When you're ready to pop the question.

The last thing you want to do.

Is second guess the ring.

At blue nile.com, comma, you can design a one of a kind ring with the ease and convenience of shopping online. Choose your diamond and setting. When you found the one, you'll get.

It delivered right to your door.

Go to blue nile.com and use promo.

Code pod to get $50 off your purchase of dollar 500 or more. That's code podluenile.com for $50 off your purchase.

Blue nile.com code pod.

Tucker carlson, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, man.

You're welcome. Thank you for being here.

I wanted to come.

I've been looking forward to this for so long. I haven't told anybody cause I didn't want to jinx it. And now here you are, jinxed it.

I was super psyched. I saw your tape. I was like, well, that guy is real, unlike most people on the Internet. And I texted, you, got your number. I was like, that guy's not to brag, but I was like, that guy's gonna be a success.

Thank you. Thank you.

He's not lying like everybody else.

Yeah, we, so, yeah, we actually got connected through Buck Sexton, so.

Oh, is that what it was?

Yeah, our mutual friend Buck. So I gotta give Buck a shout out, man.

I love that.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Did you work with him?

No, we never actually worked at CIA at the same time we met. You know how we met? We met. He had reached out to me because of the Eric Prince interview and I heard him on the radio kind of talking about that interview and then we got connected and became buddies and so, yeah. And then it developed into, yeah, it's wild, put us in contact.

So I love that.

Yeah, me too. But, so we got a lot of stuff to cover today in a short amount of time. But I'd love to. I've not heard your life story on any other interviews and so I'd love to kind of start there if you're willing.

It's not that interesting. That's why I haven't talked about it. I'm not super. I've seen a lot of interesting stuff. My story's not that interesting. I was born in San Francisco.

Well, hold on, hold on, hold on. We'll get there. But let me give you a quick introduction.

Great.

Tucker Carlson, you are one of the leading voices in american politics. You host the Tucker Carlson Show, a brand new long form conversational podcast. Time magazine has called you the most powerful conservative in America. After spending decades in cable news, you launched an online media company, TCN, to provide an alternative to corporate media that is dedicated to telling the truth about things that matter clearly and without fear. Tucker Carlson hosted Fox News Channel's flagship primetime cable news program. Tucker Carlson Tonight. It was and still is the highest rated program in cable news history. Before that, you hosted other programs on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. You are the author of two recent New York Times bestsellers, ship of fools in the long slide. Husband been with your wife 40 years.

40 years. 19 years.

Congratulations. That's incredible.

She was 15. I was 33. It was weird.

Father to four children.

Yep.

Three girls, one boy.

Exactly.

In the last year, you've shattered viewership records and reshaped the media landscape by bringing your interviews and reporting online. You've recently interviewed Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk, and many more of the biggest names in news and politics around the world. You're 22 years sober.

22 years.

And a man of God.

I would never call myself a man of God, but I definitely believe in God. Yeah. I am a Christian. Yes.

So am I missing any? I'm sure I'm missing a lot.

No, I mean, that's all half true. Yeah. I turned 55 tomorrow, so it's a little, it is weird. I try to be too reflective because that's just a, well, you can fall down and not get out of. But I basically just had the same job my whole life and just kept getting fired or having the mediums that I worked in disappear like magazines and newspapers, cable news, broadcast television, that all just kind of went away as the country changed. So I do feel blessed to have not a second act, but like a 9th act. I do really feel fortunate. I am fortunate not for the money, even, or especially, but for the chance to do something that I like and that I think is sort of productive. And I have a lot of energy, and I need to channel it into something that's not, not negative or self destructive. And so I'm just really grateful. You don't want to be a middle aged man, as I am, without an outlet.

Well, you've definitely had a superb career and continue to. What is it that you think that people gravitate?

I'm not self aware. I refuse to be self aware. I don't even like mirrors at all, which you can probably tell from my appearance. So I have literally no idea. But I do think that especially in the, I mean, I think a lot of things, but in the last few years, it's become clear to me that the categories that I thought were real or not, and that it really is a contest, in fact, a war between the truth and deception. And so I believe I don't always know what the truth is, and I've certainly repeated a lot of things that were lies, mostly unintentionally. I try not to lie. I have lied, but I try not to. But I've certainly said a ton of things that were wrong. But I am trying to tell the truth. I am not the whole truth all the time. You don't have to say everything you think you shouldn't, but you can't lie. And I think that people can feel that. It's why I'm sitting right here. It's why I was attracted to your podcast. Someone sent me a clip, and I actually loved the content. I thought it was interesting and open minded.

Mostly, I thought it was real. And I think that you can perceive that on, like, a gut level. Like, I know when someone's lying to me. I don't always know what he's lying about or why he's lying, but I can smell deception, as we all can from our instincts, instantly. And I don't have any special powers of any kind. I don't have a crazy high iq, or I really don't have that many skills. But I would say my main skill is I believe my instincts. Like, I don't think they lie to me. They're not trying to sell me something. They're not trying to get elected. They're there to serve me. I really believe that that's true. Of all people and animals. I love animals. So I see this at work in animals as well. And I don't hesitate to follow my instincts ever. And to the extent that I have, I've gotten in trouble. So, again, I don't always know what those instincts mean. As I say to my children, they are unerring, but imprecise, like, they are absolutely real 100% of the time. The question is, how do you interpret them? Do you know what I mean?

I do. I know exactly what you're saying.

Well, it's probably why you're still alive, because you know what I'm talking about, right? Exactly. Yeah.

Every time I don't, and I go against it, I regret it.

Oh, oh. I could write a book on the counter instinctual moves I've made that turned out to be disasters or the conclusions that I reached against my own. I mean, this was the thing for me with the vaxxer. I didn't know anything about. I was not against vaccines, particularly and I grew up in a town in LA Jolla, California, that was sort of, the whole town was based on the polio vaccine that the Salk institute, Jonas Salk Institute was there. I was not against vaccines. I hadn't really thought about them. I thought they were, I guess, miracles of science. That's what I was told. I don't even know what I think of vaccines now, but I'm skeptical. But the COVID vaccine, all I knew, I didn't know anything about mRNA technology. Of course I still am not an expert on that, but I know a lot about human deception because that's been my job my whole life. And also I'm just trying to pay attention to whether something is true or false. And the behavior of the people selling me, that was so transparently dishonest. I didn't know that the vax wouldn't work, which it didn't, of course they didn't know that it would cause harm, which it did.

But I did know that the people selling it were liars. Like, I knew that instantly. And I know some of them, but I can just tell by their behavior they're lying. And I was like, I don't know what this is. No one in my family's getting this, we're not doing this and I'm not doing this. Period. Period. Like, I figured that out the first day. Yeah, that's not true. I did not figure it out. I still haven't figured it out, but I felt it so strongly and I just obeyed. And I think that works.

I think it does too.

Yeah.

You know something? I wanted to ask you to rewind a little bit. I ask everybody who's in a successful marriage this question. You've been with your wife 40 years?

Yup.

I think you said you've been married for 33 years.

Yes.

In a country where divorce is the commonality, what would you say the secret to a successful marriage is?

I mean, luck, destiny, providence plays a huge role. You're not the author of your success or entirely of your failures. I would say also there's a lot that happens in life that is not the product of choices that you made. Free will is overrated. I'm becoming more calvinist by the day. Just watch it. Does the five year old get leukemia because she did something wrong? Like. No, a lot of things. You spent a lot of your life in war. People, you know, who died, did they desert? You know what I mean? It's like you don't. Things happen that are not for good and bad, that are not sort of up to you. And so a lot of having a happy marriage is just marrying someone with whom you're compatible and you change. I met my wife in 1984, and it's a completely different country, and we're different people, but we're different in the same way. Who's responsible? You know who did that? I didn't really. I hear people say, oh, marriages are hard. I've never had a hard time. I've always enjoyed it. There are hard times. You got a lot of little kids. You've got little kids.

It's, like, pretty hard. But I've always been happy to be married to her and more happy as the years go by. But to the extent that you can control these things, like pick the right person, do not marry a stripper. They're all crazy. I'm sure some are nice. I've known some who are nice. I'm serious. But they're damaged. Try to marry a girl who likes her dad. I think that's important. Or who did like her dad when she was little.

Why do you think that's important? I've never heard anybody say that.

Cause I've noticed it. I've noticed it. I've noticed it a lot. In up close. I mean, I'm not guessing. I could be completely wrong. This is just an observation of mine. Girls who like their dads or who like their, you know, everyone's disappointed by his dad or her dad in later life. Like, you learn that your dad's human, and holy shit, I can't believe he's human. I thought he was God. So there's. That's natural. But, you know, when you're eight, if you're deeply disappointed in your dad, especially as a girl, yeah. That leaves a mark. And I've known women who had terrible relationships with their fathers, who were wonderful people and well balanced people, but it's harder for sure. And if a girl has a completely contentious relationship with her father and has been betrayed by him, the family abandoned by him, that can really have an effect. Whereas a woman who grew up really loving her dad and feeling secure in his leadership as a dad and his love as a dad, that girl is more secure and less jumpy. And she's not thinking that every argument's going to lead to divorce. The thing about damage in childhood is it's hard to sort of let go of those patterns and products of divorce.

Like me, for example. It takes a while to realize that you have a disagreement. That's okay. It's not the end of the world. You're not gonna get divorced. So I think that's important. Second, just resolve not to get divorced. I do think that's important. I'm not a particularly virtuous person at all, actually. But I did. When I got married, I had lived through a divorce as a child. I was like, I'm not doing that, like, period. My wife came from a stable family, and she was like, divorce? Like what? That was not even a thing. But I resolved, like, I'm not doing that. And so that, I think, is helpful to decide. Here are the boundaries. Like, whatever we're doing, we're not splitting up. But I would say the main thing is spending time with your wife when your kids are little, which is really hard. It's so hard. And you love your kids, and so it's very tempting, or it's natural, actually, to divert your attention from your spouse to your children. Cause they're your children, and that's natural, and you should do that. But it's also very easy indeed. It's the natural course to ignore your spouse in favor of your children.

Cause children are instantly affirming your spouse is complicated. You can be with a woman for, as I have, 40 years and still only get, like, 65% comprehension of what she's saying. Cause she's a woman, so you can't really understand. You know what I mean?

I do.

Which is, of course, the beauty of it. That's why it's interesting and fresh and like a challenge and cool, and you learn a lot. And if she was just like you, you would learn nothing. It's just narcissism. It's masturbation. But because she's so different from you, it's like, what? It forces you out of yourself to figure it out. But the temptation for men is to be like, okay, I have a choice of hanging out with my five year old. It's like, dad, you're so great. And my wife, who's kind of pissed at me for reasons I don't really understand, she's just crazy. So I'm going to just go out for the kids because that's like the sugar high. That's like, plus, they're my kids, so I can justify it. If you keep doing that, you will destroy your marriage. And it's so vital for men to force themselves to work through the crazy. Your wife is not. Oh, she's kind of crazy, of course, but she's not deeply crazy, actually. She's probably wise. And to force yourself to get over that hump, which is the first ten minutes you're like, I can't. What the are you saying?

Leave me alone. You're crazy to get past that and realize, no, actually, she's trying to tell me something that's really important and be humble enough to hear it and assess it rationally. And that's a process. It's painful at first, and I have found the two techniques that practical techniques at work are long walks, because you're not facing each other. So if there's a dispute, you don't have to look into each other's eyes. It's too intense. You know, it's like big cats can't stare at each other without eating each other. I've never had a problem in my marriage that I couldn't walk off. And then the higher level of that is the day long, in bed summit meeting for, like, big issues. So if you have, like, a long, not a minor, but, like, a longstanding issue, a family problem, for example, what do we do about that? That's very complicated. I don't know what to do. I think we kind of disagree, and I'm pissed at you about it. And it sort of simmers. That's when you check into a hotel for a weekend, and you get room service, you get butt naked, and you sit in bed, and you talk about it indirectly in the way you do on a sensitive subject.

You don't dive right in, but you get comfortable and you stay there until it's solved.

I've never heard that one either. That's great.

In our family, we call these summit meetings. We have a couple famous ones that have solved big problems. We don't have big problems. We never had big problems. But are things where you have a difference of opinion and you don't want to fight, so you don't fully articulate it, but you're just like, you know, it's always the same, she's crazy, he's an asshole. She's crazy, he's an asshole. It's like, you know, it's like those are the defaults, right? And so it's. But you realize that she's not crazy, and you're probably slightly less of an asshole than she assumed you were, and you just need to talk it through, and that just. It takes time, and it also takes some balls to face female dissatisfaction. Like, I don't care. The bravest man, I don't care how many terrorist doors you've breached. Facing off against a pissed off wife is the scariest thing you'll ever do. It's scarier than jumping out of an airplane no man wants to do it. That's why they golf. And to make yourself do that is really hard. That's called leadership. Actually, that is male leadership. And it's so worth it. It's so worth it.

But you never wanna do it. The man's impulse is to run away every single. I don't care how honorable you think you are.

Yeah.

You're not gonna, like, abandon her, go get a pack of cigarettes and not come back. Okay. Though that happens. But you're gonna abandon her in subtle, easy to justify ways, mostly by hanging with your kids. Why would you wanna deal with her? You know what I mean? She's mad at you. And the last thing I'll say is, if you wanna have happy children, have a happy marriage. That is the most important thing you can do for your children. If it's a choice between going to Dylan's soccer game and taking your wife to dinner, take your wife to dinner, your kids will benefit from that much more than anything you could do for them. Any game you could go to, any bedtime store, you could read to them, focus, make your wife happy, and your children will be happy and secure. What they want is security, predictability, knowing that at the center of the family is. Is an immovable rock called this marriage, this love between man and wife. And you will find that you want kids who like each other, which is the measure of happy kids. They like each other and you want kids who are, like, calm and reasonable and happy and not addicted to drugs.

Have a happy marriage. And I think it's that simple. I think it's that simple.

Man, that's great advice. Thank you.

It's worked for me.

Do you know how many people that's probably gonna help? That's amazing.

Well, it's pretty simple. But don't run away. They all wanna run away. I felt that so many times. I can't deal with this. I'm out of here. I've got important things to do. I love the.

Marry a girl that loves her dad. That is something I've never heard of. And, well, I had a really close friend.

I don't wanna reveal too much. It's like someone really close to me who married, like, a truly crazy woman that's a relative of mine. Like, actually crazy. He's, like, flamboyant. There's no. It's not a close call. This is like a crazy, malicious, narcissist drug addict. Like, actual. And this is a very smart person. And I said to him once, like, we were on a hunting trip. We're sitting on a duck blind, actually. And I said, I don't want to hurt your feelings, or is this all kind of personal and it's too close and all this, but why'd you do that? She's completely bonkers and bad. And he said to me, there are upsides. That's not like what he said. There are upsides. And she hated her dad. You know, she hated her dad, but there were upsides, if you know what I mean. And for the purposes of, like, a weekend, you know, men are really easily controlled. It's totally true. They're very easily controlled. They're such simple organisms. And. And so, yeah, but if it's a choice between a hot weekend in Reno or a lifetime of happiness, you can lead them through predictability, reliability, good leadership, providing, protecting, doing the things that men are on this earth to do.

You can lead them to a pretty awesome sex life. Just to be blunt, but it is not worth, like, I don't care how crazy she is in the sack or whatever, you do not want to marry an unhappy, crazy person, like, at all. I mean, this is obvious, but the consequences of that are, I'd rather have cancer, you know?

Yeah. Yeah.

Not to be too blunt.

No, that was great stuff. So we have a subscription account. It's on Patreon. One of the things that I give them the opportunity to do because they've been so good to us. They've been here since the beginning. They're our best supporters, our top supporters. And so I give them an opportunity to ask a question.

Oh, I love it.

Every interview. And so this is from Michael Cummings. You know, I've seen a lot during my time as a Navy SeAL and a CIA contractor, and I've learned even more hosting this show. The one thing I can tell you for sure is that it pays to be prepared. Right now, with our national debt surging to unfathomable levels, global tension rising in the corruption in Washington, ask yourself, are you prepared financially? Me? I'm buying gold and silver so I'm not caught off guard by the next recession or global conflict. And I've teamed up with one of the top gold IRA companies, Gold Co. To make that happen. So I want you to go to seanlikesgold.com or call 855936 goLd. You'll get a free 2024 wealth protection kit from Gold Co. Plus you may qualify for up to 10,000 in bonus silver while supplies last. So go to seanlikesgold.com or call 855936 gold and get your bonus silver today. Once again, that's 855936 gold or visit seanlikesgold.com. performance may vary. Consult with your tax attorney or financial professional before making an investment decision. This show is sponsored by better help. This year has flown by. I can't believe we're already almost halfway through.

When life goes fast, it's important to take a moment to celebrate your wins and make plans for the rest of the year. Therapy can help you take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months. Therapy is so helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. It isn't just for those who've experienced major trauma. Therapy truly is for everyone. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist at any time for no additional charge. Take a moment. Visit betterhelp.com seantoday to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelph help.com. sean, if you had to make one statement about who you believe really runs this country, what would it be?

It depends what you mean by who. Its really a class of people. Its the people who are the beneficiaries of our fake meritocracy, the people with the most merit badges, the people who bought into the lie that undergirds the current disaster, which is if you come up through these legacy institutions and gather the degree or the resume, or you go to whatever, Horace Mann and then Andover and then Yale and then HBS and McKinsey, and you go up through whatever the tokens of achievement that we hand out to a certain class of people, that you will be a wise leader. That's demonstrably untrue. Of course, they've mismanaged all the big things, the things that matter, the economy or foreign policy, and they've destroyed the family, too. So really the worst people. But it's the products of that system, a group I'm highly familiar with that have wrecked everything but are still currently in charge. And the struggle between Trump and Biden is not a struggle between two guys, two elderly men with different worldviews. No, it's a struggle between classes of people. These are symbols, right? I mean, they're people, of course. But in the case of Trump as a person, Biden is not fully human anymore because he's got dementia.

But whatever, I shouldn't say not fully.

Human, but he's not fully functioning human.

