minerals electric. vehicles and they have made a very. conservative effort to. control not just the source of rare. Earths right the like the ndpr all the. things you need to make a very high-end. electric motor and a very high-end long. duration quick recharge. battery Cobalt nickel. neodium all those I won't go deep on. that but the processing for those.

minerals is where China controls about. 95% of the world Supply and so that's a. area that the US should make some. Strategic investment right I certainly. believe in capitalism in the free market. as long as everyone else does and in the. case of china you have a very State. managed uh capitalism they say uh uh. it's capitalism or so sorry socialism. with Chinese characteristics for that. matter capitalism also with Chinese. characteristics because they they very.

much with government Direction throw. hundreds of billions of dollars to. Target um specific industries that they. want to be dominant in to the point of. driving out any of their us competitors. which they have done in um particularly. in battery minerals uh in that. processing they call them Rare Earth. elements like the only producing Rare. Earth mine in the United States now is. in Mountain Pass California and all the. off take goes to China no [ __ ].

fact I mean this is just extrem we were. shareholders in a very rich Rare Earth. mine um in. Bundi and uh the processing the offtake. from that mine went to Germany where. there was a couple stages done but then. eventually all that. went to. um uh went to China as well and here's. the thing it's not a it's not a hundred. billion dollar problem to fix it's. probably it's a 10 billion problem to.

fix or less right so instead of I would. say pissing away $40 billion in Aid like. Congress is just doing to. Ukraine for everyone to make noise about. um you know strategic minerals and in in. Chinese um hegy in those spaces $10. billion spent well in America solves. that issue right some of the processing. of those rare Earths is kind of a nasty. dirty process okay fine accept that do.

it at Doug way Proving Ground which is. where the US Army does its chemical. Westing chemical weapons testing you're. never going to build condos there but. say that's where the United States is. going to process those minerals and you. do it like a contractor managed facility. like they do for ammunition. plants it doesn't. my my biggest frustration in top of the. the I would say the corruption and. incompetence in Washington is just a. lack of imagination how to solve these. problems do you think it's just straight.

incompetence I think it's um I think. it's just reinforced group think I I. when I look at if if if the combined. Republican and Democrat administrations. of the last 20 years for all the smart. people that have come through Harvard. and Yale and all these Ivy League. schools in these foreign policy. positions and if this is the best. they've got I would I would look for. another source for my foreign policy. experts going forward because whether. it's the Iraq invasion and how the war.

was conducted against really not just. Sunni insurgents but the Iranians. fighting in Iraq versus the United. States as well being defeated in. Afghanistan by 90% illiterate goat. herders with no external support really. cuz remember when we fighting the. Soviets in the 80s now when the mjad. deine were fighting the Soviets in. Afghanistan the US was giving a billion. in Lethal Aid in $.

1985 which would be more like three. billion in Lethal. Aid going to the Taliban now nothing. like that nobody ever gave them that. kind of support but yet we were defeated. all the Techno. Wizardry of the US Army and the US Navy. and the US Air Force and the US Marine. Corps. great fighting men and women great. capability all that equipment with bad. weak leadership with weak political. leadership and we got our butts kicked.

and it's what an embarrassment and for. everybody that lost a loved one or a. limb or a. spouse or relationship over the Iraq and. and Afghanistan conflicts they should be. pissed I'm pissed I spent a lot of my. life and and put a huge effort into. helping the US government there to have. them piss it away they did it's just. wrong I'm totally with you on. that this is a direct result of an all. volunteer Force I'm not saying we have.

to have a. draft but if you have one half of 1%. serving in the military right you have. about 1.5 million people give or take in. the US forces active duty you have. another 3 to 4% that knows that half%. family friends that Circle that tribe. leaving the other 95% of America with no. clue and no skin in the game and so that. allows really idiot politicians to be. continually disassociated from reality.

making those kind of decisions well. since we're on the since we're on the. Afghan pull out now and we're talking. about Chinese Mining and an incompetent. government China's extracting lithium. Out of Africa China was there when we. pulled out of Afghanistan Afghanistan. pull outs seemed extremely abrupt and. there was definitely there it's obvious. there was no plan Chinese were there to. negotiate with Taliban now supposedly. they're extracting lithium out of.

Afghanistan we we have this green. initiative which we're going to import. all of our solar panels and batteries. from China do you think that the current. Administration was paid off by China to. pull out of Afghanistan so that they. could extract no in in fact if if I. would I would imagin not imagine I would. posit that if China had its Choice. America would have stayed in Afghanistan. somehow why because the one group that.

the CCP is scared of are the Wagers. right the Wagers are an ethnic turkic. people um they are not Han Chinese they. are Muslim and they're primarily from. the northwest corner of China called. shinjan Province okay and they have been. and conflict with the CCP because. they've tried to hold through to Islam. and they have been resisting it and. there's huge pipelines from Kazakhstan.

and turkistan with the natural gas that. flows through shinjan province that. literally Powers Beijing in the whole. Eastern Seaboard like I said before. China Imports 90% of its hydrocarbon. energy and so the weers they've not been. able to control and so they've they've. built camps they buil re-education camps. they're doing some terrible things and. getting away with it up there. and the Wagers that could have sanctuary. in Afghanistan is a major threat to.

China which is why the Chinese are. paying the. Taliban almost whatever it takes to try. to. suppress uh the Wagers from having. sanctuary in in Afghanistan China signed. up early for a lot of the concessions in. Afghanistan because there's enormous. wealth in the ground in Afghanistan and. the disgusting thing and why so you're. quoted as saying there's over a trillion. dollars in the ground there at least yes. and that's not my number that's the US.

Geological Survey which flew um magnetic. and gravity Airborne surveys finding. enormous amounts of copper hydrocarbons. and other minerals of value in. Afghanistan. okay so let me back up on Afghanistan. briefly I've I've known Steve banned for. years since I uh since I wrote my book. which I think came out in 2013 and I did. a like a radio event with him and I've. stayed in touch with them ever since and.

wrote a bunch of foreign policy papers. on positions Trump candidate Trump. should take for the six 2016. election and he contacted. me within months of trump being. elected and he said hey we're trying to. figure out what to do on Afghanistan. write up what you think should be done. and write an oped in the Wall Street. Journal so I did and I wrote it for an. audience of. one and I'm told that uh by a guy that.

was in the room that Trump read my oped. circled it called in the National. Security adviser who was then HR. McMaster and said I don't like your plan. I like this one do this because McMaster. had just asked to send another 70,000. troops back to Afghanistan in. 2017 and so that started back and forth. and of course of course McMaster being a. three star armor officer from the. Pentagon who wanted a fourstar of course. said no hell no right I went and saw. Mattis at White House Direction at the.