Yeah, he's not a totally autonomous being anymore. He doesn't have personal sovereignty anymore. But whatever. But it's not even about them. Even if he did, it's not about them. It's about classes of people and who should be running the country. Should it be the people, this leadership class, which really is the product of a quite elaborate grooming system that's come up over the last century, but really accelerated post war past 80 years? Or like the rest of the people who live here, should they have a voice too? Should they have any power? But that's who's running it. And it's quite a large group, actually, I am. You know, I grew up, if not in, and certainly adjacent to that group. So I'm quite knowledgeable about it and I've lived around it. So I know it when I see it, instantly, know it when I see it. And I didn't question it really as much as I do now. Now I find it completely repulsive and immoral and really disgusting, actually. But I didn't always feel that way because I didn't fully understand it. But the reason that it's so hard to describe who's really in charge and why people often decide, like, well, it's got to be bohemian Grove or some small group of people.

The reason that it's so hard to really pinpoint who's making the decisions is because it's quite large and diffuse. It's an entire class of people with similar instincts and similar vested interests in things. And they unfortunately just have an awful lot of power and they control the monopolies that define our economy.

Do you think that are these people you're talking about, are they controlling the country or are they controlling the world?

Well, that's a really interesting question, and I don't know if I've arrived at a really clear answer, but it's certainly obvious at this point that borders are overrated as meaningful distinctions between. Do countries matter? No. I mean, globalization was originally conceived as an economic system, a much more efficient economic system, where, like. Like it's cheaper to do one thing in that country, it's cheaper to do this thing in that country. And why don't we just network them effectively and that'll be a much more efficient economy and we'll grow GDP, which we claim is an accurate measure of something, I guess, of wealth. It's not, but let's just say that was the thought. But what it turned into, because governance does tend to follow economics. What it turned into was a leadership system. So in other words, what we thought was just like a way to get cheaper electronics from the far east turned out to be effectively world government. Not, of course, strictly speaking world government, not officially world government in the way that we sort of people feared 40 years ago. The UN's going to run everything. It's much more informal than that, but much more durable than that.

So it's a network of businesses, governments, intel agencies, for sure, and NGO's that determine what's allowed and what's not allowed. And as someone who travels a lot abroad and has on and off my whole life, I don't know that it has amounted to much, but I definitely have been a lot of places, as you have, the most noticeable trend, and I traveled a lot as a kid, so I've sort of seen the difference. The most noticeable trend is the homogenization of everything. Everything looks the same, the attitudes are all the same. Everyone has the same fashionable attitudes that are really top down delivered. And the world has just sort of lost its differences. There are some exceptions. There are some places you go, I really want to go to North Korea, not because I have any love for this Stalinism, of course, I don't. I hate it. But I do sort of want to be a place that's a little bit different from other places, because I actually believe in diversity in the truest sense. I think differences are fine. I actually like them. I appreciate them. I think we need them. I think nature creates differences.

God creates differences. So I resent the fact that everything is the same. But that is one measure of the power of this class. It's international. It's completely international. The whole idea of a sovereign nation putting one country's interest before another country, it's completely alien to the way the leadership class thinks. Completely. You know, I just. Well, things go to shit here. I'll move to Singapore, and if they, you know, the Chinese do to Singapore what they did to Hong Kong, then I'm in Abu Dhabi, and if things go to shit there, then I'm in wherever the next place is, do you know what I mean? Baker's Bay or whatever. It's a way of thinking, and it's hard to defeat that, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it's. Man, it just seems so complicated and that.

But it's a conspiracy of instinct. It's almost like you saw this with the COVID vax. I was watching this and I was like, what the fuck is going on? Why is everybody saying exactly the same thing? Are there talking points that went out? Well, of course, there were actually talking points that went out and there was a conspiracy to bribe hospitals and churches and all these different groups to stick with the message. The same message. But it was more than that. It was just like a certain sort of person reaches the same conclusion. The people, and really a lot of it's economic. It's like the people who've derived the greatest benefit from american society or global elite society as it currently exists are almost, to a person, the least productive people in this society. People who like loan money at interest, really. I mean, I guess there's a role for finance, I guess, in a society. But tell me how. People who loan money for a living should be the most revered and the most highly rewarded. No, they probably shouldn't be, actually. The people who make things, who innovate in a true sense, who actually improve human life, people who say profound things, create beautiful things, like, they should be rewarded.

So it's all the. The truth is the people in charge are the least impressive, they're the least important. If they went away tomorrow, if, like, I don't know, Susan Rice and Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, is like a freaking moron and a bad person. If she went away tomorrow, would that, like, would that be bad or. It wouldn't have any difference. She's never done anything. And so that class of people which has disproportionately benefited from our system has a lot to lose. A lot. The most to lose. Like, if I'm a super competent diesel mechanic, diesel engines are going to be around for a long time. Sorry. You're not going to do long haul trucking on an electric motor. Sorry. Just we're not anytime soon. So if I can fix a diesel engine, my value is demonstrable. Probably not going to be unemployed, actually. But if you're Janet Yellen and you're, like, an economist who knows nothing about economics and your whole life is getting paid off by the banks, which hers has been, you're not really needed, actually. You're a net drain on society. And so someone like that has a lot to protect.

Like a lot. Like the whole edifice of bullshit could just come crashing down on her, right?

Yeah.

So she's a lot jumpier than your average diesel mechanic.

Why do you think? I mean, you're talking about how old is Janet Yellen?

She's got to be several hundred years old, I think. Janet Yellen, who's like a criminal and she literally was fed chair and she took payoffs from the banks, really, for speeches.

Why aren't they? People like her, people like Pelosi, people like Mitch McConnell. Why don't they hit this point where they go, I'm going to enjoy all of the corrupt money that I've accumulated over the 80 years that I've been doing this. Is there ever a time when enough is enough for them? I mean, they're gonna, well, the worship.

Of money is a sin, of course, but it's also a lie. It doesn't make you happy. It doesn't fill the void. It doesn't get you to heaven. And to repeat that most tired of all cliches that you never hear anymore, you can't take it with you. So it's just a lie. It's a disease, and it's a moral disease, and it's one that no one mentions anymore. So greed is not only fine, it's celebrated. Well, it's disgusting. I'm just gonna remind everybody of that. It's not bad to have enough. It's bad to have too much, actually. But no one believes that anymore at all. And it's considered like you're a socialist or something. If you say greed is bad, well, no, you're not. I'm hardly a, I hate socialism. I'm not a socialist. And thankfully, I've been like a public right winger for so long, I don't think anyone actually thinks I'm a socialist. I'm a right winger, always have been, I guess, whatever that means now. But a greed is bad. It's not a virtue, it's a vice. And they're all besotted with greed, of course. And they think that the more you accumulate, I don't know what happens.

You become, actually. It's a function of power. The more power you have, the more you feel like God. But you're not God. You're just like some ungainly primate feeling his way through the dark like we all are. And you'll be negatively rewarded for those attitudes at some point very soon. So it's sad on one level, but it's also, if your whole leadership class is just about serving itself, it's all about greed and hubris, which it is. You're going to have really terrible leadership, and we do. It's only about leadership, by the way. I mean, you're in the military. I don't even tell you, but bad leaders result in death. That's obvious, right? It's less obvious at the scale of 350 million people in our society. But it's still true. It's true in the family. A bad dad wrecks the family, wrecks his daughters. Yeah, right.

Yep. Very true. Let's move into. Let's move into your life story. So we're gonna start at childhood.

Yeah.

Hit your news career. And then we got a whole bunch of rabbit holes to go down.

Great.

Where'd you grow up?

I was born in San Francisco, California. Children's Hospital. Same hospital Jerry Garcia was born in. Not to brag. In 1969, spring, we moved to Los Angeles. My mother's from San Francisco. My father's from Boston. Moved to LA. My dad worked for ABC News in Los Angeles. When I was, like, six, my mom split and ultimately moved to France. I guess I never saw her again.

Hold on. She just left when I was six.

She left? Yeah, when I was six. Boo hoo. Poor me.

How many? How many?

One brother, who I'm very close to, have always been extremely close to my best friend and who's a year and a half younger than I am. So we grew up with our dad and we moved.

What did your mom, did she tell you she was leaving or you just came home, she was gone, or she.

My dad worked for ABC News, and he had been quite successful as a reporter, and he got into some dispute with management, which is a family trait. And basically, actually, it was pretty funny. In television, you get free clothes from the wardrobe department, and so you get measured for suits every year or whatever. And he never got his suits. And so he called the tailor. I'll never forget this. When this happened, I was in first grade, and he calls the tailor. He's like, are my suits coming? Where are my suits? And the guy, you know, six weeks ago, and the guy's like, actually, I've been told not to make your suits by management because you're getting fired. That's television for you. You learn from the tailor, you're getting fired. So he got fired. And he was like, he got a job in San Diego at a CB's affiliate in San Diego called KFMB. And we moved, my brother and I and our houseman and the dogs, our springer Spaniels. We got in the car and drove San Diego, and my mom just wasn't there. And we lived in a hotel for a while and for quite a while.

And then we moved to a town called La Jolla, which is a little bit north of San Diego. Very pretty town. And when I was in first grade and I lived with my dad and my brother and our dogs, and we had, like, the best time. I mean, it was sad. One of the reasons I don't talk about it very often because it sounds like, oh, I had such a hard life, but I really had a great life. And I love my dad. I worship my dad, and I still do. And I see him every day, and I love him. And my brother. I always love my brother. So we had a really happy life and quite eccentric, but quite happy.

I mean, what would your dad say when you'd ask?

He never attacked her. He never attacked her. He would. She just kind of split, and she, you know, whatever, I don't want it. I don't want to get into the woe is me stuff. I don't think she liked us for some reason. Not clear, but she was pretty clear about that. And she was involved in drugs and alcohol and stuff and was quite. She was a sculptor, so she was pretty eccentric. And our family was definitely not like every other family at all. But I thought in a good way, but definitely more kind of cerebral and, like, you know, we didn't play sports or go to sports games or watch television. We would just have, like, extremely long dinners with random people always in the house and talk about books and ideas and the news and all this stuff. And, like, you know, it was just a different time. Everybody smoked cigarettes. Everyone, you know, liked art. And it was a kind of world that just absolutely does not exist now. But I really enjoyed it. But there was, you know, a high level of eccentricity was tolerated, you know, and I think that's very good.

It makes creativity possible, you know, like we. Yeah, it was just different. Different attitudes. Very, very different attitudes. All gone now, but it was cool. I had a wonderful childhood, actually, and I became extremely close to my father and my brother. And my mother was from a very affluent family. My father was an orphan and who had lived at the home for little wanderers in Boston as a child, you know, in the early forties. And so it was. Your mother came from a afflown family, and my father was a completely self made guy who never finished high school and joined the Marine Corps at 17 and was a very tough human being. Like, actually tough, not fake tough, but legit tough, but a very decent guy and a hyper intense intellectual and self educated, but with the motivation that comes from knowing that you didn't graduate high school. He went to jail. And so he was like, he'd keep a book on the dashboard of his car for red lights, like he's that guy. And just very intellectually engaged. I mean, he could sit at a table and often did, you know, smoking cigarettes, recounting a book.

He had just read, like, in detail. And my brother and I would just be spellbound, and we would have. I mean, I'm not joking. We would have, like, six hour dinners. Not kidding. And it was just great. It was great. And a very outdoorsy person loved camping and nature and hunting and fishing, very much about nature, and dogs and books. So that was a wonderful childhood. He got remarried to an amazing woman who just passed away, and really a beautiful soul.

How old were you when he got remarried?

Ten, maybe, something like that. I think I was ten. And he very much reserved the right to raise us. He had very eccentric opinions. Not eccentric. He turned out to be right about almost everything. But he had a deep distrust of school. He was an actual intellectual. Like is an actual intellectual. Like, deep knowledge, but a free thinker. And he thought that conformity made you dumb, and you should be free to explore, like, what the truth is. And so he was totally opposed to school. Like, completely opposed to school. Very unimpressed that I went to college. Never. I don't think he knew the name. He paid the bill, which I was grateful for. But he never, like, asked, like, what college do you go to? Or what's going on in college? You know, it was like the unspoken thing. It was almost like I was like, you know, I don't know, having some creepy sex thing in my life. He just don't talk about it. He was not impressed by anything fadish or anything, you know, groupthink. The herd instinct just made him sick. He was, like a true individual. Probably not right about everything, but right about a lot of the big things and completely unafraid to take.

Well, really of anything, but physically unafraid. He was, like, the only dad in La Jolla who would, like, you know, like, punch you out at a red light if you got. He was like. I was just like, not, you know, that didn't happen where we lived. It was a very affluent community and a lot of polite people. And my father was, you know, not someone to trifle with, but very, very kind to my brother and me. Very kind. Totally tribal in his thinking. Like, there's our family and there's everyone else. Like, total mafia outlook. Like, complete, not in a bad way. Like, not wanting, getting anyone's business, but, like, fuck with the family, you die. That kind of attitude. Like, it's us versus everybody else, which was a great way, actually, to grow up. So, anyway, he got remarried, and then in 1984, I think. Then when I was a child, I went to a boarding school on the east coast when I was 14. I went to boarding school. He sent me to boarding school in New England, where he was from. Cause he was like, get out of this fake inherited money world.

Go be cold. Well, I went to another inherited money world, of course, in New England, but we had a house in Maine where we spent the summer. And he believed in cold climate, hard work. He's extremely swedish, so it's good to be around snow and pine trees and you should suffer, you know, that kind of stuff. So I went to boarding school, and then he ran for mayor of San Diego for some reason, and lost. And then immediately after that, went to work for the us government and worked in and around the us government for, like, the next 35 years.

What was he doing in government?

He went in to run something called Voice of America. And the idea was he'd been a journalist. This was in the Reagan administration, and this was our sort of voice to the world. Voice of America was like the big radio broadcaster, which was really an instrument of the intel agencies, which I didn't quite realize at the time, but. So he ran that for years. And.

Was this mockingbird by chance?

I mean, I don't know. What's so funny is you don't get things. As a child, and I so revered and respected and do revere and respect my father that, you know, I don't know, but I have no idea. But I know that when the Iran Contra thing happened, he got caught up in that sort of. I mean, I was in boarding school, I guess, when that happened. But I remember reading, and it was like my dad's name. Like, what? You know, broadcasting messages on behalf of the contras or something like that. And I remember saying to my father, like, what? And he's like, that's all bullshit. Probably not all bullshit. Whatever. Anyway, just a wonderful man. I had lunch with him every day of my adult. I mean, every week of my adult life. I always had lunch with him every Friday. And we just had. We'd gamble for lunch, always bring dice, and we'd gamble and ate at the same place, same table, for decades. And just a great guy, very earthy, extremely powerful life force. The one story that's sort of not to go on about it. I've often thought about writing a book about it because it was so unusual.

But then I was like, I don't want to do that because it's too personal. But this is my father in one short story. When I was in college, I think I was a junior in college, he had been snoring, and my stepmom said, you're snoring. My father's a big man, prone to overeating, just like me, and he was snoring really bad. And she's finally like, you gotta go to the. There's something going on with your snoring. And he hates going to the doctor. He's, like, the only one of his friends still alive. He never went to the doctor, smoked unfiltered cigarettes his whole life. He was like, he's fine. I'm fine. He's that guy. So he finally goes to the doctor, and the doctor looks down his throat and goes, holy shit. And gives him an emergency tracheotomy in the examining room because he had such a huge tumor in his throat and he was such a heavy smoker. They're like, you got throat cancer? Well, turned out to be tuberculosis that he caught in China, but they didn't know that at the time. So I get a call at school, your father has throat cancer, you know, and he's in surgery.

So I'm in school. I'm in. I was in college. Yeah, I was in Connecticut. I fly down to Washington. I get to the hospital. Just as my father's getting out of the recovery room, my stepmom's there, who's really the kindest person I've ever met and really a great person. He really loved her. And so he's getting wheeled out, and he's in this gurney, and he's got. Of course, he can't talk. He's got a hole in his throat. He's recovering from surgery. And my brother and I are there, like, you know, trying to keep from, you know, crying in front of my dad. But, like, our dad's dying, you know, he's got throat cancer. Holy shit. It's out of nowhere. And he sees us, and he was like, hey, guys. You know, like, we can't talk. Hey, guys. And he looks down and he sees his wife, and he sees her. I'm watching his face. He sees her butt, and he just reaches out and grabs her butt. I just thought, he's just an animal. It's like he's just learned that he's gonna, like, die of throat cancer, but he just can't. He just couldn't control himself.

And I saw that, and I thought I said to my brother, that man is the strongest life force of anyone I've ever met. He's just. You can't defeat him. Doesn't matter. He could be in prison and he'd still be the same man. So I don't know why the strength of spirit required to grab your wife's butt when you get out of throat surgery. I just think it's just an incredible illustration of who he is. So, anyway, I admire him.

What kind of stuff were you into as a kid? Were you into sports or outdoors?

I love the outdoors. And we went. You know, we spent the summer in this little town in Maine. So weird that we did that. We're the only people who went from La Jolla, California, to western Maine, which is not fashionable at all. But my father had gone there as a child on hunting trips with his adopted father, so he liked it. So we went there, but we lived on the beach. So I was into surfing. I was passionately into marijuana, as you are when you grow up in southern California in the seventies and eighties. I no longer. I think it's stupid now, but I was into it then. I loved reading. There was a huge premium on reading in our house, like, read books. I remember my father once said of my mother, the one criticism he leveled against my real mother, who was smart, actually, after she died in France. I didn't know she lived in France, but she died, and all this drama happened after she died. But the point is, I got a couple of correspondence from her, whatever. I really didn't know much about her, but I got all this correspondence.

This was 13 years ago when she died, and I was like, wow, she was really smart. I didn't quite. Quite realize that. And so I said to my father, wow, I got all this correspondence from her real mother, and she's a pretty high iq person. Wow. I didn't know that. And he goes, yeah, she read magazines. She read magazines like, what a waste. You know what I mean? She read magazines like it was the New Yorker, but it was just a magazine. People read books. Like, serious people read books, and I'm the beneficiary of his library, which was vast. And the word eclectic is overused, but it literally is eclectic. It's, like, crazy. And just every interesting book ever actually read and underlined. These are not decorative books. These are books he read on every topic. And not just books, but transcripts of trials. He's very interested in a couple of topics and really, like, American Indians. He's really interested in the indian wars and on different tribes. He knew a lot about it, passionately interested in the Lincoln assassination, for some reason, and had the transcripts of misses Surratt's trial and actually the transcript, like, bound from 1865 and just a lot of stuff like that.

And he's in a more honest world. He would qualify, I think, as a historian. But anyway, yeah, she read magazines. Wow, that's the meanest thing. She was, like, addicted to drugs and she abandoned her family. She read magazines.

If I remember correctly, you wanted to. You were trying to get into CIA.

Yes. Vladimir Putin reminded me. I don't know how you knew that. Yeah, I applied to CIA when I was a senior in college. What did you want to do for the CIA operations? Yeah, it was completely different. Completely different organization. Well, who knows what it was, actually. I don't know. I mean, I was operating on the basis of a lot of my fathers friends served as operations officers, some really wonderful guys, I guess I probably shouldnt name, but who were always at our house and were just legit, interesting people and smart people. But everything changed after 911. You worked for CA, so I dont need to tell you, but I think the explicit paramilitary part was much smaller. And these were spycraft guys, a lot of them probably involved in who knows what they're involved in. But they were definitely literate and smart and interesting, and they lived in all these countries, and we had just traveled a lot. And my dad was really interested in the world, and we never went to Florence or something. We always would go to weird places. And he was just interested in how people lived in different cultures and learning about him, and he's just interested in everything.

Amazing teacher. So these guys had lived that life. They had been there when this happened or that happened, or you'd been chief of station in Jerusalem or something. It's like, these guys have really lived a life. And I thought, I want to live that life. I want an interesting life. That's what I wanted. I want an interesting life. And we grew up in a pretty affluent circumstances, not crazy private plane rich or anything, but I didn't worry about money. That wasn't really a factor. No one ever talked about money, which is one of the privileges of having it. You don't talk about it, and in our culture, you don't talk about it at all under any circumstances. So I didn't really think about money at all. I was just like, I want an interesting life. So I applied to CIA, and that whole application process then this was 1990, and I should just say for the record that I had no idea what the CIA was actually. And I didn't believe any of the. I think Kermit Roosevelt actually lived right down the street from us.

Are you kidding?

No.

Oh, man, that's cool.

But I didn't know. But that was just the world you live in, in northwest DC. I didn't. I never thought any of it was bad. And the people who did think it was bad were like these fervid left wing America haters. And I was like, fuck those people. They're all Noam Chomsky type. They don't know anything. And I was a child and I was just dismissive. And the cold war was going on, so it was really a binary. It was like, are you for the US or the Soviet Union? Well, that was not a hard one for us or for the United States. And so when I applied to CIA, and I've taken a lot of crap, including from Putin, like, oh, you're from a CIA family. Well, yeah, obviously my father worked in conjunction with CIA. I mean, that's what that is. And I tried to join the CIA, but I'm not being false about it. I am a sworn enemy of the CIA at this point. No doubt about that. I've been the target, actually, repeatedly. So I'm not ashamed to say any of this. I'm not some secret agent or something. And I would have been terrible as an operations officer because I'm not good at keeping secrets.

I hate bureaucracy. I just wanted a life that was interesting. I wanted to see stuff. I didn't want to run anything. I still don't. I just wanted to see stuff. I wanted to end my life at the table with my children and say, you know, I was there. You know, I was actually there when that happened, you know, and it was interesting. And like, the version you've heard is not quite right because I was there. That's what I wanted out of my life and I got it, but in another way. So I got dinged from CAA for drugs. Let's be totally honest, I had done cocaine within the last calendar year. Cause I was in college and I was like an idiot. And there were lots of drugs and I did drugs. I wasn't a drug addict, but I did drugs. And the rule was at the time, releases. This is what they told me. Who knows what the truth was. We have a rule that if you've done certain drugs within twelve months, you can't join. I personally think that the personality assessment tests, I took a lot of them. I'm sure you've taken these with like 1000 questions and you have to answer true or false.

Do you remember that?

You gotta think about fuzzy bunnies to pass that.

So funny. I'll never forget this. Going home.

They would literally tell us that guys just think about fuzzy bunnies when they're taking this test.

These tests are insane. And I took mine at, like, Georgetown or GW University auditorium with all these. Most of them are military guys actually trying to move over into operations at CIA. And they told us, they sent me a letter, so bring a number one pencil. Which was a mind fuck, but I didn't realize that. So I say to my father, I have to bring a number one pencil. He's like, well, you better go to the stationery store. We lived in Georgetown on Wisconsin Avenue and see if that's my guy. Walk in there. I was like, I'd like a number one pencil, please. And I'm like, there is no such thing as a number one pencil. So I go home and I say to my father, I'm like, I couldn't get a number one pencil. And he's like, well, just try it with a number two pencil. So I show up and we sit down in this giant auditorium to take all these tests. And, like, all the military guys, you know, they're so, like, gotta follow the rules. Excuse me, sir. I couldn't find a number one pencil. And everyone's like, I couldn't either.

And I'll never forget, the CIA guy administering the test is like, you couldn't find a number one pencil? Okay, well, then I guess a number two will do. And I do think it was like an elaborate, you know, mind fuck. But anyway, you take all these, you answer these questions, as you know, and I'll never forget. One of them was. And they're repetitive. They ask you the same question in a different form. And one of them was, I am fascinated by fire. I'll never forget that. And I went home and I said to him, my father's, like, popping. One of the questions was, I am fascinated by fire. You'd have to be a fucking lunatic to say yes, because you're clearly a psycho, right? And my father, who knew a lot about this subject, goes, yeah, but the psychos don't know their psychos. So it reveals through repetition and the time. There's a time limit. You don't have time to think about it. You just have to like, well, you know, all this, of course, but it was amazing. Anyway, I didn't get into CIA, and thank God, I would have been awful. And I don't agree with the mission, so the whole thing would have been terrible.

So I'm so grateful I didn't. And then I was getting married, and I didn't have a college degree. I was a senior in college, and I was like, and my father in law is a good man with a job. I was like, you need to have a job before you marry my daughter. So I went to my father as usual, and I was like, and I applied to work in a boarding school in Morocco. And they were like, no, I just wanted to do something interesting. And he's like, you should go into journalism. I did that. I didn't have any credentials, but I could write. I was literate. And I said, okay. So he got me a job at a. His assistant's wife worked at this magazine. So I got a job as a. Basically a fact checker at this magazine. And I, like, loved it right away. That was August of I got back from my honeymoon and went to work. I'd never really had a job. I went on my honeymoon. I worked at a gas station.

Where'd you meet your wife?

First day of 10th grade at the boarding school that we went to. Her dad was headmaster, and I had been there in 9th grade, and she showed up in 10th grade. We had a switch of headmasters, and I was standing on the quad. I'll never forget. I was like, whoa. Holy shit, that girl's cute. Wow. And so I was just on that, like that. Just on that, like, right away. September 23, 1984. I'll never forget that. I was like, wow. I was actually dating someone else, but I was like, that's the girl.

Wow.

Yeah.

You remember the day? That's awesome.

September 23, 1984. I'll never forget it. And I was, like, a very non ideal person. I mean, I'm kind of an asshole now. I was really an asshole then. Actual, it's super arrogant, dumb, doing drugs. Just being a complete overbearing jerk. Arrogant. Really arrogant. And. Which is my nature. I try to fight it, but. Yeah, but we just had this weird chemistry, so it worked.

You mentioned you were into drugs. You're 22 years sober. Congratulations.

Yeah.

What was the. What was it that got you sober? Was it a scare? Did you hit rock bottom?

I didn't really. I mean, I was hosting Crossfire, actually, at the time. And so I had been successful, young, and it wasn't really drugs. I mean, I was not. You know, I did a lot of drugs, but that's just because of the world that I was in. Like, that was not. I mean, it's embarrassing to say it now because drugs are so clearly bad. Like, really bad. And people now die of drugs, and that was not the case when I was a kid. Like, drug addicts died of drugs, junkies died of overdoses, but, like, no one you'd ever know would ever die. Of drugs at this point. I know a lot of people who died of drugs, so it's a different landscape, it's a different attitude now. So it's embarrassing to say that, but I was not a drug addict. I just was, like, into adventure and experimenting with stuff. And the world I was in, that was pretty much acceptable. I hate to say it, but it was true. That's just true. So. Same with cigarette smoke. Excuse me. Cigarette smoking was encouraged, so it was a different time. But it wasn't the drugs.

It was that, though, you know, some drugs really wear you out. Like cocaine, you know, not good and hard to live a productive life if you're, like, going to bed at seven in the morning or whatever, which I didn't do a ton, but, you know, some. But it was booze. That is what got me. And it was just, you know, just progressive. I was 33 and I just. I mean, I had. My wife was pregnant with our fourth child, and I was fairly functional. I mean, I did a daily tv show and was fairly well known, kind of famous, actually, at that point, and so kind of killing it. But I do think the physiology of it, which I don't understand, really, but if that's real, your body responds to alcohol differently as you age. And I would start to get these hangovers. It was debilitating. And then I'm busy, I've got a lot of children, I've got stuff to do. And I would just not hesitate to have a cocktail or three in the morning. I just wouldn't. I'm just like a no dick around kind of guy, I guess, and I don't feel good, so, like, there's a screwdriver for that.

And. And that's a very bad pattern to get into, obviously, so. But anyway, I quit when I was sitting at my desk on Sunday morning, and I. At this point, I. We had gotten an ice maker in our refrigerator, which we'd never had. That's a. If you're struggling with drinking, don't get an ice maker. Cause it's just too easy. Like where you go and you click the. Yeah, we don't even have one now, actually. I don't know why. We're sort of low tech on kitchen equipment, but whatever. In this one house that we had, we got an ice maker. And I was like, wow, look at that. Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink. And then you could, like, someone taught me about scotch. I knew nothing about scotch. I was always a bourbon guy or whatever, but someone. I sat and drank a quart of scotch with a friend of mine. He's like, scotch is really good. Just drink a quart of it. So we did. We were up in Maine. It didn't matter. You know, it was in the summertime. But then I got back to Washington in late August and. Or mid August, and, you know, I have this job, and then I get home from the job, it's like, click, click.

Well, I'll try some scotch. And the next thing you know, you're like, shit faced at home. And parting was like, that's not good. I had a couple of moments where I lost control, actually. At the White House Christmas party in 2001. I got too drunk to talk and stuff like that. It's just embarrassing. But I woke up this one morning at the last day of August 2002, and my wife was ten days away from giving birth to our fourth child. And I was sitting at my desk, like, smoking a cigarette at home, feeling bad. And I just heard this voice. I don't know if it was a voice. It was from God. And it was the clearest possible instruction. If you keep doing this, you will lose your wife and children. And I haven't always been a great husband or father, but I've always wanted to be. I've always really cared a lot. And it's easy to care about people who are, you know, loving and fun to be with, as my family is, so it's not hard, but I have always cared a lot. And I just had this dead certainty that if I kept on this path, I would lose my wife and children.

No one had complained about my drinking, really?

What were you doing when you got that voice, when you heard it?

I was sitting at my desk smoking a camel, unfiltered. I'll never forget it. Looking out my window at my lawn and feeling just, like, enervated and crappy and cloudy, as you do when you're hungover. And I just had this feeling, and I was like, wow, I think I'm an alcoholic. I had lost control. I mean, I'm leaving a few things out, nothing dramatic, but I didn't crash a car, but I blacked out a couple of times, which I didn't know what that was like, actually. Blackout. I always heard people say that, but I didn't remember how I got home from a restaurant, for example, with my college roommate. Or I had a friend over, another college roommate that summer. Wonderful guy, his wife and children. Just a beautiful family and beautiful people. Great people. Not people you'd want to be snarfing drunk in front of and I remember sitting in my backyard in Washington and making gin and tonics. I'm quite a good gin and tonic maker, but it's the kind of thing you want to have a couple cocktails with your buddy and his wonderful wife, and they're just really great people. And next thing I know, I'm like, shit faced.

I'm like, I don't really actually want to be shit faced. I can't believe I got shit. Like, what is that? I was losing control. This is all very. And then I, you know, some other stuff like that. Or I stayed. You know, I had a friend in town, and he's like, let's do a couple lines. And, you know, next thing I know, it's like seven in the morning. And I'm like, what? I can't do this shit. Anyway. The bottom line is I quit. I never had another drink after that. And I went into, like, not medically serious, but for me, pretty serious withdrawals. And that I was like, what? I'm having alcohol. I knew nothing about this, okay? I didn't know that there were alcohol withdrawals. Like, I just didn't know you'd think because of my mother I would know this, but I didn't know anything. And. And my brother was a problem drinker also, but I didn't think of myself as a problem drinker. I was like, well, my brother's out of control. He later quit, too. But when I started to go into withdrawals from alcohol, like, shaking hands, can't sleep, sweating a lot, and I have to host this tv show, and I'm like, I was addicted to alcohol.

Holy smokes. How did I not know that? And then. So I never drank again. And unlike most people who quit or many people who quit, I've never wanted to drink again. You know, I just never. Once I got past, like, the first six months, I just felt so much better. I was so grateful. I'm so grateful. I've enjoyed being sober a lot, and that's a huge blessing. That's not for me. It's not like I have especially strong character. I don't. If you put a tray of fig newtons right here, you would see how weak I really am. It's just on this one thing, the booze and drugs, it's like, I don't want that at all. And so I never went to AA. I didn't go to AA. I've been to one AA meeting in my life, and it was three weeks ago. And it was because Russell Brand, who I really love, was at my house. And he goes to AA all the time. And I said, why do you go to AA? And he's like, I just love the people. And people are so honest. And I thought. I said to him, I thought you went to AA to keep yourself from drinking again.

Like, you're right on the edge, which I'm not at all. Like, you couldn't force feed me alcohol. I just don't want it. And he's like, no, no, no. For the beauty of being around truth and people who are just totally unafraid to say who they really are. And there's something wonderful about that. That's, like, the best thing there is. That's liberation. That's actual liberation. And I was like, I gotta go to AA. So I went to an AA meeting, and I loved it. And I'm going back. I just. I'm in traveling and all this stuff. But I ran into a buddy of mine, literally on the road, trucks parked next to each other, and he's like, going to AA's. And I was like, well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna, you know, text me. I had to travel, but I was like, when I'm back next week, just text me when you go. I wanna go. You know, whatever. It's not that interesting, but that's my experience of it. I was delivered from that. And I don't know why, but I'm just so, so grateful. And my brother, too. My brother was an actual drinker. Like, whoa.

I mean, no more than I was, but he's, like, way more boisterous and swedish than I am. And he's a punch you out guy and a wonderful person. But he woke up one morning, he's like, I'm never drinking again. And he never did.

Wow.

Almost 20 years ago. So it's like, we both have been so blessed that way.

You know, there's a lot of people out there struggling with addiction and alcoholism. So do you have any. Any words of wisdom for somebody that's looking to make the change?

Well, I was dealing with this this morning. Yeah. It's one of the great privilege. No, there's no formula. Right. But rehab doesn't work for most people, of course, at all. It works for some. But I was just giving someone advice about this, which I do a lot, because I really care about it. I love sobriety. I really love it. I know it's not a sacrifice for me. It's like the greatest thing that there is. So I'm in a good place to tell people about it because I really believe it. And I got off so easy. I really did. I got off easy. Oh, my gosh. But what I always say is quitting drinking is a huge decision. It's a huge life change. Everything changes when you do that. A b, it can be extremely painful physically, which nobody ever talks about. They're always like, oh, you drink to whatever. Yeah, for sure. You drink because you're insecure, you're afraid, you're lying. You're a narcissist. Drinking makes you a narcissist. It's all about you. Right? But another reason that no one ever mentions that you drink is because you have a physical need for it. It's physical, too.

So when you quit drinking, I always tell, I told someone this this morning, you need to be prepared for feeling very shitty and very shaky and having your sleep disrupted and feeling like you're gonna have a panic attack at all times. And, like, that's all real. And you should just know that going in. And the third thing I always say is that it's so great to be sober because you don't have to lie at all, and there's no shame in that. I always tell my children this, and I really believe it. It's a foundational belief for me that we're not good at lying about ourselves and that everyone already knows who we are. So no matter what it is, whatever the secret is that you're hiding and you think, I'm gay, but no one knows. Or I'm an alcoholic, but no one knows. Or I used to smoke secretly at my in law's house. No one knows. Are you kidding? Everybody knows. Whatever your dumb little secret is that you think is uniquely horrible, that secret is shared by hundreds of millions of other people on this planet and has been since the beginning of time.

That is our common humanity, is our basic flaws, and that those things are already known. Everyone already knows you're secretly gay, alcoholic, secretly. Whatever it is, you're insecure. You know what I mean? You've got a big butt and you're trying to hide it. Everyone already knows that, and a lot of them love you anyway. So once you realize that you're free, it doesn't mean you should stop trying to be better, or you should never stop trying to be better. But you don't need the shame as, like, so unnecessary. There's almost nothing you could do that would shock me personally. Having watched people really carefully for many years. There's no variety of human sin that is shocking at all. They're all sad, but they're not shocking. It's not like, well, you're really plowing new ground there. You begged your sister in law. I can't believe it. Seen it. Seen it. You know what I mean? It's like there's nothing you can do that is shocking. And there are a lot of things you can do that are wrong, of course, but they're not. You can admit everything. You can admit everything. And the people who love you will still love you.

And when you know that, it's like you are bulletproof. It's like, what are you gonna do to me?

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I do. I do.

And sobriety gets you there.

I can't think of one thing that changed for the worse when I got sober, and I've only been sober for two and a half years.

How is it a struggle?

I mean, for me, it wasn't. I mean, I kind of told you at breakfast, you know, that it was. I didn't even mean for it to happen. I mean, I used to put away probably two fifths a day, you know?

Two fifths?

Yeah. I would wake up two fifths of liquor. Yeah. And have mini bottles everywhere, all over my car.

Oh, so you were full blown.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And were you able to work? Yeah. And on pills and on coke and on sleeping pills. And I remember going to my therapist and telling her that's. She thought I was trying to kill myself for sure. And so I'd mention I'd ease my. I used my way off of benzos and sleeping pills and painkillers and.

And you got off Benzos alone?

Alone.

It takes balls. For years. It takes balls.

I mean, it was. I don't even care. I mean, it would. I would be working for the agency and, I mean, we're all insomniacs, and it was just take whatever the fuck you can just to try to get some sleep. And then. And then it became, you know, then that starts the cycle. But, yeah, I kicked that stuff. And then.