Pentagon uh he said my analysis of the. root problems was the best that he saw. but he just couldn't accept contractors. doing it because what I laid out was. basically a repeat of what worked in the. first six to eight. months of Afghanistan right. using Special Operations veterans right. everybody loves the word veterans they. hate the word contractor it's the same.

thing. um uh veteran contractors attached to. each Afghan Battalion I wanted to do 36. guys per Battalion because I wanted. enough uh I wanted enough contracted. Talent there so that every time an. Afghan unit left the wire whether it's a. platoon size company size whatever there. were mentors with them to provide. leadership intelligence Communications. medical Logistics expertise right the. five things you got to get right in a. unit and if one of those fails it can.

all go to [ __ ] right so I wanted. veterans to go live with the Afghans. it's the same everything I everything I. wrote up was really based on how the. East India Company functioned and. flourished for 250 years right next door. right they built. units of 19 locals one xat and they. lived with them for years they were. called the presidency. armies so I kind of modeled a a. battalion structure with veterans. attached the same way and because the.

nature uh of of employing veter. contractors I can send a guy for 60 days. or 90 days and then he goes home for for. 30 days back in but always to the same. unit in the same Valley so he knows. those Afghans those are his. brothers the problem with the US. presence in Afghanistan for 20 years as. we went through almost 30 troop. rotations where you send guys in they. might be effective for a few months and. they leave and they shift and they never. come back to the same area more than 30.

times so we didn't really fight for 20. years we fought for 30 different. rotations but our our approach what I. recommended was to solve that by. attaching at the Battalion level living. with patrolling with and even fighting. with those guys not living at some. distant US base where they'd kind of. commute to Mentor them once a week no. same Barracks same Chia. Hall I would have provided air support. about 90 aircraft again flown right seat.

left seat one contractor and one uh and. one Afghan pilot so if there's any. weapon released it's an Afghan making. that. decision um the professional pilot there. so that you had the night vision time. you had the safety lined up and it kind. of took away the the inala factor right. don't take away the excuses of ah we're. not going today it's too dangerous no no. you're going now it's on and we could. have provided Jets the whole package for. a fraction right the I I found an entire. Israeli Squadron of a4s that were for.

sale that would have been perfect and. cheap and um it would have worked and. then the other the third part of it you. have to do is the combat Logistics right. you have to pay the men on time feed. them on time resupply them and take care. of them. medically it was so bad right in this. rush to. overpower the Afghans right unlike most. people I've read most of the cigar. reports the special Inspector General. for Afghanistan reconstruction where he. just catalogues the same failures made.

for 20 years so how do we have these. people put in these assistant Secretary. of whatever positions of responsibility. making the same damn mistakes that they. were making a decade or two decades. earlier how do we consider these people. smart or qualified when they're just. continually. failing so again you know you have the. issue of ghost soldiers of right in. every society where there's corruption. if you throw money at a problem it grows. the corruption and that's what America.

does America knows how to fire hose cash. onto a problem which made all those. little weeds into major trees of. problems so again putting putting a few. dudes in there to control the pay the. parts supply the fuel the ammunition. uh and. medical the whole program would have. cost less than 5% of what the US was was. spending and I trust trust me we would.

have put the Taliban on their knees. again because the whole that package. would have performed like a much more. robust version of what stomped on the. Taliban and al-Qaeda in in early 2002 in. late. 2001 there was already 140 Taliban. sanctuaries in Afghanistan. just in the last months of us being. there and trust me Al-Qaeda is all over. the country again and and so for all the.

the administration assurances that um. this was never going to be a terror. Sanctuary again absolutely it will be. you think we're going back there I don't. know if I I I I hope we never go back. there with the US military there is not. one conventional Soldier should ever set. foot in that country again because and. it's it's no diss on the on the soldiers. but it's how they're employed I he I. heard a fundamental description at a at. an early Special Operations conference.

when I was a young officer is there a. different mentality in. a right as you're as we're seeing in. Ukraine right now artillery is still the. king of battle in big conventional. fights right so in a conventional. military you man the equipment because. it's the equipment that does the heavy. fighting the killing the artillery the. Rockets the tanks in a soft unit you. equip the man cuz the man is the weapon. system to be employed in very Niche very.

special. applications and that's the kind of. flexibility and speed and lightweight. that you need to operate against an. Insurgency right because we United. States in Afghanistan was defeated by an. enemy that was largely illiterate. untrained using weapons that have been. designed 70 years earlier. and they defeated all the billions of. dollars of techno Wizardry I mean I I'd. go to the the association of the US Army. show in 2005 through through now and all.

that stuff and the Taliban kicked their. ass it's. disgusting it didn't kick the ass of the. sergeant or the Gunnery Sergeant or the. smart Captain but man it's like once. they once once officers pass the range. of the rank of 04 it's almost like their. brains are are transformed into. something that just doesn't. um doesn't want to fight the way that's. that's that needs to be done yeah damn.

let's take a quick break all. right 75% of the human population. struggles with sleep I was part of that. 75%. I'm a new parent I'm a business owner my. mind goes about a th000 miles an hour of. all hours of the day and night and it's. hard to sleep so I started looking into.

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all right Eric we took a quick break now. I want to know what happened to the plan. where did it get tied. up sadly it got uh it it died in the. womb it um the bureaucracy around Trump.

um killed it uh unfortunately I don't. think Trump ever really controlled his. National Security bureaucracy I think um. Mike Pompeo as director depended on Gina. haspel a career agency officer that was. then made director after him um she. didn't want to do anything touching. anything that would be different or hard. or controversial for the agency there's. a big difference between how dood fights. Wars under title 10 authorities versus.

the agency which is title 50 remember. when the US went into Afghanistan right. the the the S the Special Forces Aid. teams the agency officers H even the. aircraft flying overhead were there. under title 50 CIA authorities. that worked very flexible very fast very. maneuverable when the Pentagon pivoted. to become the big title 10 beast in the. room for the next 20 years that's where.

we failed DOD is good at fighting big. conventional Wars what they did in 2003. and rolling up saddam's Army brilliant. fantastic fighting the Insurgency after. that not. brilliant um when the Seal Team guys. rolled into aabad Pakistan to kill Bin. Laden they were not there under title 10. they were there under title 50. authorities working for the director of. CIA so I recommended that that plan.

right as DOD. leaves that a that a title 50 Authority. take over and that this kind of advise. assist support element to keep the. Afghan government from tipping over and. to continue a effective counterterrorism. mission. that it pivot to the. agency of course pentagon is about money. and about reach and and and Turf and. they wanted nothing to do with that and. the agency under a different director.

could have seized the thing could have. could have taken the initiative and said. yep Mr Trump we'll do this. go um it's really sad because everything. I laid out was not theoretical for us um. we'd had hundreds if not thousands of. advisers trainers in country before we'. had up to 56 of our aircraft in. Afghanistan flying those kind of support. missions hell we'd even um with a super. Tano right I I owned the first Super.

Tano aircraft it's a single engine. Brazilian made turbo prop aircraft it. looks like a little light fighter plane. and I bought one in 2005 took it to the. states and we fitted it out with a Fleer. okay a big mx15 so you could with a a. Fleer with a laser it had a a um cell. phone intercept equipment on it it had. link 16 aircraft so we could talk to. every other fast mover in the US. Military and we had it kitted out for a. jck program so that they could find fix.

and finish by themselves with a. contractor Pilot Flying it and and a. active duty guy running the um sensor. systems and dropping any weapons cuz. that aircraft could even drop two 500lb. laser gued bombs it was fantastic we. actually even did a study that we could. have taken over every close air support. Mission over Afghanistan with that. aircraft it had more coverage with all. the right kind of hardware and the whole. program would have paid for itself in. fuel Savings in s months I mean so even.

a private Equity guy would have funded. it but those are the kind of. cost-saving innovations that the. military bureaucracy just cannot will. not accept and that's the frustration. why we have these Perpetual Wars which. never seemed to end and no one is really. put in charge coming back to the oped. that I wrote that Trump liked and he. cired I said you need to appoint a.

Viceroy right and that's a spicy term. that's a loaded term that's a colonial. term but I wanted it to be spicy I. wanted people to pay attention he needed. one person in charge unity of command. one person who's responsible one person. who's accountable there isn't one person. who is in charge of the effort in. Afghanistan for the entire 20 years we. were there State Department was doing. their thing DOD was doing their thing. CIA is over here NATO's over there we. never had one person that was in charge.

when the British were in. India they appointed one person who. represented Her Majesty's government. that had all power to make those. decisions and the issue. about Afghanistan right cuz the other. lesson from the East India Company is. that it's much easier to employ people. than to fight. them and when you before you mentioned. about the Chinese interested in minerals. and all the rest in Afghanistan yeah. there's a trillion dollars of value in. the ground and the US didn't go after.

any of it while it was. there how long have they known about. that from the Soviet times the Soviets. the Soviets did a better job of. extracting resources in Afghanistan in. the 10 years we were there that they. were there versus the 20 that the us was. there and I'll give you two examples one. um in the Southeast corner of bulk. Province there's an Amaria oil field it. was drilled proven all all the whales.

hit fully ready for commercialization. you could have redrilled the five Wells. that were cemented and another 15 and. you could have powered the entire. country okay of the 60 some billion. dollars that the US was spending per. year in Afghanistan. a huge chunk of that was fuel costs okay. and you know where that fuel came from. the Mediterranean a defense Logistics. agency contract put it on a boat down.

through the Red Sea across the Indian. Ocean to Karachi and then on a truck up. into Pak up across Pakistan into. Afghanistan paying all those Taliban. tolls so by the time that jet fuel or. diesel fuel got to where it's used in. Afghanistan the fully loaded cost on it. was $200 50 a. gallon okay our tax money spent that way. while the amudarya oil field is sitting. there untapped largely for the duration.

of our presence there wow okay 20. million bucks would have redrilled those. Wells a 100 million bucks to put a mod. to the refinery there and you would have. powered every jet every truck everything. and then for that matter probably 50. other power plants in Afghanistan that. would have burned hfo the bottoms the. heavy fuel oil the stuff that you get. off the bottom of. Refinery would have made Afghanistan. self-sustaining in energy and not have.

to depend on all those trucks second the. mosso mine okay which is about 50 km. 30-ish miles south of Kabul one of the. largest single copper deposits in the. world and they've known about that for a. thousand years cuz there was all kinds. of archaeological constraints to it but. but you know what if I was in a position. of responsibility and for and so for all. the generals that rotated through of the. 17 or 18 different commanders we had.

none of them said hey I'm going to. reopen masok mine and I can employ. 10,000 Taliban doing it because I'm. going to give them all a pick in a. shovel and three Square meals a day and. I could suck an entire Infantry Division. of T Taliban Manpower away from the. Taliban cuz most of the Taliban were. just paid Fighters they weren't like. full committed jihadis right so if the. taliban's paying $10 a day and we pay. $12 a day and we feed them and we're not. going to kill them that's great that's. how the British.

Empire dominated the whole subcontinent. for 250 years effectively and that's my. frustration with these so-called smart. leaders that are in. charge and they say well we can't do. that with within our within our. responsibility well then demand that. kind of authority demand that kind of. responsibility to fix the problem don't. piss away our sons and daughters health. or their lives and don't piss away tens. of billions of our taxpayer dollars just. managing the conflict have enough have.

enough spine to say I'm going to solve. that freaking problem or I'm not going. to shut up until I do that's my. frustration with them so laying out a. plan that would have given the Afghan. forces a reliable way to to be supported. to have confidence that they were going. to be um helped I mean it got so bad in. the last8 years of us presence there. that the Taliban were resorting to the. the most ancient of tactics Siege.

tactics right they roll two 300 Taliban. out of the hills and they'd surround an. Afghan combat out Outpost right and. they'd lay Siege to it nobody in nobody. out and they'd be calling down there. shouting insults all the rest hey we're. going to kill you if you don't come out. we're going to and it got so bad that. the Afghan military leaders inside the. camp would be calling back to a TV. station back to tul news in Kabul into a. call-in show pleading for someone to.

come and help them with all the. wonderful US military helicopters with. all the stuff that the taxpayers spent. nobody had the organization or the. responsibility to say hey we're going to. come and help you or even better hey now. the Tali provided us with 200 targets. surrounding that camp and we're going to. smoke them all right why doesn't the. ac130 roll in there in broad daylight. and smoke them oh wait why because the. ac130 flown by the US Air Force won't.

fly in daylight it's a $250 million. asset that will not fly in daytime for. combat support that's the kind of. bureaucratization of war that I chafe. against in the US military that so bad L. needs reform it's like a dirty rug that. just needs to be. shaken you're the only person I've ever. heard talk about this this is. um well this is incredible so that's. just just bureaucratic layer upon layer.

right it's like wrapping a whole bunch. of teds around the Torah so you never. get back to your your authorities that. you should be. doing and and we've allowed. lawyers in the military right they're. now down. to low very very low levels of units. that all have a Jag and I think we've. allowed them to become what zampolit. were in the Soviet Union right you know. what a zampolit is I don't it's a. political officer who is literally there. to um do you remember the movie um The.