A lot of people die getting off Benzos. Like alcohol. I think those are the only two categories where withdrawal can kill you. Heroin. No. Crack. No. Benzos. And alcohol can literally kill you and kill a lot of people.

Yeah.

Did you know that? Were you, like, afraid?

I didn't know that.

Yeah. Well, good. I didn't know that.

Yeah. No, I did not. I mean, this was around 2015, and that I started kicking all of that shit, and I had a suicide attempt. Can't believe we're going here, but I'm.

Not surprised at all with that much.

Yeah.

Partying? Yeah.

Parked the car in the garage, left the engine running, reclined the seat back, and was like, let's check out. And it didn't work. Believe it or not. Obviously, I'm sitting here, but. So I kicked the booze.

But what was the immediate aftermath of that? Was that like a. Did that shock you back into life? You realize?

I didn't believe it. So I woke up in my bedroom in my townhome, and my whole townhome smelled like gas. So I came down the stairs, and there was a pistol that I had gotten out of the safe, which I'd never use. And all my clothes were on the couch in front of the tv. So I think that maybe I was pondering killing myself on the couch. And then.

Oh, you were loaded when you did this.

Oh, yeah.

Black, of course.

I don't know how I got back from. From the bar. And then I went to the garage, and I touched the door handle, and it was hot to the touch, and I was like, oh, shit, maybe there's a fire in there. And so I was like, well, if I open the door, then maybe it'll. Maybe that'll be it. I'll be done. Well, I opened the door, and that didn't happen. And I walked in. My fucking car was still running. The seat was reclined all the way down. I was like, holy shit. I was still fucked up. But, you know, I didn't want to open the garage because my dumb ass thought, well, if spark flies, this whole place is going up. Now I'm kind of in it, you know? Which is stupid, because the pistons are firing in my car. But the car had gotten so hot that the gas tank melted. And gas was dripping.

No way. Yeah.

I'm not shitting you. Gas was dripping. I didn't know this at the time, but gas was dripping onto the exhaust, the muffler.

What kind of car?

An Audi. So I opened the. You know, I opened the garage, turned the car off. I told you, I was. I've been in therapy altogether three and a half years. Twice a week. Called my therapist, called Peggy Matthews, the woman I had told you about that had started that nonprofit. And they're like, yeah, you tried to kill yourself? And I was in denial. Yeah. So. Reason I knew the gas tank melted is when I had to. When I took off later that day just to, you know, go get something. My girlfriend at the time followed me to make sure I was all right. And my fucking muffler was. You could see fire coming off of it. So then she called me, told me I looked and sure there was gas dripping on the damn muffler. Yeah. So that started kind of my let's wake up and yeah. Today's show is sponsored by helixsleep.com. sleep, especially as you get older, is critical. Especially that deep, comforting sleep. Go to helixsleep.com and take the sleep quiz. I took it and was matched with the midnight luxe. Helix knows that everyone's unique, so they have several different mattress models to match based on your body type and sleeve preferences.

Once you match, your mattress comes right to your door, shipped for free. When you receive your helix mattress, you'll be amazed at how well you'll sleep. And if your back needs some extra TLC like mine, you'll love their hybrid design that combines individually wrapped steel coils in the base with premium foam layers on top. It's the perfect combination of comfort and support. They have a ten year warranty and financing option, so a great night's sleep is never far away. Helix is offering 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners. Go to helixsleep.com srs. That's helixsleep.com srs. This is their best offer yet. It's not going to last long with Helix. Better sleep starts now. History, economics, the great works of literature, the meaning of the us constitution. Did you study these things in school? Probably not. Or even if you did, maybe it's time for a refresher. Time and technology have changed a lot, and that's why it's important to learn the fundamentals. That's why I'm excited that Hillsdale College is offering more than 40 free online courses on the most important and enduring subjects. You can learn about the works of Cs Lewis, the stories of the Book of Genesis, the meaning of the us constitution, the rise and fall of the Roman Republic, or the history of the ancient christian church.

With Hillsdale College's online courses all available for free. That's right, free. I personally recommend you sign up for ancient Christianity. In this eleven lecture course, you'll study the inspiring stories of Christ and the first four centuries of Christianity. The course is self paced, so you can start whenever and wherever. Go right now to hillsdale.edu srs to enroll. There's no cost and it's easy to get started. That's hillsdale.edu srs to register. Hey guys. You've heard me talk about them before and I'm excited to talk about them again. I want to tell you about Hoist IV level hydration. Hoist is made in the USA and has half the sugar and three times the electrolytes than some other sports drinks without artificial dyes or preservatives. In addition to being one of three hydration products authorized by the military, they upped the ante for hydration by offering a product with less sugar and more electrolytes. Hoist is on a majority of us military bases globally, serving our warfighters in operations and training. I wish I had hoist as an option for hydration during my military career, especially my favorite flavor, strawberry lemonade. Also, Hoist offers military and first responders an everyday discount when they use their government id at checkout.

And I really appreciate that. You can use their store locator on their website to find a store near you, or you can purchase directly from drinkhoist.com, where you can use my code Sean to save 15% off their website. Go check out their website, that's drinkhoist.com. and use my code Sean to save 15%.

So that's one of the wildest stories I've heard, actually. What you just said that you didn't even know that you did it because you were blacked out. What effect? Like, once you realized what had happened and you call your therapist and she confirms the obvious, what the evidence suggests, what effect did that have on you?

I mean, I just never realized I was capable of suicide, you know? And so I called my therapist, I called Peggy. I called my best friend, Dave Rutherford, who lived down the road from me, also a former ClCA guy, and still in denial, still fucked up. You know what I mean? I mean, I haven't even slept it off, but, you know, I can't let my dad down.

That's the spirit.

That's always been, like. That's what carried me through all the shit that I've been through. Getting into the Seal teams. I could never, like, I felt like I let my dad down so many times in childhood, up to leaving just from being a fucking turd, that I just. I couldn't let him down anymore. And that just stuck with me from 18 to today.

And that's a great motivator.

Yeah. And. But anyways, moving forward.

But can I just ask you one question, though? So you said you didn't think you were capable of that, which is a horrifying thing to realize about yourself. I've realized that about myself on different levels. I didn't think I would ever do something like that. I just did. But where do you think that came from? Do you think the impulse to destroy yourself came from within, or do you think it was something from outside you that entered you?

Both. I think it was both. I mean, it was a. There was a lot of things that I didn't think I was capable of doing that were all happening around this time, you know, and, you know, I kind of told you about my lifestyle and living in Columbia, and there was a lot of shame. You know, I was going through a lot of shame and trying to create a new identity after leaving the agency and. And the seal teams and starting from nothing. So that was all in there. And, I mean, we talked about it this morning at breakfast. You know, I mean, it's like, athletes, pro athletes, they get done, and it's like, well, now what the fuck am I gonna do? And that's how I felt, and I felt very unaccomplished again, and it just really, like, bothered me. There was a lot of. A lot of processing that was going on at that time, but, yeah, then. So I had kicked everything eventually, within a couple months, and vodka was gone. I had switched to wine and the.

Old switch, to the old switcheroo, and.

Then years later, I went and did psychedelic treatment. I didn't even go down there for that, and I just came out of it, and I haven't had another drop of alcohol since.

Just in one day.

It's like, in a week. I did ibogaine. Five meo Dnt. I came home, and I just. It's that experience. It's like, it showed you everything that's poison in your life. It was like a new intuition that I had developed over the course of a week of just. I guess you'd call it healing, right? Yeah, and, yeah, it just.

Did you go by yourself?

No, I went. I wanted to go by myself, and then I went to. It was very private, though. I didn't want anybody around knew me, and because I didn't know it was going to come out either. And, yeah, it's like, it showed me toxic people in my life not to be afraid to say no to people anymore. And alcohol. Adderall. Adderall is the one thing I kept on after my suicide attempt. And even, like, I guess I can't say caffeine, but coffee, like, I haven't had any coffee. And then cannabis, I would use to sleep kick that for about six months, but that's the only one that didn't stick was the cannabis. And, you know, sometimes I need that to sleep, so. So, yeah, that's my journey to sobriety.

Were you afraid? I assume you didn't have like, an extensive history of hallucinogenic experiences?

No.

So were you afraid that you would freak out?

Yeah, I did a lot of drugs, and I was always scared of psychedelics and stuff that makes you hallucinate because you don't know what's going to arise. But I had hit this. I had. I mean, when I did it, I had felt like I had pretty much conquered the veteran PTSD traumatic. Like, I had reinvented myself successfully. And the new problem for me was I had just had my son, he was about four or five months old, I believe. And I just. I just, like, business just kept creeping into my mind, and I was like, man, I don't. I just want to fucking be in the moment with my wife and kid. I don't want to be thinking about who my next guest is or how am I going to. How am I going to. I just didn't want to. I wanted to be able to shut that down. And so. And I started getting real panicky because as the show's growing, people see that, and then people want to be around you, and not all those people are good, and a lot of people want to fucking use you and, hey.

Oh, really?

I know I haven't talked in 20 years, but now I want to be your best friend again. Hey, how's it going? All that shit just started getting to me, and I felt super fucking guilty. Like, man, I'm sorry. I cannot shout out another nonprofit. I can't shout out another business. I do everything I can to bring awareness to, like, good shit and businesses and lift veteran businesses on my show, and, like, that's what I can do. Other than that, like, you're just taking time from my family, and. But I always felt guilty saying that, which is weird, because I didn't have somebody. I never had somebody like Rogan to amplify my business. I had to do this shit by my fucking self, but I know how hard it is. And so I wanted to help guys elevate their business by bringing exposure to them by this show, but then it just. Nothing's ever enough, and you feel guilty.

Like, say, and resentful if you're being used.

And so I did that. And it did. It got me back in the moment with my family. It gave me. It gave me, like, this new ability to be like, yeah, I'm not doing that. You know, sorry. Like, and it made me realize, like, Sean, they don't give a fuck about you. No, they just care about what you can do for them. And if you can't do it. Guess what? They're gonna go to the next person, and then they're gonna go to the next person, and then they're gonna. It's not about you. It's just what you can give them and most of the time. And so it helped me, like, come to peace with a lot of that stuff and business and then, although alcohol, funny. I have a bar over here, but I do, too.

I have a huge bar.

But every year, you know, you have a huge bar.

I didn't even notice that. I'm so tuned out from alcohol that I don't, I don't really notice. It's weird.

I get a lot of shit about that because I'm always talking about sobriety. But, you know, it's, it's, well, it's.

A measure of how little control it has over you. I can't watch someone smoke a cigarette without my mouth watering.

Really?

No, it's been ten years. Yeah. Ten years today. I quit ten years today.

Congrats.

Thank you. And I've lost interest. I don't. I tried to smoke a cigarette last year. I thought, I'll start smoking again. Why do I care? Because I do love smoking, but I didn't want to, actually, at all. But for some reason, if I watch someone smoke a cigarette, I'm like, oh, that's so cool. It's so diseased. But I feel that way. It's pavlovian.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But let's get back to you. Enough. I wasn't, I don't like talking about.

Me, but that was wonderful. I'm so glad that you did, actually. Well, that's wonderful. I do think, as I often say to people around me, the one person I know I don't trust is me. And I think it's important to say that. And I did do hallucinogens as a kid. I didn't have any positive experience at all. I learned anything other than the value of sanity. But one thing I did learn was, for sure, I learned at, like, 14 or 15, was there's a lot of stuff floating around inside you that I personally don't have any interest in being in touch with, because it's. But I think it's important to know or to have some sense of what you're capable of, not be ashamed of it, but just know. Like, under certain circumstances, the one thing that drives me insane is people are like, I would never do that. Well, I think whatever it is you would do that, you know, under certain circumstances, don't lie about yourself or to yourself.

You know, that's a damn good point.

Well, I think it's a blessing to know that and to survive something like that. Why did you survive? I mean, that's. I'm sure you've pondered this a lot, but.

Oh, yeah, I mean. Well, I mean, I chalk it up to. I chalk it up to God and Jesus, which. We talked about that at breakfast. And there's all these weird. I used to call them coincidences. Now I don't call them coincidences. I think it was just how I'm supposed to play out.

I agree with that strongly. That is the one cool thing about making it past 40, is you start to see how non random everything is when you're a kid. It really is like driving fast at night. There's just lights going past you and it's hard to interpret what they are and everything's just happening and for the first time. But with age, the downside is you do have to wake up to take a leak. That's real, I can tell you. But the upside is so much better than the downside. At least at this stage of my life. You start to see coincidences. Really? I don't think so. It doesn't mean you're a conspiracy nut. It's just like, you notice patterns. Yeah, yeah.

They aren't coincidence.

No, no, no. That's such a childish thing to tell yourself. You don't realize how childish it is cause you're a child. But with age, you're like, okay, kids. And that's why young people, they can't deal with that, actually. Even the open minded ones. Certainly that's true of me. When I was younger, I was like conspiracy nut crazy. You know what I mean? Oh, Kennedy was assassinated as part of a plot. You know, it's like, okay, I didn't believe any of that, yo. UFO's, you know, whatever. But you learn the hard way, or you learn inevitably in any case with age, how little you understand, how unreliable you are, how narrow your field of vision is. You learn a lot. And it's good to know.

Yeah, yeah, it's. Yeah. I would recommend that psychedelic treatment to everyone. It's just been. It's so powerful. I've seen it change so many lives, too.

Well, you know, it's hard to argue with the fruit the tree bears. You know, man, I had the opposite experience. I was like, wow, I'm never doing that again. Yeah, yeah.

I think it all comes down to intentions.

Well, 100%. And children should not be taking clues to like what? Again? It's just time and place. It's just in different time, different place, different attitudes. People don't understand how much things have changed. Even I forget, like, the current, and I'm not even judging in either direction. I'm just saying, like, the current attitudes that we have as of, you know, mid May 2024 have evolved to this point. These are not the attitudes that we had 20 years ago or 40 years ago. They're just not. They don't bear any resemblance to those attitudes. So things do change a lot. And when you're marinating in it, it's the frog in the hot water metaphor. You don't feel it, but you look back and you're like, really? How did people do stuff like that? Because everyone thought it was fine, or they did, or there was a tacit agreement not to talk about it or whatever. But attitudes have changed so much in this country that you can't even talk about it because it's like, it doesn't sound, first of all, it doesn't sound real, and it's just horrifying by current standards, but that I have lived it.

So I can say we have very different attitudes than we used to have, for good and bad.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, so back to you. You got into journalism.

Yeah.

When did you really see your career just start to, oh, I've never had.

A career or thought of myself as having a career. I don't think that now. I never will think that. I don't. I'm not a career person, and I reject the whole idea of careers, and I just don't. I wasn't raised like that. No one had a career. It's like, we just didn't think that way. It's just like, are you doing something interesting or not? You know, that was just kind of the only measure. And do you think it's meaningful? Do you enjoy doing it? So I have always felt that way. I have had a lot of different jobs within journalism, like, almost pretty much every job you could have. And I've been better at some than others and enjoyed some more than others. But they've all been branches of the same tree. And my views on it have changed a lot. I began, it's because of my father, and my great grandfather was a well known journalist also. So I really felt like, well, this is what I was made to do, and it's honorable. No one's more honorable than my father. So this is inherently honorable. Bring information to people being their eyes and ears, in some cases their voice.

You know, that's like, what's better than that, like, there's nothing to be ashamed about in what I do. That's, I've always thought that my whole life, and then you look around and you're like, every other person who does this job is a total piece of shit, actually, and I've concluded that. Cause it's true.

When did you realize that?

Oh, 2016, okay, when the world changed and you hate to give Trump credit for it. I love Trump personally, but he's not worthy of that credit. There are a lot of things going on, and he was the embodiment of a lot of different things. We're all sort of people, but we're also symbols, kind of, and that's true of him as well. But whatever, everything changed that year, and particularly the world that I lived in, which was permanent, Washington. I mean, that's, I moved there at 15 or 16, and in 2016 I was 47, so that's a lifetime. And I had strong views about a million different things. I was paid to have strong views and they came to me naturally. But one thing I never really did was question the foundations of the system. I questioned neocon foreign policy in 2002 when I went to Iraq to see the outcome of this thing I had advocated for, and that changed my view completely. My views on the whole system were not, were sort of in place from childhood up until 2016 to an embarrassing degree. I just didnt understand that a lot of the things that I was living around and participating in were really wrong.

And I heard people say that, but I thought they were dumb and like, what do you know? You dont live here. I live here. I raised my kids here. Like, this is my city. I know everybody, I know the city, like the physical city and the culture of the city, I knew it really well and I loved it and I thrived there. And I came there with like no record of success or college degree or like anything impressive, and I did fine. You know, I sent my kids to private school and I was, you know, fairly successful, and waiters and valley parkers are nice to me. And like, you know, you just sort of live a comfortable, happy life in a really beautiful place. The residential parts of northwest DC are really beautiful and not that expensive, actually. It's just a nice life, nice people. I loved it and I defended it relentlessly for decades. And then in one year, I came to see a lot of it. And it wasn't about Trump, it was about the reaction that he provoked was so unreasonable and defensive and low. It was low. And none of the things that they claimed to believe in, they actually believed in.

It was purely self protection. They couldn't defend the way things worked. Trump was not especially articulate in diagnosing the problems at all. He didn't understand the problems. He wasn't from there. I'm from there. Like, I know what the problems are, or I thought I did, but Trump would say things and they would freak out and they would refuse to give a legitimate answer. This is my neighbors I'm talking about and my friends and the whole city. And I was like, I never seen anything like it. I lost all respect. I was like, you're really smart people. These are high iq people. These are achievers. These people went to the top schools, which I did not go to, but I'd certainly been around it a lot, long enough to lose respect for it. But these are capable people and also nice people who love their children and are in mostly successful marriages and make sure their lawns are mowed. And they're not bad people, they're good people. They don't spray graffiti. They're not jumping the turnstiles. They're not raping old ladies. These are the pillars of our society. And they can't answer basic questions like, why are we doing it this way?