Hunt for Red October yes right the. zampolit was the guy that that's. assigned like in the Soviet Union to. every ship. submarine air uh Air Force Squadron Army. division okay he is there to enforce the. will of the Communist Party and in this. case lawyers were there to enforce the. will of Washington and and constantly. undermining second guessing the. battlefield. commanders and I think okay fine if you.

want to have lawyers at that level fine. make it like the Marine Corp make every. Marine a Rifleman every lawyer must be a. Rifleman make them spend at least one or. two combat deployments in the in the. field getting shot at before they get to. make legal decisions about when people. can drop bombs and not to May make them. live with those consequences. first I'm becoming infuriated sorry. um let's move into Ukraine Ukraine.

Russia conflict. okay what should we be doing there if. anything at. all well I've been to Ukraine quite a. bit not lately but uh long before the. conflict uh because there's an amazing. amount of tech and amazing amount of. Industry there we were actually trying. to buy a. business um which didn't work out but I. laid. out uh in a document passed up by some.

people I know in the chain of command it. it did not have my name on it at all so. they couldn't play the I hate Eric. Prince card but I basically laid out a. combination of lend leas and a flying. tiger approach to prevent The Invasion. from happening cuz I was pretty. confident the Russians were going to go. in well we had a conversation before. before you got here and you actually. pegged the exact day that it. happened yeah it's based on. weather. but. um but in December I laid out and and it.

was it was a simple way to to back up. from that so in this fiscal year right. fiscal year. 2022 the US Air Force has already. announced that they're retiring 200. combat aircraft okay being taken from an. active fighting flying Squadron flown to. the desert Arizona and parked for. eternity written off to zero value to. the. taxpayers okay including about 50 f-15s. 50 f-16s and 42.

a10s for your listeners F-15 air. superiority aircraft F16 air superiority. and ground attack and A10 the best tank. killing aircraft ever made literally. made back in the 70s to kill Russian. tanks all being flown to the de desert. wasted I said fly any combination of. those to. Ukraine right for a carot and stick. carrot is yes Russia don't worry Ukraine. will never be part of NATO let's close.

that discussion because they don't need. to be. right um our sons and daughters don't. need to be the guarantors and Defenders. of Europe Europe can wake up and do the. right thing including Germany which they. still have not really. done well the they can't really because. they're energy dependent off Russia well. yeah and on top of that the Germans. closed three nuclear power plants in. December of last year earlier than. originally planned just to be in.

accordance with their Green New Deal. plan that they wanted to roll out in. Germany making them even more dependent. on Russian. energy but back to what I wanted what I. recommended for for Ukraine right so. take the NATO thing off the table for. Ukraine no. problem um. but fly these some of these old aircraft. to Ukraine put Ukrainian round dels on. them you can use Ukrainian Pilots you. can use contractor Pilots any. combination just like right remember the.

Flying Tigers was a used for about one. year before the United States was. involved in World War II but we wanted. to help stop the Japanese from bombing. Chinese. cities they allowed US aircraft flown by. contractor Pilots it did exactly that. working for a foreign entity in this. case those old US aircraft that were. already written off transfer them to. Ukraine um a a budget I think 250. million bucks would have been enough to.

make those aircraft flyable fund the. pilots the fuel and the weapons and you. would have had all the deterr needed to. prevent a Russian invasion instead of. the not not close to $50 billion that. the US has spent I would say pissed away. in Ukraine now. it's just a pile wrong it's the lack of. imagination the lack of any knowledge of. history from these so-called smart. people and there's no. accountability how as taxpayers can we.

allow such incompetence to rule for the. debacle that was Iraq the debacle that's. Afghanistan and even the a a preventable. debacle of Ukraine I have that that's. that's my frustration for all these. people that that want to say ah it's a. it's a terrible plan he's an evil. mercenary whatever pejorative they want. to throw at me I say fine call me. whatever [ __ ] name you want to but. I'd rather be right than a [ __ ] and.

on these I'm right okay if and and and. you know what even president Trump I saw. him in 2019 at a veterans event oddly. enough and he came up to me he said Eric. you were right I should have listened to. you in Afghanistan. I said ah Mr President that's the only. time I saw him when he was president of. the United States in person I said. please there's still time give us a. chance to do.

this sadly no but again he never really. controlled his National Security. apparatus Mark esper terrible sect def. um so again if you keep drawing from the. well that is Washington DC we'll keep. having the same failures. and anybody that says Iraq was a great. success or Afghanistan I mean I will. never forget the image of thousands of. people running ahead of alongside of and. grabbing onto c17s that are taking off.

what an awful image yeah and from the. beginning in whatever paper I submitted. I said I want to prevent the rooftop the. helicopter off the rooftop moment. because I was 6 years old when that. happened in Saigon in 75 and I still. remember that and that image of. Afghanistan is one that every Friend or. Foe of America around the world. remembers and it is a huge [ __ ] black. eye yeah yes it.

is let's move into the vogner. group yes. so the Russians have woken up. to well I'd say they continued on with a. with a spectrum of conflict. right. and I'll back up even further in saying. in 2011 while I lived in the Middle. East.

while uh the Biden the Obama. Administration was in their great reset. with Russia and they were going to be. Pals with them the Russians actually. invited me to Moscow and pitched me and. said please come and build a Blackwater. capability here in Russia oh [ __ ] yeah. yeah I went shooting with their alpab. group their Elite tier one unit had um. had beers with them after that and they. had explained that they had done 300. kill capture missions inside of Russia. in the previous year because they had.

still problems in chch and. dagistan and and remember that they lost. 15,000 troops in the late '90s early. 2000s fighting in chesa and grne and. dagistan so they had they had their own. issues to wrestle with but they wanted. to build a hybrid. capability and I said thanks but I I. can't do. that and sure enough two three years. later they roll out you see the hear the.

stories about these little green men of. not necessarily military guys seizing. all these key objectives when the. Russians seize the Crimea and the donah. and the contested areas now in eastern. Ukraine and then you see them use them. in Syria to pretty great effect not. great I would say effective for. them uh they use them in Madagascar in. Central African Republic now in Mali in.

Libya and certainly uh in Ukraine now as. part of their their major combat. operation Vagner group. offers I would say the the whole. spectrum of support whether. it's political messaging propaganda. social media manipulation on one end. through training of police. military border units that kind of thing. all the way up to full-on combat. formations Battalion size even Brigade. size um activity and it's a an extension.

of the Russian state but yet uh deniable. enough I mean the reason right you heard. about a big. firefight between some us soft guys in. Syria um in the east of Syria. um I can't think of where the oil field. was it'll come back to me but that oil. field had been producing 400,000 barrels. a day it was Syrian oil supply and the.

US was sitting on it and Vagner guys and. some Syrian Army guys were going to take. it why because they wanted the oil they. wanted to turn that energy Supply back. on and it was kind of a um it was a. prize that they were after so the. Russians use. that capability as a as an extension of. Kremlin political desires with the. deniability that comes from not being. necessarily a function of the Russian. State and they asked you to build that.

yeah when was that 2011 so if you were a. war profiter which very commonly follows. your name in The Press you'd 100% would. have done that but you didn't yeah I. would have been a multi-billionaire. which I am definitely not. but no and the funny thing is you know. there's there's a lot of contractors in. history that have uh that have fought. under many flags and uh even John Paul. Jones who's um who died in the service.

of uh of Russia and they brought him. back from from Russia he's buried at the. he's buried under the. chapel uh in Annapolis at the Academy I. think he's buried in vodka in a in a. vodka fi cask nice kind of appropriate. yeah what about what do you think about. the weaponization of government. agencies it's extremely. dangerous it's.

um and this is why this is why I hate. these Perpetual Wars right because the. state as as any state grows it grows at. the expense of individual. liberty and when you don't put the fires. out overseas in the smallest most. precise surgical scalpel-like manner. when you start using a sledgehammer. instead of a.

needle and all the bloat and all the. other tools that you use to try to fight. those Wars instead of finishing. something quickly. cleverly all those tools eventually get. turned on the. populace and that's hugely dangerous and. that's anti itical to American Liberty. and so as I said before the. real the real constitutional crisis we. have in America is that we have four. branches of government instead of three. we're supposed to have three we have.

four and that fourth is that permanent. state bureaucracy that is unaccountable. and they start to use and abuse those. tools for the benefit of one political. party and that's unacceptable and that's. the [ __ ] that that makes people do more. radical things to push back back has. that affected you at all personally yeah. sure even when um you know the whole. reason I got caught up in the Mueller. investigation was because I was invited.

back to meet um some UAE leadership. after Trump was. elected uh but before the inauguration. right so there's still Obama people in. charge at the. NSC and months later they leaked the. transcripts and and the and the fact. that I was in the UAE and they spun this. wild ass conspiracy that I was there. meeting some Russian fund manager and it. was all to establish a back channel to. Russia wait a. minute this already this this meeting.

alleged to have happened two months. after the US election how was I. establishing some back channel to Russia. to affect the US election so it's just. that's the kind of nonsense and again. lots of legal fees seized phones all the. [ __ ] and and the that weaponization. right whether it's the constant. um uh bombardment in the media of. [ __ ] that makes it banking harder. that makes Capital raising harder all.

the rest I'm a um I'm a pretty stubborn. resilient guy and I'll I'll keep pushing. through it but um that shit's got to end. at some point. yeah there must be consequences is the. RS come after you as well. they've all come after me at some point. yeah I mean they look that it was the. obviously it was the hottest by far. after the. um the niss Square incident when the.

Democrats just focused on destroying. Blackwater and destroying me and um you. know that was the the real relief for. the Raven 23 guys to finally be pardoned. those were the last look the business. had been smashed at that point but I. felt like I had four people. held very. unjustly and uh it was such a relief to. have them out and have them back to. their families and you know and and to. hear the stories from the guys um none.

of them joined. gangs the the pressure that you hear. about being in a Maximum Security. Federal Prison where there are some bad. ombres and none of the white supremist. gangs or the Muslim gangs or this gang. none of them came after the Blackwater. guys because they had this kind of this. Aura of they were Blackwater guys so. stay away and and and a number of them. said that they had Corrections Officers. that would say to them every night when. they had shut their cell I'm so sorry to.

have to do this to you damn you don't. belong to be. here so I I'm I commend them for having. as positive an attitude as they. do and it puts it in perspective. whatever [ __ ] I've had to go through. that they literally lost a numbers of. years of their life and they're now. doing well at putting it back together. yeah I mean they lost what from 2007 to. what a year ago less than a year ago.

last. December do you feel any resentment. towards the country or I mean how do. you I'm going to be I feel resentment on. how veterans are treated on on when I. look at the those pardons up there that. are framed when I look at Eddie. Gallagher's charges I feel a lot of. [ __ ] resentment. towards the American population nobody. [ __ ] goes to bat for us I feel like. these guys are being hung out to dry.

nobody gives a [ __ ] it really really. [ __ ] pisses me off it's. not and I haven't been. through it doesn't even it's whatever. it's not a fraction compared to what. those men went through what what what. how they've come after and smeared your. name vilified you. look I don't think it's fair to blame. the American population per se and this. is why because the average American.

wakes up every morning and they got to. figure out how to get their kids to. school hopefully they did their homework. right they got to get to work and. increasingly it has to be a two salary. home because because of the the. reduction in real wages that an average. worker can earn right and we'll go into. why that is and they got to pay taxes. and and all the rest and so they their. 99% of their day is focused on just.

getting through the day and feeding. their family and and doing what they're. supposed to be. doing and they Outsource right we have a. republic we don't have a democracy we. have a republic that we have elected. officials that are supposed to be smart. and and um serving the general good that. we send forward for us. to uh to make those decisions on our. behalf and I think the real lesson of.

covid is the greatness of the federal. system okay because my God if all any. and all decisions were only made in. Washington DC then we would truly be. screwed but thank God right I think it's. a great lesson that Mayors matter that. County council's matter and you know. that principle of subsidiarity that it's. best to make decisions as close to where. they affect you as possible and to not. let that be made in a far off land and. so it's also a reminder that state.