And they refuse to. And they attacked him in very unreasonable ways without even rebutting his critique. And I have no respect for that at all. Not as a conservative or even an american, just as a man who's got rational faculties. I'm like, that's not good enough, actually. I catch you doing something and you attack me. You don't even answer my charge. You're disgusting to me. And I noticed this on many different levels. Immigration, NATO. I never questioned NATO a single time. My dad worked with NATO. It's like, NATO. They defend us from the Soviets. And I never one time thought, well, wait a second. The Soviet Union collapsed on my honeymoon, which was August of 1991. I was in Bermuda, in Tuckerstown, and it collapsed. I remember reading it on the beach at the Midocean Club in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune Digest, or whatever. Wow. Failed coup. It collapsed. That was 1991. This was 2016. I'm not good at math, but a long time later, and we still have this defense alliance to prevent the Soviets from invading Germany when the Soviets don't exist, and Russia's not going to invade, Germany doesn't want to.

What's the point of NATO? Which is a totally fair question, which I'd never thought of. And Trump, in his autistic way, is like, why do we have NATO? Holy shit. People went crazy Putin tool or whatever. It's like, no, I never mentioned Putin. Why do we have NATO? Like, what's the answer? Answer the fucking question. And they couldn't. And that right there. I'd never had a single opinion about NATO other than NATO. Good. With not one opinion. I didn't know much about NATO. And it was the defenders of NATO's inability to defend NATO. That, to me, it sounds obscure, but it's not obscure, it's central. I didn't know that. I now do. But that, to me, was a turning point in my life. I was like, why can't you answer the question? Why are you getting mad? I have a lot of children, so I'm familiar with these phenomena. Right? Did you mean you ask a straightforward question? I demand a straightforward answer, period. And if you're lying to me, the question becomes, why? Why are you lying? Why are you attacking me? I didn't do anything. Why are we threatening to kill Julian Assange or trying to put Ed Snowden in prison?

Yeah, you know, you're the criminal. Actually, he's the one who told me that you were a criminal. He's not the criminal. You are. That's my opinion about life, not just about the us government. Anyway. So that was. That completely changed my view. And because Trump was involved, who, again, I just say it again because I mean it. I love Trump personally. I know him quite well and have for, you know, long before he ran for president. Cause I was in the media and I've always enjoyed him, you know, and I do to this day. But it was not about Trump. It was much deeper than that. And it was very easy to be like, oh, you're a Trump sycophant. Well, of course I'm not a sycophant to anybody other than maybe my wife. I'm an enthusiastic sycophant. Fine, that's allowed. But I'm not an ass kisser, and I never have been. So that's not a fair response. The question hangs in the air. What's the point of NATO? And a million other questions. Why not have a border wall or whatever? And they had no answer for any of it. And they were wildly defensive.

And in a period of just a few months, I lost all respect for them and all desire to live in that city, which was shocking, because I'm on the record. I can just tell you what my views were, and I expressed them a lot in print and on television. This is a great city with great people. We make mistakes and head start doesn't really work. And I got it. Federal government's too big. I agree. But fundamentally, these are people who are trying their best, and they're pretty impressive people, and they make mistakes, and these programs last too long. But they're not evil. They're trying hard, they work hard, and they're smart. And in a few month period, I was like, actually, none of that's true. They're not good people at all. At all. Because now we all know that this whole enterprise is bullshit. And they refuse to get better. They refuse to admit it. And as a former alcoholic, I know the process of just admit it. Just admit it. I'm kind of a loser. It's all right. You can say that because it's true and everyone knows it already. Just admit it and get better.

They refused. They're still defending the Iraq war. They're still defending the indefensible Vietnam war, still pretending we didn't know the Japanese were going to attack Pearl harbor. Like, there's too many lies. Like, I can't deal with this many lies, actually. And it's very unhealthy to live in a society that is defined by lies. It corrodes your soul. It's bad for you. You go to hell. Actually, you're living in hell when you live that way. And all of this came to me in this short period of time, and I couldn't quite articulate it, but I felt it so strongly, it affected my sleep and it really just changed my life forever. And so I would say for the better, for the happier. But it's a burden to have all of your pre existing beliefs explode in a short period of time. You know, it's like, wow. It's like being kicked out of a culture. Like, I can't believe I live there. You know what I mean?

I think a lot of us know what you mean at this point.

Well, and I have to say, I know you don't like, talk about yourself, but it's especially relevant to you and men like you who went and, you know, were asked to risk your lives and to kill other human beings and to really give up everything for the sake of this thing. And the disillusionment that I have noticed in men like you who've really done a lot for this enterprise and then come to the obvious conclusion that it's not exactly what it seems. I can't imagine living with that. I honestly can. And I sort of get the suicide rate. I'm just being honest.

I get that.

I mean, how much of that I know. This is very complicated subject that you're deeply involved in. But how much of the despair and up to and including suicide comes from guys realizing, wow, maybe that wasn't worth it.

It's a hard question to answer because there's so much going on.

Yeah, I believe.

You know what I mean? It definitely plays a role, but it's not the whole role. I believe that there's, there's just, they're, they're now calling especially for, like, special operations guys that have just done it over and over. Like we were talking about my interview with Tom Spooner. Guy's done over a thousand hits, meaning he's hit 1000 plus targets. I mean, 1000.

I think it's totally disgusting to do that to anybody. To ask any man to do that, that's too much. I'm sorry.

And then they kick you out. But it's what you did. It's how you did it. It's addiction to adrenaline. It's culture of being in that life. It's a very toxic fucking culture. It's the competitiveness that's ingrained in you from the time you show up. Day one, week one of training, it's who's the fastest runner, who's the fastest swimmer, who's the best shot, who's killed the most people, who's going on the most ops, who's gone on the most high profile ops, who's got the most jumps. It's all that, all that, all the time, every day, you have to prove yourself to be there. Which we had talked at breakfast about egomaniacs in my community. I've thought a lot about this, and I think that's where it stems from. I think it is. The competitive nature is ingrained in you, in striving for perfection on day one, week one of training, when you're going to become a special operator, though.

That'S so clearly true and nicely put. You obviously thought about it a lot. I would just revise something that I said at breakfast, which was to describe people like that as egomaniacs or narcissists. I do think this is so obvious. It's just coming to me in the last few years. But, like, egomania is really insecurity masked, you know, people who are comfortable with themselves, who really are deeply, first of all, you can feel it immediately. Someone is actually kind of content inside. It conveys, it's a smell, and I can smell it like that. And it's the opposite of egomania. People like that do not like the man you're talking about. Tom Spooner. Mm hmm. Is that correct? So I watched that. That guy, just through the screen, I could feel that that man's, like, has achieved a high level of contentment or peace, or he's wrestled with things and settled a lot of things inside him. So I could just feel that coming off just on the screen, I could feel that. I don't know if that's true. I don't know. I never met him, but that was. I got that vibe right through my phone watching that, because I think it's that obvious.

And it is the opposite of the way that people we describe as egomaniacs behave, which is constantly reminding you how great they are. Well, you know, someone who actually thinks he's done an okay job or is at peace inside is never going to remind you that he's great because it doesn't occur to him. He's focused on you or whatever. He doesn't need to do that. Like what? You're compensating. You feel like shit if you're doing that, actually. And competition makes you feel bad, of course. Am I actually the fastest? I don't know. You know, that's why I have to tell you that I am. And it's sad when you start to see it that way. I don't like egomanics. I don't like people who can't stop talking about how great they are. I actually hate that more than almost anything. But in the last few years, I've decided, like, no, you should feel sad for people like that. And famous people and seals, let's just be honest, are famous people. They're celebrities in our culture. They are universally loved and respected. I mean, that's just true. It was this kind of obscure thing that President Kennedy thought up.

But now it's, like a huge part of our culture. They're Hollywood celebrities, basically. Same thing. Famous people. For some reason, the more famous they get. I've lived this among this my whole life. The more insecure they get. It's so interesting. The more they're praised, the more they feel insecure about who they really are. Maybe they don't believe. I don't know what it is, but that is absolutely phenomenal. If you subject someone to constant adulation over time, you'll make him hate himself.

I think a lot. Yeah, I think a lot of this comes from. I've talked about this a lot before, but there's very few people that you meet in media that are the same person that they are on camera is off.

Cause they're frauds.

You're one of them. You're the same person?

I hope so. It's just refreshing to see me more than one person.

I'm too busy. I think a lot of people, they get to a certain point in life by being in character. They wear a fucking costume. They're a character. It's a facade. And then they get fucking trapped in that facade, you know, and they can't get out of it, and so there's nothing real about them.

Yes.

And now that they found success through being a fucking character, now they're trapped forever.

Well, that's why they have bad marriages. Cause the one thing that you can't, like, you'll never fool your wife. You know what I mean? Like, you'll never fool. You'll never impress her with that stuff ever. She knows who you are. And what happens is, and I have a PhD in this. Having seen it so many times, the distance between how a man is treated in public and the way he's treated at home becomes intolerable for him. And I had a friend, a wonderful man who was a very famous person, who ended up leaving his great wife. He was in his fifties, one of the hottest 55 year old wives around, and super nice. It was the kind of thing where it's like, why would you leave her? And I was with him in private one time years ago, and he's like, ugh, going back to my wife. And I was like, he literally moved out. He was like, maybe 53 or four, and he moved in with a 29 year old. The kind of thing where everyone's like, what is that? You know? Don't do that. And he did it. And he had to go back to his wife.

And he's like, the amount of shit I'm gonna have to eat. I mean, for real, I've humiliated her. My daughters want to kill me, but I'm going back. Cause I really miss her. And I was like, why did you do that? And I thought he was gonna say, I was younger and I was dumber. And I thought he was gonna say, cause she's just full smoke show. And she did shit to me in the sack you can't even believe. And you know, not one word about that. Nothing to do with sex. He literally said, when I get home, my wife is like, have you taken out the trash? This is exactly what he said. And all day, people kiss my ass and treat me like a celebrity. And I get home, my wife is like, okay, yeah, mister celebrity guy. And he goes, I couldn't deal with it. And this young woman, it wasn't even. It had nothing to do with the sex. I mean, she was hot or whatever, but that doesn't last, right? It's not that important, really. She treated me like I was Jesus and I just wanted that. How self aware is that?

Wow.

That's a high level of self awareness that he was able to say that out loud and admit that it's cold. That's so embarrassing. But he admitted it, and I've never forgotten that. And there's something about flattery that is way more destructive than criticism. I won't have it in my world at all. Not one word of it. Any flattery. You're done. Criticism is fine as long as it's sincere and meant to edify rather than tear down. Constructive. Constructive? That's right. But flattery is, by its nature, sinister. It's dishonest, and it's meant to weaken you. And nothing weakens you faster than the things that feel good. Obviously, you know, this is a former partier, but flattery is a kind of moral cocaine. You think it makes you strong, but actually it's hollowing you out inside. So, anyway, that stuff wrecks your marriage because your wife is never long term gonna go along with that at all.

Yeah. Yeah. So don't get wrapped up in your own bullshit.

Oh, I would be even more psych. I mean, I think it's such a threat that I would just be absolutely. Like, there's all kinds of things you tolerate with people around you who work for you, who, your friends, your family. You know, of course people are flawed. They do flawed things. Fine. But you have to decide there are a few things you're not gonna tolerate. And one is like crazy addiction. Because crazy addiction carries people into places that they. Well, as we both know, it changes them in ways that are hard to fix while they're still partying. Okay. And the second you can never tolerate is flattery, ever. That is an absolute threat to you. Any ass kissing is a threat to you. It's better to get punched in the face than be flattered, because there's no good motive for that. It's almost lying right to your face in the stealthiest, most feline way. Oh, you're so great. Oh, you're so great. You're so great. If anyone says anything like that to me ever, no, you're done.

Good for you.

Well, no, it's just purely and luckily, I come from a family where compliments are just not a thing. Like, love is a thing. I love you is a thing. Honesty is a thing. But ass kissing is not a thing in my family. At all.

Good. I want to go back to media. And so one of the things that I really wanted to chat with you about is when did you kind of notice the weaponization of mainstream media start to happen?

I mean, you know, it's like you're too close to things. You don't get it at all. I didn't realize how totally corrupt, that there is no ideal at the center of it, that in any conceivable way benefits the public, the public's interest, democracy, any of that. Informing the public so they can make informed decisions on who to vote for, that is the last thing from anyone's mind. And it's actually the most corrupt institution in the United States by far. What do I know? It's the only one I've worked in, but I can say it's. It's fundamentally corrupt. Like, there's no non corrupt part, period, period. And I realized that, you know, incrementally over time, it's the kind of thing I'm still realizing. I don't consume anything, period. Anything at all. I don't want it in my head. I don't want flattery in my head, and I don't want lies in my head. Of course, they both manage to end up there, but I have a pretty tight screen because I just don't want that. So, yeah, it's totally and utterly corrupt, and that's why I'm coming to this late in life, and I'm coming to a cold from working in the institutional media for over 30 years to all of a sudden, not in the last year.

And so there are a lot of things that are obvious to you and your viewers and that are not obvious to me, that I'm just learning. I'm like, wow, I really do feel like the last chinese soldier coming out and being like, the war's over, really? And everyone's like, yeah, it's been 20 years. That's how I feel. I'm amazed by podcasts. I just think, talk about it on a likely vector for Truth, a podcast. When podcasts first started, I mean, I was not even aware of it, of course, because I'm such. In a different world. But I became, over time, aware there was things called podcasts, and I was like, well, that's not gonna work, because the one thing we know about information is it's being diced into smaller pieces, and ultimately, TikTok will be our only news source. TikTok didn't exist, but the idea that 15 seconds of video would be your source of information, that seemed obvious because that was the trend line. Shorter, faster, shallower, more pictures, fewer words. Those trends were really obvious, and they were real. But the idea that people would sit and listen to something for, like, ours is the opposite of what was happening in my world.

And I was like, who would listen to that? Who would ever listen to that? Meanwhile, not only was the media, which is a source of all of our information, degrading and becoming not only more corrupt, but more obviously corrupt, but our educational system was completely collapsed. The humanities collapsed. There's no education. Like, none. That's not an overstatement. I have a lot of children. They have a lot of friends. I have young people who work for me. No one learns anything in college at all. It's only in the humanities. I'm sure electrical engineering is different, veterinary school is different. But in this sort of broad middle of, like, I'm going to take English, history, communications, media studies, it's all fake. And so that was happening, and what I didn't perceive is that all of that stuff was moving to podcasts, I guess, because I have such a dark and pessimistic temperament. Thank you, Scandinavia. I assumed that because the products that people were consuming were getting worse, that people had lost their desire for good products. I guess I assume that without thinking of it. But it turned out that, no, they were just getting it from a different place.

There's a hunger to learn. There's a hunger not to be lied to. People can tell. They don't know exactly what the truth is. I have no idea exactly what the truth is about anything, but I know the direction it's coming from, and I definitely know lying. And there's a natural human desire not to be lied to. And to like, what is that? To understand things. Curiosity is a human thing. Curiosity died in the media. They're now officially opposed to curiosity. Just asking questions is a crime. In fact, it's my crime. I have noticed. Just asking questions. Oh, what? I will never be embarrassed to ask questions like, sorry, you can't make me embarrassed of asking questions. Yeah, my motive is irrelevant, by the way. My motive happens to be fairly pure. I am interested. But even if my motive was sinister, it doesn't change the fact of it that answering questions is never bad. Period. Whatever. So as the mainstream media, the big media companies, were becoming just arms of the government and just full North Korea media landscape. No one knows anything. It's all lies. That is where we are. I can say that with great authority, having worked there my whole life, there was this incredible renaissance happening in the most unlikely of mediums, this podcast.

And not just about politics, but about history. It's incredible. I mean, there's no way. If you go to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where I went, not an impressive place, but even if you go to, I don't know, pick a school. Dartmouth, probably not going to learn that much about legitimate history. You can learn it instantly in podcasts. Millions of people are. You learn about the fall of Rome, 470. What happened? Why did that happen? Or just the details, the punic wars, name it, it's on there. And then that is the world headquarters of free thinking and honesty, man. Of all the trends. And again, this is right in my world. This is media. That's my world. Of all the trends in the last 30 years, that is the last one I would have predicted and the most hopeful. It's incredible.

How do you like doing it?

Well, I absolutely love it because it's how I grew up. Do you like it?

Do you like podcasting? Better than.

I've done a total of two podcasts in my life. I mean, I've been on. Well, in the last year, I'd never really been on. First of all, I work for a big media company. We have our own world of promotions or media relations. I think the last company I worked for called it that. But it's just the pr department, okay? And we have our own way of doing things, and it's huge company. Billion, multi billion dollar company. And they have a way of doing it. And all these, like, 28 year old girls are telling you what you gotta do an interview with New York Times magazine, you know, whatever. So I'd never done podcasts. Like podcasts that's not even on their radar. They didn't know that existed, really. They thought, like Esquire, where I used to write, or New York Times magazine, they thought that was really impressive. It's not impressive at all. No one reads that crap. No one believes it. The people who do, you don't care about because they're dumb by definition. They read the New York Times and believe it. What? You'd have to be like a pretty delusional, low iq character to be in that position right now.

No, I'm serious. I've written a lot for the New York Times. I used to read the New York Times every day. But it's absurd, and everyone knows it's absurd. And if you don't know it's absurd, then I don't care about your opinion. I'm not even going to argue that with you. So I had never done podcasts, really? I did, like a hunting podcast in Maine once because I knew the guy or whatever, but I'd never done podcasts. So the last year I've done all these podcasts, and I loved it. It was so fun. And it was fun because it's exactly how I grew up. This is the most natural thing. This is how I grew up. This is what we did for entertainment. Sit around the table and talk about what you think and what you've read and be as honest as you can be. One of the. I hate to say this, I guess I'm not always saying this, but one of the beauties of growing up as a young child with no women in the house, you can say whatever you want. There's no one to offend, you know what I mean? It's like how I grew up.

So you say whatever you want, and you can be as honest as you want. Like, there's just dudes, you know, it's like, are you gonna offend your dad? No, probably not. What hasn't he seen? Are you going to offend your little brother? Who cares? You can just really be honest. And I love that, like, the happiest times of my life. And our family is that way, and we have exceedingly long dinners. We play games at the end. We just. It's just fun. And everyone's like, everyone can say exactly what they think. Like, I just. I've always lived that way at home. So a podcast is, like, not different from that, really. And our. So I've done two episodes. It took me, you know, I'm very much a non genius, so it takes me a while to figure out the obvious. And after a year of doing cable news interviews on the Internet, which did fine. It's fun. I like interviewing people. It finally occurred to me the most fun I've had in the last year. I've done two things that I really enjoyed since getting fired. One was being able to travel around to different countries and interview people there.