governments really matter and good. Governors are great and bad Governors. holy [ __ ] and you see The Exodus from. Bad poorly run States running towards. good run States and I hope that the. people that left those badly run states. don't take their. leftist bad policies with them and so. now it comes to. Washington where we truly have a runaway. size and scope of federal government. that makes decisions without any.

accountability and some of that comes. back to decisions made a long time ago. like in the Progressive Era 100 years. ago when they push through income tax. right because America used to be run. only on ter. on the import on the on a tax on any. Goods that were imported to America. that's it the federal government rightly. was small what is the most successful. political party platform in the last.

century the Socialist Workers Party. their party platform of the 20s was. Cradle to grave welfare Social Security. direct income tax basically cradle the. grave socialism that has been not only. adopted by the Democratic party platform. but it's been adopted into law even. voted on and approved on a continuing. basis by many. Republicans they also changed to direct. election of senators right the count the.

founding fathers had it right that when. a. um uh the of course the the house is. voted every two years direct from the. people the Senate was supposed to come. from a choice from the state. legislatures so that the state of of. Tennessee would elect two senators from. the Tennessee State Legislature and send. it forward to Washington so that those. Senators did the bidding and did the. protection of those states. rights and when we went away from that.

now that Senator ah yeah they might be. elected by the state but all the money. for their campaign can come from some. national interest group generally. focused on growing the size of. government or enlarging the Monopoly or. duopoly. gen enjoyed by some some large. corporation that's. unregulated so between that as the. government grows uh and and I'd say the. other. real thing we need to push back on is to.

remember the 10th Amendment to the. Constitution right all powers not. specifically delegated to the state to. the federal government Remain the sole. perview of the states and so that. pendulum is swung way too far towards. Washington we need to swing that back. back. towards um towards State's rights. towards smaller government into more. decisions being made at the state and. local. level I think the other great challenge. we Face economically right so for the.

last 70 years we've enjoyed the dollar. being the world's Reserve currency right. all major trades in oil in in foreign. trade in grains and in AGR products all. clears in dollars okay and what that. allows Washington to do is spend. trillions of dollars. extra we spent now we're at the national. debt is like $33 trillion and that's up.

almost double in the last 15 18 years I. mean. extraordinary rate of. spending the problem right and and part. of. that part of the of the aura or the the. facade of the the dollar being the. world's Reserve currency is that there's. this American Military hegemony right we. have this amazing military that can. smack any Target anytime anywhere and. and when you have the debacle that was.

Afghanistan a failure in Iraq a failure. of deterrence in. Ukraine and we'll talk about Taiwan next. when you have those kind of setbacks and. now right when when when that failure of. deterrence now leads to conflict between. Russia and Ukraine and now everybody. goes Hog Wild on sanctioning everything. Russia right Russia is still the largest. energy producer in the world they're. going to sell their self they're going. to sell their stuff somewhere and.

somebody's going to buy it right less. than half of the world less than half of. all the countries at the UN actually. signed on to sanctions against Russia. right which leads all those other. countries outside of that sanction still. going to trade with Russia and so what. do Russia demand they want to be paid in. Rubles yeah and they'll trade with India. who can pay with rupes and the Chinese. uh will pay with uh rembi right so they. call it the three Rs and so they create. a trading block to further reduce the.

the hegemony that the dollar has in. trade and so trust me Bank on this when. when the dollar loses that status then. our idiots in Washington can't spend an. extra trillion dollars a year like we do. almost every year in debt and when. America has to finally live within its. means and start to pay that debt back. holy [ __ ] that is that is society. transforming level change what does that. look like and it's coming soon it's a.

diet it is a it's this this n it and and. it's good and it's bad in ying and yang. right it is short-term real pain. recession depression severe distortions. uh of the economy. but putting Washington on a diet is not. a not a terrible idea because you will. throw out a lot of the crazy. woke Insanity that has been that has.

been not just in Washington that's even. been seeping down to the state level. with all the federal grants that flow. everywhere else if we have to get back. to basics as a country then um uh it'll. be run a lot more like Hometown America. and not like Washington DC New York or. LA or San Francisco for that matter how. long do you think that could take to. play out and is it inevitable we're. going. there I'm not some great Economist.

Visionary but just looking at what's. happened in the past right when the and. what's scary about it. all you took a country like. Germany that Lost World War I. and they printed and printed and printed. money and the mighty history of the. German Prussian Society. collapsed and all that wealth was.

destroyed because it went from you know. one mark one German Mark to buy a loaf. of bread up to a billion marks to buy Lo. for bread just hyperinflation that ran. away and the German Society elected a. psychopath like Adolf. Hitler and that's the that's the kind of. insanity we have to. prevent uh because look the United. States and the constitutional government.

we we live under is still the greatest. form of government on Earth on this. planet that has ever been done and it is. worth protecting it is worth um. returning to those original Roots. because the Alternatives right there's. there's nowhere else to go right I the. other thing. that uh was alarming to. me there was a poll done about 3 weeks. after the Russian invasion of Ukraine it.

was a Quinny Pak poll right not a right. wing poll at all and it said how many. people in America if the country was. invaded would stay and. fight 75% of Republicans. said less than 50% of Democrats. no I'm sorry 40% of Democrats said they. would stay in Fight to defend the. country both those numbers were way too. low yeah and so you know a country is a.

country when its people have some. commonly held beliefs right a societ. that that's generally a description of. what makes a society and when we as. Society can't even agree on what is male. and female anymore then we have some. real fundamental problems yeah. yeah we. do let's move. [Music]. into China taking Taiwan. sure look Taiwan right was um the island.

of Formosa until um 1949 when the. Nationalist government got pushed out of. mainland China by the Communist party. right the Nationalist lost the Civil War. they go to Taiwan they go to Formosa now. it becomes the island of. Taiwan and a and be the politics back. and forth from 1949 till now uh it's not. fully independent not recognized. independent um but the Chinese the the.

Chinese Communist Party hates the idea. of Taiwan wants to reabsorb it exactly. like they've done to Hong Kong. fully because Taiwan is Han Chinese. culture but on freedom. not on communism and so even that that. irritant of 30 million Taiwanese living. breathing speaking. traveling freely is antithetical to the.

CCP control that they demand on the. entire 1.4 billion Chinese. citizens and so they have made it their. policy for a long time now to retake it. and they've spent billions and tens. hundreds of billions of dollars building. their military building a capability to. retake it by force I think. um the the stumbles of the Russians. invading Ukraine have certainly given. them some pause because Russia was their.

main certainly their main military. supplier um and their mentor and they. had a lot of respect for the Russian. military and to see it stumble as badly. as they have uh will certainly give them. pause an amphibious Invasion as you know. being a frog man is the hardest kind of. invasion to do right and it's one thing. if you're a tank division on the Russian. side of the Border in Ukraine you let. the clutch out and you roll across the. border but doing an amphibious operation. across 70 mies of open ocean onto a.

Rocky island generally into an urban. area where there's Mount immediately. with a lot of sanctuary Inland that that. opposition forces can can hide and fight. and Rally from and and from the T the. tunnel and Cave System that's a that is. a more complex problem and so uh I hope. the Taiwanese take their defense. seriously the idea of Americans going. and fighting there I have a real issue. with when the Taiwanese are not even. spending 2% of their GDP like most of.

our NATO so-called partners are not. spending 2% of their budgets on. defense when the. Taiwanese um wake up and do. that um you know well. I I hope the Taiwanese are not depending. on US government to save them because. they will be sorely. disappointed and the other thing that's. challenging right if so if you're. China it wouldn't lead with a straight.

out Invasion they'll probably cause some. issue or some crisis on some of the. smaller Islands owned by Taiwan right. where there's a 100 or 200 man Garrison. of timey soldiers and I can see the the. the CCP sending their Maritime militia. which is basically a fishing fleet with. some soldiers on board to go and see. some of those islands like they've done. uh throughout the South China Sea um. even some of those from the Philippines. in my travels in.

China uh I actually met the CEO of the. Chinese state-owned Enterprise I think. it was like China port and dredging. company that built all those islands in. the South China. Sea and said we never had it in our. wildest. dreams to build those islands but we. found the Obama Administration to be so. rapid that we just took it wow said go.

and so now they've built dozens of bases. all through the South China. Sea um and of course they first said. well it's just for trade purposes and if. we're going to watch the weather and now. of course they're fully weaponized with. surface to air missiles and surface to. surface and airfields and ports and they. built little fixed aircraft carriers all. through the the the South China Sea and. I understand why they're doing that I. don't agree with it but remember every. threat right you've heard of the Great.

Wall of China right and that was to. prevent Mongol Horsemen from coming in. from the north right off of off of. Mongolia and and the the Russian step so. they built that wall a millennia ago to. stop that this time the Chinese built a. great Maritime Wall of China because. every problem they've had during what. they call the the century of humiliation. which started in the 1840s with the. Opium Wars in the British right which. led to the the Hong Kong Koon trade.

Colony first it was the Brits then it. was the Americans 20 30 years later and. then the boxer issue where the the. Chinese res uh resisted against all the. um Western trade colonies that were in. in China around Shanghai and then of. course the Imperial Japanese Army and. Navy all of those problems came by sea. and so China is trying to move their. buffer out by doing that to the.

detriment of all their neighbors and. it's probably had more of an effect of. bringing all the neighbors together. against China than uh than what they. really bargain for what does it look. like for the world if they do take Tai. on well. if they if it's. a here's the thing Putin kind of. believed his own he believed his own. [ __ ] from his generals and. intelligence Chiefs that hey don't worry. we're going to roll in there they're. welcome this as Heroes and it's all.

going to be over in a few days and it. was clearly not the case and as. imperfect as Ukrainian democracy might. be I have to commend the people that. they showed up to fight right some of. the women left the country the men went. and did their part and and got it on. good on them if Taiwan can organize. itself to to block and hold and to. prevent an immediate collapse of the of. the government and to keep.

resisting it will force the rest of the. world to to get them Aid somehow and to. close off and to sanction China uh and. to make it more isolated and so that's. the I think that's the calculus that. xiin ping and the uh the standing. committee and the pollet bureau have to. figure out because remember they've. spent hundreds of billions of dollars. building their military still untested. all those senior officers and as much as. we might complain about us senior.

officers all the Chinese Senior officers. have bought and paid for their positions. they are political generals completely. nothing based on Merit to get to those. kind of ranks in the Chinese Communist. party so. so the question of amphibious. operation. hard do they really know what the will. of the time when thesee people are right. because if there's 29 million. people and only what 3% decide to stand.

and fight 3% of 29 is still a lot of. people especially fighting from a from. from an Urban defendable Terrain. yeah what about the computer chip I mean. they're if they Taiwan yeah look the. amount of computer chip production. that's in Taiwan is significant and I. think Taiwan semiconductor is spending. $10 billion in Arizona right now. building factories that's good that's.

again instead of spending $40 billion to. Ukraine let's spend more money or give a. loan guarantee or something to move more. of that capacity to. America I think all the supply chain. debacle we're feeling in the United. States. uh is a stark reminder that things can. go to [ __ ] pretty quickly right whether. it's being dependent on China for things. as simple as antibiotics and Advil or. painkillers or PP or personal protective.

equipment or computer chips or batteries. for cars or whatever look the. um the free trade promise of NAFTA and. of admitting China into the World Trade. Organization was an elite decision made. in Washington that has largely enriched. the coastal Elites and the private. Equity crowd and it has hollowed out.

many um and most of of Middle America. right it's led to wage depression it's. led to a lot of unemployment to opiate. addiction all those those bad things. that come from despair like I said a few. minutes ago of that average guy that. wakes up every morning and is trying to. feed his family get their kids off to. school and uh and keep a roof over for. their head they Outsource the. decision-making to the people that are. supposed to be smart and the Elites in. America have let us down again and again. and again and now I think the next.