I couldn't do that because I was stuck in the studio every night. I really love that. So I want to keep doing that, and I am. And the second thing I've really enjoyed is going on other people's podcasts. I just enjoyed it, you know, it's just fun. And why is that not fun? It's fun. And why don't I do that? And why don't I do it, like, at my actual dining room table in my barn, my son's engagement party was. Or, like, where my family actually eat? Like, why not? Do that, and I don't. I've had a makeup artist my whole life, as I told you, and, like, that's a little embarrassing to admit that because your dad wears makeup when they were little. But why do that? I am probably should be ashamed of how I look, but I'm actually not really. I'm married to the same girl. I don't really care. And so why not just do exactly what I would do anyway? And we've always had. We don't have tv at our house, and we don't go to the movies, or we don't like. Our entertainment is meals. That's always been our entertainment, always.

And we take them really seriously. Always have people for dinner. We always have 1012 people at the table. It's not super exciting, but for us, that's our entertainment. That's what we do, and that's what we've always done. Since the day week we were married, we've done that. And that's, as I've noted, exactly how I grew up. So why not just do that? Why is that not great? It is great. Well, I've only done it twice. Okay. I interviewed Aaron Rodgers, who I loved. He was just a really good guy. And I interviewed a friend of mine called Dave Smith, who's a comedian, but kind of a really smart guy who has the same instincts I have about a lot of things. And I've just done two, and I have loved it, and I'm doing three a week for the foreseeable future. And why not?

Incredible.

Well, do you think? I mean, I always. I don't always, but I usually get to the obvious conclusion last. I start with, like, let's do something really elaborate and unlikely and probably certain to fail. And then over time, you're like, you know, probably didn't need to do that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I do.

I think that about the last thing I'll say. I can't stop talking. That's one of my main faults. But I always think that I always, you know, you see these numbers and, like, no one's dating, much less getting married, much less having kids. And, like, men and women don't understand each other. It's all real. It's like, the central tragedy of our time. But I always think it's kind of not that hard. Like, does she smell good? Is she nice? Is she cute? But in your opinion, this is a very subjective question. Do you find her attractive? Probably just, like, if she's a decent person, you should probably just marry her and make the commitment and try hard and conceive a bunch of kids. That's actually not that hard either, having done it. Like, it's just not hard. It's like, animals do this and they're, like, pretty happy. So just, like, take that route. Don't overthink it. You know what I mean?

Yep, I do. A little bit ago, you were talking about all the lies that we had. I mean, with COVID the media, Iraq. I mean, Iraq alone, you know, and I've heard you talk about 911 a little bit. I'd love to dive in on that, but with building seven. But I mean, even Iraq. I mean, I was all about it when we were there. I thought we were there for the right reasons. I think the whole country thought, at least at the beginning, that we were there for the right reasons. And then, you know, and then, I mean, I wasn't a big picture guy was a hit. This target right in front of you guy. And now looking back and seeing Cheney's ties to Halliburton, and for those that don't know, Halliburton was the biggest logistics company. It was the only logistics company, to my knowledge, that was. I mean, they did. They built the barracks, they built the chow halls, they cooked the food, they cleaned the shitters, they supplied the shitters. They did vehicle fuel. They did the laundry. They did every logistical thing you can possibly imagine. They basically built an entire city's infrastructure up.

And when you look at that, when you look back at that, and nothing was really accomplished there other than pulling Saddam out, then you start looking at 911, which could have been prevented and what isn't a fucking lie.

Well, you know, I would say from, you know, the summer of 1914 until present, you know, really the modern era, the beginning of the first World War, till now, most of the big. The big perceptions that we have about that are wrong at every sort of stage. So I don't, you know, I don't know the answer to most of the.

Questions where I'm going with this. I mean, even I just interviewed this guy. He was a. He's an. He's an afghan resistance fighter.

Yeah.

And I brought him on, and he is telling us, and this has been confirmed by another CIA targeter, which is going to be confirmed. It's leading down the whole rabbit hole of interviews. We're now giving the Taliban $40 million a week. Did you know that?

I'm not surprised at all.

$40 million a week. We spent 20 years, 20 plus years fighting over there. The Taliban, al Qaeda, and now just on the drop of a hat, 40 million a week, which we'll find out in a later interview. It's actually upwards of 87 million a week.

Yeah.

I mean, everything has been a fucking lie.

Yeah. It's endless. And, yeah, I mean, I have thoughts about every single thing you said. I mean, I guess the most obvious response is, let's start declassifying some documents. Why are there any 911? What was that actually? And I don't know the answer. I have a lot of theories about it. I was not fighting any wars, of course. I was just a journalist, but I was definitely, as you know, I was paying close attention in Washington and in various locations around the world to how that unfolded at the time. And so. But why in the world would any 911 document remain classified? And thousands are? And the fact that they are has stymied a series of lawsuits by the families of people who killed on 911 against the saudi government. Now, whether those suits are justified or not, I have no idea, but I really don't know what I think about all of that. I suspect there's a lot of lying there, too. But what's the possible rationale in keeping any of that classified? And the truth is, and this is true, in our private lives as well as in our country's life, secrecy abets dishonesty, of course.

It's like, I don't want my wife to see my phone. Why? Why? You know what I mean? A buddy of mine once said to me, have you heard of life 360? And I was like, yeah, the thing where all your family members. He goes, yeah, my wife tried to get me on that. No fucking way. And I was like, why? Well, there's no one's business. This is an invasion of privacy. I started laughing. We were nodding. Troy started laughing. I said, wow, you're doing. And by the way, I love privacy. I do. I think privacy is a prerequisite to humanity. Like, if no privacy, you can't be human. I believe in privacy. However, secrecy is a slightly different thing, and a sinister thing, actually. Why, in a democracy would we have big secrets, particularly decades down the road, or 80 years down the road, or in the case of the Kennedy assassination, 61 years down the road? Well, of course, the only reason is to keep misdeeds hidden. That's the only reason, period. It's not sources and methods. Sorry.

Yeah.

So anyway, let's just declassify it and find out. And of course, that'll never happen because there is deception at the heart of that. Now, I don't know exactly why. I have some thoughts on it. But I don't know if they're true or not, so I'm not going to articulate them. But there's definitely still a lot of lying about that, and people sense it. And whether they're right in their specific theories or not, I can't say. But they're right to be very suspicious of 911. Absolutely. And we can prove that because there are many thousands of documents still classified. That is proof that there's something amiss, that there's lying, period. It's true of the Kennedy assassination. It's true of everything that remains hidden from us. What could possibly be the pretext for hiding what our government is doing, if it is in fact our government? If this is an exercise in self government, if this is a, whatever you want to call it, constitutional republic, democracy, whatever, if the people rule, what possible justification could you have from hiding something from me? Because it's my government. Well, of course the answer is, because it's not your government.

It belongs to the people who run it. The organization exists for its own sake, not for yours. You just pay for it. And that kind of justifies revolution, right there. Now, I'm not rooting for revolution. Don't want one. A lot of people will die. I don't know if it'll work. They rarely improve anything. They leave lasting scars. I'm very anti revolution. However, as an academic matter, you have the groundwork, for one, because the system itself is based on a lie, and the lie is that the government serves the people, and that, of course, is not true. It oppresses the people and uses them as cannon fodder and as bank accounts for its own sake. And that's not a system that can continue very long because it's fundamentally rotten.

I want to dive into.

I don't want to believe any of this, but the evidence has convinced me.

I've heard you talk several times on building seven, and I never looked into that until. Until right before this interview, just cause of time. And so that building got reported being down 26 minutes before it actually fell. And you can't.

Totally normal.

Yeah, right. There's a woman on BBC conspiracy theorist. There's a woman on tv talking on BBC, talking about.

Oh, I've seen it.

Yeah. Talking about how the building is already down, has already collapsed, and it's right behind her. 26 minutes later, the building collapsed. What do you think? What do you think?

Well, first of all, how dare you for noticing it's really your fault for noticing that, I think, and I think you're a bad person for noticing it. Okay, just to be clear, that's the official position of Washington. Shut up. I don't know the answer. Of course, I'm not a structural engineer. A lot of people think what happened to building seven seems impossible. A lot of structural engineers have written this and think that seems impossible. It seems impossible to me, too, but I don't know. All I know is that, as in the case that I described with NATO and Trump, if your answer to a sincere question like, how did that happen? Is shut up. It's to attack me for asking the question, then I know you're rotten. I know you're serving evil. I mean, that's the hallmark of it. You're attacking me for asking an obvious question. Really? Because I'm not a slave. I don't work for you. I'm a free man in a supposedly free country. Therefore, I have an inalienable right, which is to say, given by God, right to ask obvious questions, or even non obvious questions. Any question I want, you can attack me for that.

Certainly can't punish me for it, but they will. So that just tells you that they're bad, period. Now, how bad? I don't know the answer to that. In what ways or exactly are they bad? I don't know, but they've already showed me they are bad. And those, by the way, are like people I know personally and live near and whose bidding I did unwittingly for years. So I have a kind of bitterness and intensity about my feelings on these subjects that are just real, as I'm sure you do, because you fought their wars. I didn't fight their wars. I just watched.

It's enraging.

Yeah. Do you?

I feel like we're being pushed into civil war.

Yes. Oh, of course.

Who do you think is push? I mean, it's all on instinct. With the weaponization of media, social media bots. I mean, all this, all the lies in the division. I mean, of course, who do you think is pushing it? Or are we already in it?

Well, we're already in it. We're in definitely an undeclared conflict. It's a conflict, of course, this trapping another country. You would see this was strife of some kind. Who knows what to call it? But of course, it's the oldest. It is a strategy. I don't think it's ever fully articulated anywhere by anybody, but it's a conspiracy of like minded instincts. As I noted at the beginning, people from the same class, the beneficiaries of our current system, understand what people all understand intuitively, which is divide and conquer. Like, fight amongst yourselves. Hey, white guy. It's the black guy's fault. Black guy. The white guy is impressing you or whatever. Racism is America's biggest problem, right? Okay. Racism is not America's biggest problem, that's for sure. Or whatever the thing or the Israel protests. The biggest thing happening in America is a fight over a fight in a faraway country. Huh? No. Over 100,000 people has died of fentanyl this year. Like, what am I taking position on the Israel thing? I'm coming at this from very limited interest, actually, and I'm not against Israel. Nice country to visit. I wish everybody well, just in general. I do.

I want to try to, but if you're telling me that that conflict is the biggest thing happening in my country, fuck you, actually, because. No, it's not. And that doesn't make me pro Hamas or anti Israel or pro Israel or pro ha. It doesn't even matter. Like, I'm american. Like what? So if you're filling up my airwaves in my brain with that, first of all, you're not serving my interest, because you're not telling me about what's happening in my own country, in my own family. And second, you're very likely trying to divert my attention, mislead me, scramble my priorities. That cannot be my top priority, because I'm not from that country. My top priority is my family in this country. And my family's been here hundreds of years. I think I have a right to say that, okay? And you're trying to scramble my priorities. You're trying to make me think that something that's not the most important thing is the most important thing, and why are you trying to do that? And, you know, we can only guess, but it's bad. It's sinister. That is absolutely sinister. And again, coming from the news business, a lifetime in it, I know that there's a reason.

I don't know what it is. And I also don't know if the people pushing it know exactly what it is. A lot of these things happen, as they do in our daily lives, on the basis of instinct, not forethought. I don't have a plan. I have no plans. I never have any plans. I'm not a planner. I don't believe in planning. That's why I don't believe in careers. I don't believe in any of it. That's not how my life has unfolded. I'm not doing what I thought I would be doing. God has a plan. I don't so I really feel that. So I don't think that there is, like, some conspiracy necessarily, but there's a conspiracy of like minded instincts. I'm just guessing. We've not talked about this, but. And I bear no anger toward transvestites or transsexuals or whatever we're calling them, at all. I feel no anger at all. I feel sadness, and I actually don't even feel that much. Other people's weirdnesses have never bothered me because I grew up in a weird world. But I know my reaction. The first time somebody told me that a man can become a woman, I was like, that's fucking crazy.

No.

I want to tell you about this business venture I've been on for about the past seven, eight months, and it's finally come to fruition. I've been hell bent on finding the cleanest functional mushroom supplement on the planet. And that all kind of stemmed from the psychedelic treatment I did. Came out of it. Got a ton of benefits. Haven't had a drop of alcohol in almost two years. I'm more in the moment with my family. And that led me down researching the benefits of just everyday functional mushrooms. And I started taking some supplements. I found some coffee replacements. I even repped a brand. And, you know, it got to the point where I just wanted the finest ingredients available, no matter where they come from. And it got to this point where I was just going to start my own brand. And so we started going to trade shows and looking for the finest ingredients. And in doing that, I ran into this guy. Maybe you've heard of him. His name's Laird Hamilton and his wife, Gabby Reese. And they have an entire line of supplements with all the finest ingredients. And we got to talking.

Turns out they have the perfect functional mushroom supplement. It's actually called performance Mushrooms. And this has everything. It's USDA organic, it's got chaga cordriceps, lion's mane, Miyatake. This stuff is amazing for energy, balance, for cognition. Look, just being honest. See a lot of people taking care of their bodies. I do not see a lot of people taking care of their brain. This is the product, guys. And so we got to talking, and our values seemed very aligned. We're both into the functional mushrooms, and after a lot of back and forth, I am now a shareholder in the company. I have a small amount of ownership, and I'm just. Look, I'm just really proud to be repping and be a part of the company that's making the best functional mushroom supplement on the planet. You can get this stuff@lairdsuperfoods.com. you can use the promo code srs that'll get you 20% off these performance mushrooms or anything in the store. They got a ton of good stuff. Once again, that's layeredsuperfoods.com comma use the promo code srs that gets you 20% off. You guys are going to love this stuff. I guarantee it. Thank you for listening to the Shawn Ryan show.

If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Shawn Ryan show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

And I'm sure you felt the same way. I'm not mad at just like, that actually can't happen. It's not actually true. There were a lot of people, some of whom I know were like, yeah, that can happen. So why did they think that? And I thought what I thought because we have different instincts, actually. Now, who knows why? Maybe it's genetic. Maybe it's socialization. I have no idea. All I know is the world was divided as it is on so many issues, into people who had one gut reaction versus people who had another gut reaction and people who have a very specific gut reaction, which, and I think across the board is destructive. Let's destroy something. Those people are in charge. Let's break it. Whether it's Ukraine or whatever, they're into breaking things. I'm not into breaking things at all. I hate breaking things. I hate vandalism. I hate graffiti. I hate watching beautiful buildings collapse from lack of care or attention. Like, I hate that. I believe in preserving things and building things and creating things, making. I made this. Here's what I made. That's the highest level of expression. And for some reason, we went up to this leadership class.

It's all about breaking shit. Let's get rid of it. Let's just break it. Oh, the grid. Do you know how complex a power grid is? You know how it took a hundred years to figure out our fucking power grid? Really smart people with specialties you can't even understand. Wattage, amperage, you don't know the difference. AC DC, you don't know the difference. You don't know anything about electricity. And you're gonna replace our grid. You don't know anything. You have no skills. That's a gut reaction I can't understand. Like, I approach everything with, like, a profound sense of my own ignorance. I don't know how that works. So I'm not going to break it. And so people with this weird and destructive instinct, that's what it is. It's not a conspiracy. An instinct. Have taken over all the levers of power. And I think it's like a spiritual force. That's my personal view. I can't prove it, but I really believe it. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's something else. But that's what I perceive.

Well, that's what I think it is, too. I mean, nothing anymore makes any damn sense. I'm convinced that when we. When we die, we will see that everything that we know or think we know is a lie.

I totally agree. Yeah, well, I know that that's true. I can tell you how I know. But I do know that. That when we die, we'll know. We're gonna. Well, it'll all make sense. I do. I know that. For whatever it's worth. So sorry, but yes, that is absolutely true. When we die. And I was talking to a friend of mine recently who was like, a new friend of mine, but I really love. That's the cool thing about this moment, is like, you're meeting all these people who are so deep and honest, it's like. It's wonderful. It almost makes up for everything. Sad. But I was talking to someone recently, and he said to me, he goes, I'm not excited to die. I've got all these kids. Whatever. No one wants to die. Kind of psyched to, like, understand what all this is.

I've had this conversation several times. Oh, yeah.

I feel that way.

You do?

Totally. I'm not looking forward to death at all. I happen not to be afraid of anything.

You want the answers.

I do.

You know what makes sense?

Yeah. And I know. I know as a dead certain fact that that awaits.

So do you think that. Do you think that the kind of pushing us into civil war scenario, do you think that is to distract us? Or do you think that's to dismantle the entire United States? Or both?

Again, I don't know that anyone, anywhere. I was with Klaus Schwab this winter.

You were with Klaus Schwab?

I was just trying to casually drop that, Sean. I was with Klaus Schwab. As Klaus Schwab said to me. No, I spoke at an event in the Middle east. He was at in whatever. I don't know, Claus Schwab, but I got to see him up close. And he's like an idiot. He's like an elderly idiot. Seems a little senile. Doesn't have any idea what he's talking about at all. He's totally unimpressive. And it was just another reminder that the closer you get, like, Toria Nuland, for example, basically started the current war in Ukraine. She's like this kind of sad, fat, dumb girl, you know, actually. And the closer you get, the more you realize that the people running things are, like, mediocre. They're buffoons. They have no idea what they're doing. Tony Blinken. I mean, really. Anyway, no, I don't think there's a conspiracy. I doubt they're smart enough to articulate it and write it down or anything like that. But it's just like. Again, they just. They are weak people. They are motivated by rage and envy. They are not the people who built the current society that we live in. Anything worth having.

They did not build, from our beautiful train stations to our power grid, to any of our infrastructure to Harvard University to our legal code, to anything that's great about America. They didn't protect the national parks. They had nothing to do with the Yellowstone. They didn't create anything, and they're not capable of it. And they're mad about it. And they're mad in the way that primitive, envious people are mad. You know, they don't celebrate beauty. They destroy beauty. You see this a lot. It's one of the main motivators of evil, in my view. And they just want to tear it down. They're mad about it. Like, they couldn't have done that. Dead white men, okay, who created our entire society? Like, everything, all our founding documents, everything. And they hate them most. Why do they hate them, actually? Why would you be mad? Why are you mad at James Madison? Like, he's long gone. Thomas Jefferson owns slaves, okay? Unlike Mohammed or whatever. They come up with these pretexts to justify their hate, but really, it's just envy, because they're not capable people. They have no skills. Like Tony Blinken. Tony Blinken couldn't change a tire on your truck.