Administration there has to be choices. made when when you look at how America. right after World War II it's like the. cold war started immediately and so we. kind of immedi medely it was us in them. it was a pro- freedom capitalism Market. versus a Soviet government controlled no. Liberty right you work you you're owned. by the state with. China the the Paradigm was if if we by.

trading with them and providing them. technology we make China Rich that will. make them like us and that has proven to. be an absolute fallacy and. so by making them rich they've actually. hurt a huge segment of our economy of. our manufacturing base which has all. been shipped to. China and uh and they continue to steal. technology um without limitation and. they've kind of continued their.

same uh I would say totalitarian. policies um and now you know even even. to the point now of putting in the whole. social credit score and the monitoring. and the surveillance State it's kind of. an Awan nightmare gone to up. and so seeing that enough in China I. will fight with every last drop of my. blood to prevent that that Paradigm from. soaking into. America moving into our last topic what.

does the future of warfare look like. with all the new tech that's coming out. it's already I mean it's in the past 20. years it's completely different out. there on the battlefield and and where. do you think we're headed. well as that Siege in marapole. showed that combat still comes down. to controlling block by block bunker by. bunker and that combat is not surgical.

clean technical or. whatever and that um it still comes down. to controlling ground and and you know. military victories Drive diplomatic. breakthroughs so the future of warfare. people want to think that we can techno. Wizardry our way into success yes Tech. certainly has a role and you know think. of it this. way the the Pentagon talks about.

strategic offsets like what is the. Strategic advantage that we have that. our enemies don't have so that we can. always be assured of a win right the. first strategic offset was nuclear. weapons right we're trying to always be. out in front of the Soviets to out nuke. them if we had to and then it went to. Precision strike right like what we. rolled out in the mid 80s to '90s which. you saw in Gulf War I Gulf War II now. taken to an extreme amount where you can.

smoke a guy in a moving you know SUV and. kill one guy in the car but not somebody. outside the car right the most surgical. Precision strike because you know that. that's the. Mandate but now Precision strike is in. the hands of everybody from Isis right. who can fly a. drone and with a camera drop a grenade. from 2,000 ft in the air and and fly and.

and drop that grenade through a a open. hatch on Humvee when it's proliferated. to that level when you can do Precision. strike with stuff that you can pulled. together from a Radio Shack we clearly. don't have the Monopoly there anymore so. then it will be. I think um it's going to have to come. down to autonomy and some kind of. autonomous weapons that can fly in a. largely 100% jammed environment and. still try to find this objective and and. destroy it so communication.

navigation become exceedingly difficult. I think um if you're China and you want. to figure out how do we blind America. what are they dependent on calms they've. overcomed themselves to death. um so they probably maybe they crank off. an EMP in um in the atmosphere somewhere. to block or to either fry or or block. that satellite. transmission. um how do you navigate I think it's very.

important for people to teach people uh. Celestial Navigant and and all the. basics of of when all the other Tech is. Stripped Away what are you left with so. it's um I think there's nothing that new. in Warfare. it's just how you apply uh some new toy. new new Tools in uh in old ways what. about propa think about the other thing. right despite all the tech weather still. matters weather so far in Ukraine has.

totally been on the side of the. defender the the because Ukraine has got. lots of farm fields and what are Farm. Fields covered with snow they're muddy. unless it's frozen super hard. which even by the time Putin had invaded. that was starting to fade so now all his. heavy armor vehicles and truck and. Logistics support are channeled onto. very narrow very defined roads which are. easy to Target by Ambush or artillery or.

whatever but now as the fields dry in. Ukraine as we get towards June right the. the biggest tank battle in history was. June 3 the Battle of KK just north of. where they're fighting now. um because the fields could dry so you. had massive maneuver spaces for those. kind of armor forces so that's still. well within the realm of. possible how much propaganda do you. think or how much does propaganda have a.

role in the. future of course it does it's always. always getting bigger bigger and bigger. it's it look propaganda has always had a. role in in Warfare. and it's um as we become more and more. uh glued to our phones and what's pushed. in front of us it's. um uh it definitely affects the morale. the the will to fight or the will not to. fight uh or to help somebody and the.

ukrainians have done a very good job of. uh of ringing that Bell for uh for. propaganda right I mean again zalinsky. has come out with some great on liners. very photogenic stuff and. um uh uh they have and and look in. defense of them it's their country they. were clearly. invaded. um it's not like the ukrainians were. actually threatening to uh to invade. Russia yeah there's there's a there's a.

pretty clear aggressor here so it's. pretty easy to pile on with propaganda. on top of. that what do you think the biggest. threat to the United States is at this. point our biggest threat is internal is. again if we can't even agree on what's. male and female anymore if we can't even. agree on what is a free and fair. election if we can't even agree right. and because the other attribute of a. country is something that has defined. and defended borders right so we have. one party that's intentionally erasing.

borders that is doing I would say some. very questionable things around. elections if you haven't seen the movie. 2000 mules watch it I don't think. anybody can say that the the 2020. election was the freest and fairest in. history after watching that right if it. looks like a duck and it quacks like a. duck it's a. duck um and so that kind of election. fraud must not happen. again. and I think the uh the rule by.

Elites um has led us down a uh an. extremely dangerous. path um the hegemony that America has. experienced right cuz we came out of. World War II with a massive industrial. base. undamaged by War right Japan smoked. Germany smoked Russia. smoked we put some money into some of. those places to help rebuild them but. those economies came roaring back but we.

have been kind of we we've kind of. become like an obese TR athlete um we're. still kind of running we're still kind. of at it but we're we're not in our. Prime shape right now because we've done. a lot. of uh um incremental bad habits which. have never been cleaned. up so you think the. recession is going to pull us out of. this what do you mean pull us down no. pull us we're going to come out we. talked earlier about a ression maybe a.

depression uh the long R there's. definitely going to be we can't have the. there's been so much stimulus thrown at. the economy that's why there's so much. inflation right now and so you have to. soak up some of that ESS funds with a. higher interest rate and that's going to. cause a contraction in economic activity. and so the question is you know like. Paul. wulker the chairman of the FED in the. 1980s for Reagan right he ran interest.

rates quite high and there was some. pretty strong medicine for a couple. years um which soaked up the inflation. but at the same time Reagan was cutting. cutting taxes and cutting regulations. and and kind of taking the boot off the. neck of the American entrepreneur. in what was then a much more competitive. economy than we have now because we've. allowed so much concentration in so many. Industries where you only have one or. two major competitors in most of these. places so whether it's a single maker or.

a single buyer of a product in both. cases the consumer gets screwed so the. next presidency has to have a massively. increased Federal Trade. Commission doj that's focused on on on. breaking up monopolistic activ AC. ity in return competition and that will. allow people's wages to uh to rise. again well I want to wrap this interview. up and and and this is a phenomenal. interview thank you for being here.

thanks for having me what's next for you. what do you got coming. up um working on some things in the. communication space that will be uh. spectacular and I'll come back and talk. to you about it when I do perfect all. right all right well best luot to you. and and seriously I really appreciate it. it's been an honor cheers.