He's a fucking idiot. Actually, it's not a surprise that he's mismanaged the world. He's out there playing guitar in Kyiv, which he calls Kyiv, because he's like a child. They all are. And they're mad about the fact that they're fraudulent and weak and helpless. Actually, supply chain breaks down. They all starve to death. Like, they know that, and they're mad about it. And so they want to wreck the things that others built. This is, like, the oldest story there is.

You think that's what it is? Of course.

It's why the vandals sacked Rome. Of course. You built this? Great. It's why people spray graffiti on beautiful buildings in New York City. You didn't build this. Neither did your ancestors. You're a fucking moron. You couldn't build anything, so you tear it down. Of course. It's the oldest impulse there is. Vandalism. It's all vandalism, man. And vandalism is committed by vandals. And vandals are by definition, primitive. And they may have gone to HBS, they may be rich, but they're still primitives. Actually, they're not capable of any of this. That's why. And they have no appreciation for beauty at all. They hate beauty. It's the first thing. And look at their architecture, it tells you they hate beauty. Look at their modern art. It's anti beauty. It's ugly on purpose. Because they don't have the ability to create something beautiful. Because they're totally non creative, actually. And non creative people are hostile to beauty. Creative people love beauty. Of course. It's what they strive to create themselves. Just like self made people are not afraid of going bankrupt because they can build it again. You're an entirely self made person. If someone took away the studio, you'd be like, build another one.

Because you would. Because you know, you have that power, inherited money. People who've created nothing, they're living off the creation of others, are terrified of losing anything because they know they can't replace it.

So our leadership class, that's a fucking great point.

Our leadership class is basically, we're at the inherited money stage of empire, where we're all living on the labor of people who are long dead, and we know we can't recreate it. We could not create our power grid. Right now, we don't have enough engineers to do that. All of these fantasies will soon crash and burn. And I would include EV's and AI and all the other energy devouring acronyms that we're now in love with. All those need to be powered by electricity. And our current grid can do it. Not even close to do it. I'm not good at math, but even I know that at some point someone is going to need to move from the world of the theoretical AI. EV's, all these stupid ideas, their stupid justifications. Climate change, whatever, whatever. They are going to need to move to the field of physical engineering. How do we create enough electricity? How do these competing imperatives of stopping climate change, we can control the weather because we're God. How does that mesh with the idea that none of us are ever going to have to work again because computers will make the decisions for us.

AI. Well, they're going to need, like, practical answers. And this class of people who run our country are totally incapable of coming up with those answers because they have no skills. And that's why they're destroying it. I mean, it's so obvious what's happening because history is the same story anyway, man.

Do you think we're going into World War III?

Really close to it as, you know, something? Really, really, really close. The fact that anyone would even consider getting within 1000 miles of fucking around with a nuclear exchange just shows you that the core impulse here is suicide. That's what we're really. That's what all of this is. And that's why I personally think it's spiritual. I think it's. The word demonic is suddenly being overused. It's everywhere because it's real. But, yeah, if you see a human movement that's anti human, the push toward nuclear war for its own sake is by definition anti human. I would say AI is anti human by definition. Transgenderism is anti human by definition. Transhumanism is anti human. Do people act against their own long term interests? Probably not, actually. So it's probably not human. I mean, I'm, like, looking at this very autistically, very simply trying to reduce it to its most basic elements. And like, any movement that's anti human is probably not human. Is it?

Probably not.

Do dogs act against their own collective interest? To caribou, to porcupines, to single cell amoeba, to sea cucumbers? No. None of them do. No animal does that because it's not natural. Animals are part of nature. They do natural things. People are subject to the supernatural, so they do things that are not natural, like kill themselves. That's why we're the only species that kills itself. Right. So when you kill yourself, whether slowly or all at once, you're being acted on by forces outside of you. Spiritual forces, obviously. I'm just trying to apply logic here.

You had mentioned several times that you think that the UFO Uap type phenomenon stuff is all spiritual.

I think so. And I don't. I mean, look, I should just state about every topic like I don't know shit.

Nobody knows shit.

Yeah, that's. Well, that is the root of all wisdom. As my father always said when we were kids, the root of all wisdom is knowing what an asshole you are. And I think that is totally. And knowing how ignorant you are, how limited your foresight is and all that. So I don't know. But yeah, I would bet my house on it. At least some of it is. I mean, I'm sure some of it's like advanced technology that we possess. Us government clearly does possess a lot of technology that is not publicly known about or available or only in fragments. I mean, that's clearly true. You've done a lot on this. I mean, that's why I first reached out to you, because you did such an amazing segment on that. I was shocked by it, how great it was. That's why I'm sitting here. So you know all this and clearly that's part of it. But there are other things that are clearly not that baffle the us government. Here's what I'm really surprised by. And I've actually stopped gathering string on, as we say in reporting, stopped gathering string in this gathering information because I'm satisfied that I know enough and I don't really want to know that much more because what I think I know is, you know, this doesn't help me at all to know that.

So that's a conclusion I've reached. I'm usually pretty curious. I've stopped being curious about this because I don't want to know anymore.

But you truly don't want to know any more about it?

I think I know. I think I know what's up. So I can't prove it. So probably not going to articulate it, but I think I know what's up.

Yeah, but can you articulate it?

Well, I think it's, I think it's a, I think it's a really old story. You know, I think it's a really old story. So that's what I think.

What is it?

Well, one, you know, I'm a Christian and I am fairly sincere about it. I try to be sincere about it. More sincere than ever, for sure. But one thing that you notice about all, every world religion I'm familiar with, I'm interested in that topic. There are commonalities between religions. Jesus is unique and I believe in Jesus. I don't believe in any kind of pantheology. Okay. I don't think they're all equal or anything like that. I think mine is correct. I think that. Sorry, but there are commonalities that are very striking between all world religions I'm aware of, and all creation myths. And one of them, and this is of course true for Christianity, very true, is that the belief that supernatural beings take physical form, they all believe that. The greek myths, Jesus most famously but that they take physical form, that they're not just like some ethereal, they're not just shadows floating around, specters, fog, that they're physical, like they're as real as the arm of your chair, and that they reproduce with people. Again, Christianity believes that Jesus immaculate Conception spirit reproduces with human woman. That's what the story is, and it's described in Genesis as well, in Genesis six.

Again, it's not just the religion of the ancient Hebrews or the religion of the modern Christians. It's Hinduism as well, and the animist religions, the religions, to the extent we understand them or know about them, of the American Indians, all the same. So if every culture in the world that we know about, who's left any kind of written or physical record is reaching the same conclusions about something, maybe there's something there. And maybe it's not so crazy to think that what everyone else has always thought since the beginning of time, which there is this combination in cases of, you know, human beings and the spiritual realm, whatever that is. I can speak about it with no precision at all because I don't understand the specifics of it, but I know that it has been written about since people have been writing. And so it's a little weird to think that in 1945, really, the day we dropped that first bomb on Hiroshima, from then until now, it's just a speck of time in the continuum of history. For that one period, we've assumed that's not true, but everyone else has always assumed it is true.

I'm kind of going with everyone else on that, just on the odds. Okay. It's a very long winded way of answering your question, but I think that's kind of what we're looking at. I think there's some evidence that that's real, and I don't want to fully articulate it because it sounds like so out of the realm, but it's not out of anyone else's realm. In fact, it was at the very center of everyone else's realm until just the other day. So I don't think it's a crazy thing to think, and I happen to believe that's true, so whatever, but I can't prove it. So I'm certainly not an evangelist on the subject at all, and I also don't know how that helps anybody to say it. So I've tried not to talk about it because I don't know what's true, and I don't really know what you do about it. If it is. What was it say your prayers.

What was it that was it that led you to believe?

Talking to a lot of people, I got really interested in it. And since it is my job, it's literally my job is to call people and see them and have dinner with them and talk to them. And that's what I've done my whole life. So it's like, that's just natural for me. It's not a hobby. It's my profession. I hate to use the word reporting because it's been so discredited by the liars. Oh, we've done a lot of reporting here at NBC News. We've done a lot of reporting. Fucking liar. You know, you talk to some flak at CIA who told you a bunch of lies, which you're now repeating to me and my kids, so shut up. You've been done with reporting. I hate to use word reporting, but just, like, satisfying your curiosity by trying to identify who might know, talking to a bunch of people about it, assessing who's telling the truth. Maybe they're wrong anyway, but you can kind of feel whether someone's telling the truth, and there are ways to know or to get closer to knowing whether someone's telling. Just talk to other people. And I've done that because I got really interested in it sort of by accident.

I never thought I'd be interested in this at all. And so I talked to a lot of people, and I was really shocked by what credible people told me they could all be wrong. Of course, I can't prove it, but I became completely satisfied. I'll say that. That they were not lying and that they were right or in the vicinity of right. I always assume the details are wrong. I was a police reporter for a while, and you interview someone, like a shooting, you've obviously seen shootings, but most people don't see shootings. So you think if you saw a shooting, you'd, like, remember every detail of the shooting. They get them all wrong. People aren't good at details. Okay, that's just true. But they are good at themes. They're good at themes. Like, they remember the guy's fat. He may have been 400 pounds, he may have been 280. He was fat. Like, if everyone says the guy was fat, he was fat. We can say that. And so if everybody you talk to is saying, this is really upsetting, I don't know what this means, but here's what I know. Here's what I heard someone say, I was in a meeting, or here's what you know what I mean?

It was that kind of stuff. And I didn't talk to anybody in the UFO community. I'm not even sure what that is. I know. I don't trust any. I don't trust anybody, actually. You know what I mean? Like, it's not my job to do to trust people, so it's my job to assess whether what they're saying is right or not. So I talked to people who I thought had first hand knowledge, and I talked to a number of them and then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm out because I don't need to go farther than that. I think that the real struggles are unseen. That is absolutely a part of christian theology. I didn't fully appreciate it at all. It's a part of every theology. In fact, it is theology that is theology. The belief that the real struggles are in the spiritual realm. That has been a constant belief since the beginning of history, recorded history. Everybody has thought that accept us in the west since 1945. I can't say that enough. So once you get perspective on this question, you're like, okay, that may sound crazy to someone who thinks buying shit on Amazon is the meaning of life, but to every other person in the world, we may disagree about what the truth is.

I'm sure we will, but we will never disagree with the fact that there's a lot of shit going on that we cannot see or measure with our senses. That is absolutely true. And of course, looking back, you have experiences, and we talked about this in great detail at breakfast. You look back and you're like, okay, that's what the. Duh. The only surprise is not that it happened, but that it took, you blockhead, so long to see it clearly and then to admit it. There's like, some. Can I say one thing and then I'll stop. I'm so. I cannot keep a straight trajectory with my thinking sometimes. But what I find so striking about the UFO's, this is the main takeaway I have, is there's this debate. Like, is this stuff, these phenomena, which are clearly, obviously real? I mean, there's no debate about that. There's a lot of shit that people can't explain in the sky and underwater. We know that fact. Is this. So the debate is, is this government technology? Is it from outer space, or is it some spiritual realm here? I've already told you my view of it. But what I find so interesting, we know the government's lied about it.

They're lying about it now. That's a fact. There's no way around that. They've absolutely lied about it in very elaborate ways. I am really struck. Here's my current thinking on it. The main effort that the us government has put into its disinformation, its lying on this topic has been not to mislead you on the technology. Like, they're not telling me they don't have anti gravity technology. It sounds from watching your podcast that they do, which I believe, no problem. Believing that their main interest is in convincing that the supernatural is not real. That's. And if you watch, and there are people in the media who specialize in spreading these lies on behalf of the government, I'm not gonna name anybody, but, like, some of them work at the New York Times, if you. Once you realize what the point of the exercise is, it's crazy. And I hope you'll assess all the fact checking and the skepticism on Uaps through this lens. The main thing they want you to believe is the supernatural is not real. Then you have to ask yourself, like, why?

That's interesting.

It is so interesting. Why is that important to you? Why do you care if I think the supernatural is real? Like, why is that? First of all, why is it. How dare you, as my government, try to get involved in my spiritual beliefs? That's totally not your area, so get the fuck out of there. A, but b, why has that been so important for 80 years for you to convince me the supernatural is not real? Why? Why is that? And of course I can't answer the question, but my gut level response is, well, because if it is real, whatever they're telling you is not real. And if they're punishing you for saying something you know for a fact it's not real. You're not allowed to say that. Oh, not because it's. They don't have no problem with me lying, because they lie. They lie for a living, so lying brings no sanction. You can lie all you want. What you can't do is tell the truth. That is a fact. So once you know that, you can sort of reverse engineer their lies and know with some certainty that whatever they're telling you is not true, is in fact true.

That's exactly the truth. It's exactly the truth. But then you have to ask motive. Like, it's not a profit motive. Like, does it make them rich to deny that there's supernatural forces? No. What is that? And I don't know the answer, but the obvious answer is, well, because they sort of know they're working for supernatural forces, actually, and I think that's probably true. They, the us government is millions of people.

Is there a specific reason or a handful of reasons, or is this a hunch that you believe that they're working with the supernatural realm or have a relationship?

I can't prove that. I mean, I'm suggesting that. I'm not saying it because I can't prove it, but I am suggesting it. And if you're asking whether I believe it, the answer is yes. But I think I believe that for two reasons. One, because I've told that directly by a couple of people who I think seem knowledgeable. And I attach some weight to that, though not conclusive. Weight. I don't know. I don't know. I wasn't there. Maybe they're super sophisticated liars. Maybe they're telling me the same lie for some reason. Maybe it's all part of a disinformation campaign. All the geniuses on the Internet, the really smart kids, seem to think it's all you're falling for, the disinformation campaign. Okay, thanks, son. I know a lot about disinformation campaigns, okay? But it's like one of my few areas of expertise, having participated in many unknowingly. So either they're totally lying or they're telling the truth. But the other reason that I think that is for the reason just stated, which is that their main goal? When I hear a bunch of lying, first I want to recognize that it's lying. It's untrue. Like, I know that's untrue.

Then I want to ask, what's the nature of a lie? What exactly are they trying to get me to believe or not believe? That's really important. What is it like, what's so important to them that they're going to all this effort, spending all this money, getting all these journalists to repeat, knowingly or not repeat their lies? Like, why? Why are they doing that? It takes time to do that. It's a big effort to lie. It's much harder to lie than tell the truth, so why bother? And then the third question you have to ask is like, so, like, what is that? What does that mean? And then, of course, I don't know the answers, but it's very suggestive. One thing I do know, and if you look at it, if you look at like, the New York Times or popular mechanics or any of the. I say popular mechanics, I may be getting that wrong. I think it's popular mechanics. But there are a bunch of different stories that have run over time. Debunk, debunking certain claims about Uaps, UFO's. And some of them are quite vehement and sophisticated and mean too. People who believe in this stuff aren't just wrong, they're crazy.

They're conspiracy theorists. They're like pedophiles kind of, in a way. I mean, that's kind of like, why would you attack someone for that? Do you know what I mean? Why do you care? I'm not a buddhist, but I'm not mad at Buddhists.

I'm totally in line with what you're saying. And I mean, we had. But why are they doing so many signs too? We talked this morning about my experience, about getting slapped in the face by God, basically. Right. And ever since then, I take a minute, I step back and I try to find the symbolism and what I'm seeing at the moment. And I told you, I have a lot of. Pretty much everybody on my team is extremely well versed in the Bible.

And.

They bring me up to speed in a hurry. I mean, even just.

Those are the wisest people I've discovered. Yeah, I didn't know that.

But everywhere, there's nowhere you can look and go that makes sense anymore. Nothing makes any sense at all. The confusion of genders. It's everywhere. I mean, I was in DC. What was it last June when we had. When we had the big pride party on the White House lawn and men were flashing their titties? I look at that as symbolism. Now. That is some type of evil force that's in there. This Easter.

This Easter was trans visibility day.

Exactly. On Easter with Easter bunnies and Easter eggs and the White House letterhead declaring that day trans visibility day. That's a symbol. The pope.

That's a pretty clear symbol.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't theologian or anything.

When you replace Easter with any day, I think maybe you're making a statement about transcendent matters. It's not just about politics.

Mm hmm. But the shit's everywhere. It's everywhere you look.

Yeah. And only the Bible readers are prepared to understand it. That's what I've. Because everything is the opposite of what you were told. So you were told that all the Bible readers were the most superstitious and inflexible and stupid and lacking wisdom and common sense and they couldn't see reality. And like, that's what I grew up. I mean, even though we went to church occasionally or whatever, of course we hated religious people because all affluent Americans hate religious people in the world that I grew up in because they're like superstitious and dumb. And they're embarrassing, and they're like, kind of middle class or poor whites. And you're like, ugh. I mean, I'm so ashamed to say that, but I. And I was never against them, really. But I just didn't. I don't know. You just don't question what you are taught, really kind of, you know? And then it turns out that, like, those are the only people who know what's going on. They're the best people. I've known that for a while. They are the best. Religious people are the best people. Not even close. Who else? Who else hopes other people just for.

Who else prays for their enemies? Anyone? Anyone. No, just christians. That's it. So anyway, I've known that for a while that they were the best people. And of course, I'm married to one, so I knew that. But what I didn't know was that they're the only wise people. They're the only ones who know what's up and that they're just, like, way smarter than everybody. I didn't know that. I had no idea. And the last couple of years, I've been like, holy shit, they're the only people who know what's going on. And you had the greatest line this morning. I won't reveal personally if I talked about. But you were talking about something like, super crazy that happened to you, and you went to a Christian who works for you who was just like, well, yeah, of course. That happens all the time. And you said to them, to people who really understand this stuff, it's not a shocking event. I think you said it's like Tuesday. Cause they know that this is real.

Yeah.

And what a mindfuck that has been. No, it's so great, though.

Well, you know, it. With everything that's going on and as disgusted as I am in the country and the citizens and the government, and I'm starting to get an eye into that as the show grows. And I see. I see how. I see how disgusting it actually is on there, and they are. It's just fucking horrible.

And this show is definitely. I mean, this show kind of radicalized me a little bit, which is not easy radicalizing me, but. So, yeah, no, you are definitely doing your part to tell the truth, which I thank you. I love that.

It gives me hope, though, in a weird, weird way now that I can kind of see through this shit and realize, okay, none of this makes sense. And it actually makes sense that none of this makes sense because it's all been written. It's in that dance, it's in the book. I know it's in the book and it's playing out right now and anyways, it. But the fact that, honestly, it's the only thing that brings me any hope, because I don't think we're getting out of this.

No, of course not. But that shouldn't be surprising either. Again, I just can't believe that in the end, when it really gets intense as it is now that it's christians, it's people who actually believe the Bible are the only ones with wisdom who understand what's really going on. They're not shocked at all, and they're not panicked either. They get it. It's so interesting that itself is a biblical principle. The last shall be first, the most. You know, the humble among you will be exalted. Everything's the opposite of what you thought it was. Victory is defeat. Defeat. Christianity is defeat. Being tortured to death is actually victory. But once you start, even if you're not a Christian, which I think you should be, because it's true, but even if you're not, you can acknowledge just having lived here for a while that that is absolutely the way things work.

It's interesting, too, you know, and.

I.

Really like the fact that you don't do email, social media, any of that shit, and somebody else handles all that stuff, and you're only.

You just want to correct. I'm sorry. I sound so entitled and, like, I don't deal with that. Whoa, I'm so powerful. I don't have a briefcase. What?

I think that's just. That sounds like you're just taking control of your own mental health.

Well, I don't believe. I'm not a luxury guy. I'm not just saying this. I'm not especially rich, but I'm not a luxury guy at all. I mean, ask anybody who knows me or lives near me or with me. I'm not into that. Like, I don't care. I drink my coffee black, sleep in my truck. It's fine with me. I'm really committed not to being ensnared by luxury. But I do think a more profound form of luxury is reducing the noise a little bit in your life. If you can do that, more nature, more quiet, more one on one conversations, fewer distractions, less frenetic. Have to do this stuff. More thoughtfulness. Like, I don't achieve it, that's for sure. I'm constantly texting people. I have a lot of chaos. Not chaos, but I have a lot of stacked up nonsense I have to do in my life, but everybody does. But if you can reduce that by 10% or 20%, that's worth more than a private plane, which I don't have. But do you know what I mean?

I do. Well, I mean, when I heard that, it inspired me, so I'm gonna do the exact same thing.

Well, you're already doing it. I mean, you don't go to a, you don't drive over the Triborough bridge into an office building to work for somebody else. Like that is the ultimate luxury. If someone said, I'll pay you $50 million a year to commute through midtown Manhattan for 2 hours to work for some company controlled by its HR department, or I'll pay you one 50th of that to work at home, I don't think any wise person would choose the 50 million because it's not worth it. It's not about money.

Yeah. Where I was kind of going with this is my perspective of reality may be a little off, or maybe it's way off. I'm not in. I never watch the news anymore. I get my news from other sources.

Yeah, me too.

And right here. And. But. So I'm a little removed from whatever the latest agenda is that they're pushing, but it seems like to me, and I love this conversation, by the way, but it seems like to me that we're approaching the final division. I mean, it seems like. It seems like the race shit has kind of cooled off a little bit, and the gender stuff has cooled off, and all the things, the defund, the police, blm, antifa, the war, it's all seems to be starting to die down a little bit. And what I'm seeing, and maybe this is just because I'm that interested in it, is you're seeing a massive wave of Christianity coming, and you're also seeing a massive wave of satanism, and it seems like we're approaching the final division. You're seeing pedophiles on the rise, sex trafficking, human trafficking. I mean, the US is the number one consumer of kiddie porn on the planet, and you just see this good and evil just going farther and farther apart, and it's becoming, at least from my point of view.

I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more vehemently, and I don't have too many great insights into things or prophetic feelings. You know, I'm very conventional. But the one thing that I really felt strongly a couple of years ago was really strongly. I felt it overwhelmingly, like, from outside me, was that there's, there's some form of religious revival coming. I felt that really strongly. And I'm, like, extremely secular person. Obviously, I say fuck every other word. I'm sorry that I do that. I shouldn't. I definitely grew up that way. So, like, for me to have that insight, but, wow, overwhelming. And I said it to a couple of friends of mine who are very secular, like, what? But I felt it. And that has turned out, I think, to be true. And I have no idea where it's going. And I get a lot of people coming to my barn, like, every day, literally every day, and leaving me big stacks and stuff on the end times. And I think history ends. I think we all sort of sense history ends, but it's also really clear that we don't know when it ends. So I kind of resent that a little bit, because it's like, what are you, God?

Like, you know, the future? We don't know the future. We can't know. We're not going to know the future. Okay. That's very clear, and I believe it, but we are clearly moving towards something big. Who doesn't feel that? Everybody feels it. And the divide is spiritual. And I try to be mindful of my own sort of sectarian limitations. Like, when you're one thing, you think everyone else should be that thing, or whatever. And I really am a Christian, or attempting to be, but I think it's enough to say the people who know they're not God, who show reverence before a power bigger than themselves, like, those people, are on our side. That's how I personally feel. And I think you need to believe in Jesus. I think that. Okay. But I am also willing to believe that, as a functional matter, the people. I had an experience. This is. I'm sure it'll offend a lot of people, but it's real. I was flying the Middle east recently, and I was on one of those planes with the double decker planes, eighties. Think, what a big plane. And I go back, take a leak, and it's like everyone's asleep or whatever on the plane.

And there's like that little bar area. It's like an open area. And there's a guy, he looked to be south asian, he looked pakistani to me, but maybe not. I had to be 70 years old. And he's got his prayer met out, and he's praying. There's no one around, and he's praying in the middle of the fight. Everyone's asleep. And I've never been particularly pro Islam. In fact, I was very anti Islam for a long time. And I thought to myself, I'm not a Muslim. I'm never going to be a Muslim. I disagree with Islam in a lot of ways, but a guy who's taking his time, taking time out in the middle of a fucking flight when everyone's asleep to acknowledge that he's not God and bow before his God, I don't think that man's my enemy on a deep level, I just don't. I'm sorry. Call me like a tool of Muhammad or something. I'm not. I'm a Christian. But like, how is that guy my enemy? He's a massive improvement over everyone in DC who thinks they're God. Like, I do think that. I'm sorry, I do. There's something about the humility of acknowledging I'm not in charge.

I can't see the future. I'm totally imperfect. That is the most important thing. And that's how I kind of see the spiritual divide. That said, christianity seems to be growing in power even as the church is collapsing into absurdity. Church leaders, not all, but a lot of them, are totally corrupt. I don't know what's going on with the pope. I'm not Catholic, so I'm not going to comment on that. But like, whoa, doesn't look like Christianity to me.

It's another symbol.

On the other hand, the number of Catholics, some of my closest friends are Catholic. A lot of my closest friends are Catholic. They're the most fervent, sincere, on target christians. I know. I'm just saying that they are. I mean, I'm sorry, maybe their theology is wrong. I don't know. It's not up for me to judge. But they are serious christians and they mean it and their life is bearing the fruit of those beliefs. In other words, as the church, like, the structure collapses, some of the members of the church seem even stronger. Have you noticed this?

Well, I mean, it goes back to what we were talking about this morning. The church is not. I'm new with this.

Oh, me too. Oh, gosh.

The church is not a brick and mortar structure. No, the church is the living body of believers and God and Jesus Christ and that is it. There is no club. There is no, I'm in this camp and you're in that camp. You're either in the church or you're not.

I agree.

He's not a fucking brick and mortar.

I totally agree. But you see it, all of a sudden you see it. I mean, I made it like 50 years, more than 50 years in this country without really talking. I mean, where I worked, you know, in the media. Television people come in and, like, talk about whatever some threesome they had or they're doing meth over the weekend. And I'm like, people are pretty far out, you know, in tv because it's like, it's all theater kids. It's all people who project and share too much. So I just worked in a world where people just would, like, tell you their deepest secrets, like, at the drop of a hat. I don't think I ever one time heard someone mention a spiritual dimension in his life, ever. That was totally verboten. Like, that was the one thing you could not talk about. I never heard anybody talk about spirituality. It was so embarrassing. Like your freaky sex life not embarrassing. The idea you might pray. Highly embarrassing. Wow. And that's just. Well, that's just the world I've lived in. I mean, I'm hardly bragging about it. I'm ashamed of it. It's ridiculous, actually, but that is just true.

And for the record, I was not into meth or freaky sex shit at all. Very conventional person, but I was around that a lot. And all of a sudden, in the last few years, just random, normal, secular american people are like, I was praying about that. Or, I think God's doing this. Or, like, wait, what? We were not. Okay, I have a good memory. That's my one superpower. We were not having these conversations in my world five years ago. Nobody.

Yeah.

So what is that? There's something going on, and of course that's the way it works. God works. Evil is not unchallenged. Clearly, we're under the oppression of evil, not just the Biden administration, which is just a manifestation of it. But there's something way bigger. Trying to hurt people for the sake of hurting people with climate change or manufactured famines, which clearly that's going on. You know, pharma stuff is evil, right? It's very obvious. And everyone watching this, I think, knows. Of course, everyone knows what I'm talking about, but that's not going to happen in a vacuum. That can't happen. That's not how it works. That's not how the universe works. That's not how God works. So as that stuff rises in power, so does God, who's more powerful, and I know how the story ends. He wins. So, like, that's true. I'm not afraid at all. So. But it's cool to see it. Do you feel that way?

Do you feel like I do?

Good is showing, or God is showing his face more? I mean, is that.

Absolutely. I mean, I just. We talked to Bryce.

Yeah. It's crazy.

He literally just grabbed me by the collar and was like. And, yeah. And ever since he got my attention, I'm all in. And I. There's nothing that gives me hope. There's no presidential candidate. There's no politician. There's nobody. There is no human. That gives me hope.

It's all part of this question.

And who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't think I'm wrong. But I look at all these things that we're seeing, with the gender wars, with the race wars, with the division, with the right and left, with the Easter Sundays, now trans visibility Day. The pope is saying that gay marriage is great. Look, I don't give a shit about gay marriage, but. I'm sorry, but it's. The pope is not the man to change the Bible or the word of God.

Or just take three steps back. What is that? It's like, don't get lost in the weeds of the details. That's not. That's fucked up. You know. You know, you're. You're. You're serving the other team. I'm sorry. You are?

But I. Look, what I'm getting at is I look at all this stuff as symbology, and it's. It's. It's symbolizing that all this stuff that I had dismissed for years.

Oh, I know.

Is very real.

It's the only thing that is real, actually.

Yeah. It's. It's so. It gives me. When I see this stuff, it still pisses me off and enrages me. And. And the Easter thing, like, really threw me.

But at least they're showing their face once I've been going on. They murdered the president of the United States and lied about it, so. Right, okay, so, like, this has been going on a long time. Long before we were born. In fact, it's been going on for all time. And I will say this about the christians, to their great credit, they're not shocked at all. Like, well, what did you think? You thought some politician was going to save you? You're worshiping people now? You don't worship people. They're people. No one's gonna save you in this life. That's a lie. And by the way, shame on you for believing it, you fool. That's how they feel about it. And the rest of us, the dumb people like me, are like, I can't believe it's not real. They've been lying to me. I can't believe it. All the stories you told me there's no Santa. Seriously? And the Christian's just like, what? Of course it's fake. Are you kidding? We don't fight against. It's not against men. It's the same thing that's been going on again for all time, that every other civilization has believed in as its core belief except us.

And we're shocked, I can't believe it, that our stupid post war materialist theology turned out to be fake. Who could have guessed?

Yeah, yeah. But that's what gives me hope, you know, totally seeing all the symbology. Totally.

And also, you're kind of commanded, or you are commanded to be hopeful and cheerful and joyful. And if you're not, then that's kind of on you, then. You know what I mean? Then you obviously don't believe it. I mean, I I never. I mean, I stopped going to church during COVID for that exact reason when the priestess at our church was like, which is itself, like, nuts. But whatever the denomination, I grew in, but it was nuts. I didn't quite realize how nuts until Covid. And then the rector of the church is like, well, we can't have services because I'm afraid of getting Covid and dying. And it's like, you're afraid of dying? Really? You're afraid. Their whole religion was not to be afraid of dying. Like, the whole point of our religion, we don't need to be afraid of dying. Like, what's the other point? I don't know. Do we have another point? I think that is the point. And so if you're afraid of dying. But I remember being so shocked by that, and I went home and said to my wife, I was like, we're not going to church again. This chick says she's afraid of dying.

I was like, what? And we were both, like, almost in because we really did grow up in this church. And I was like, we were both so shocked. And then looking back four years later, I'm like, I can't believe we were shocked. Like, how dumb were we? How naive were we? Yeah, of course people are deceptive, and they. But lies are always exposed, like, in the end. And you don't. They're not gonna win. They may have some temporary, you know, ground gaining offensives, but they're not gonna win.

Yeah.

Are they?

No, they're not.

Can I say one last thing? Cause I know a lot of these people who, the people I am always railing against, I hate them and all this stuff, but they're totally suffering now. They're miserable. I think if you looked inside Tony Blinken's soul, you would not find anything interesting or profound at all. It's just banal as you imagine it is. This is my guess. But I think you would find a lot of turmoil and unhappiness and insecurity, barely sublimated. Rage, unhappiness, chaos. And I think that it's true of all these people. You think Joe Biden is happy? Or his creepy fake doctor wife or any of these people. Gavin Newsom, you really think he's got a joyful life? These people are living in hell now, actually. And so I do think that should be a marker if you're looking at who to believe, who to put your confidence in. Not your faith, put your faith in no man, but your confidence. I think the first thing you have to assess is, is this person happy? Is it joyful? Because if he's not, he's clearly on the wrong path. He's following a lie, knowingly or not.

Like, I think it's a fair way to assess.

Yeah, yeah, that's a damn good point.

So if you wake up in a society run by unhappy women and the weak men who make them unhappy, these are not people worth following.

That's a damn good point.

We're producing unhappy women. That's the only thing that we produce. Now. Our steel industry has died. We don't produce good cars, but we do produce a lot of unhappy women. A ton, like a surfeit. Actually. Can't even export them at this point. Sorry. It's true.

If you looked at export, you can't export them.

Yeah, it's like no one wants to. No one wants them.

Well. Well, Tucker, I think. I know you got a flight to catch her soon, and I should probably stop talking.

I don't have a boss now, though.

So I think it's great. You know, it's. That's what gives me hope. It sounds like that's what gives you hope. And I wanted to help.

Oh, I have tons of hope. I have tons of hope.

Is there anything else that gives you hope? Or is it just spirituality, which alone.

Is in my life? I mean, yeah, there's so much. I mean, I didn't lose any children during the turmoil. And a lot of people I know, and I don't mean lose, like died, though. A lot of children have died, actually. A lot have killed themselves with drugs or through suicide, but the faster, you know, form of suicide, but I didn't. A lot of people I know a lot, like part of the purpose of one of the hallmarks of evil. Maybe the hallmark of evil is division. Pulling people apart, destroying relationships, killing love. And a lot of really good people, including people I love, have lost children to this. The child disowned the parents.

Damn.

And the surface level explanation is that it's different politics. And people with different politics can't be friends, including parents and children with different politics. But it's way deeper than that. It's not about politics, of course. It's spiritual. There was no moment in my life up until recently where, like, politics would prevent a friendship or a family relationship. That just wasn't a thing. It was not a thing. Like, you vote Democrat, I vote Republican. We hate each other. Like, when did that happen? So it's not political, it's spiritual. And a lot of people have had their families destroyed, including a lot of people I know, really good people, too. Good parents. All of a sudden they had a child who was like, fuck you, I'm never talking to you again. Racist or whatever. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And there's. I mean, I'd rather die than have that. Like, that's the worst thing I can imagine, is losing a child, losing contact with a child, having a child disown the family. And we have not had that at all. We've had just the opposite. Our family. I'm not bragging. I am bragging. You say, what gives me hope. That gives me hope. My children are. Other people are not perfect, but our family is closer than it's ever been. I mean, I don't care. You can fire me from a million jobs, you can take all my money. And if I have that, I mean, that's enough for me. And I'm not just saying that. I really mean it from the bottom of my heart. And so it's hard to be too upset. The thing that. The last thing I'll say is that I think one of the great temptations and deceptions that we face is living at 40,000ft all the time, especially in this business that you and I are now both in, because you're constantly thinking about what's going on. You're following things like, oh, my gosh, all the things that I loved are degrading the institutions.

Well, that you specifically served with everything, you know, you can't have confidence in them. They're falling apart. They have been distorted or perverted and they're serving some bad purpose. It's like overwhelming. It's so upsetting. It's like it can make you despondent and make you feel powerless and helpless, which is I think part of the purpose of it is to make you feel like, holy shit, I give up. But that's only one perspective. That's the macro perspective. You look at America. America, this country that we're from and that we're going to die in, and it's not doing well at all. Like, at all. However, the other way to look at it is the people that I love. I love more than I ever have. I'm closer to. Than I ever have been. The family that I'm responsible for is thriving, not even materially, but in love. And, like, that's incredible. And I love this country. I really mean it. I really love America, and I always have. But I would trade a thousand countries for the people that I love. Because in the end, America, to me, is the people that I love, not just my blood relatives, but the people in my orbit.

And they are all thriving again. They may have cancer or alcoholism. People have problems, okay? Big, big problem problems. But in their honesty with each other, in their commitment to each other, loyalty to each other, their love, expressed love for one another, their kindness, their understanding, their tolerance for each other, it's all increased. And, like, that. That's part of the story, too. That may be a bigger story, actually, than the federal reserve or the fucking war in Ukraine. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah, I do, man. Thank you for sharing that. Tucker, we're out of time, or you're gonna miss your flight and.

Am I really?

Yeah. No, you're not.

I can talk.

You're good.

Freaking animal.

But. But I just. I just want to say thank you for.

Well, I loved it. And thank you for what you're doing. I'm not. Guys brag. And on one bragging note, sure, I saw the video. Somebody sent me one of your videos. Never heard of you. I had no idea. I don't watch podcasts, or. I didn't then. And I saw this, and it was an interview, as I told you this morning, with this contractor, son of a contractor, who had seen some stuff at a military base, whatever. It was super interesting. But your interview style. I was like, that guy is honest. That's totally real right there. And I am good at that. I can tell. And I was like, that guy's gonna be successful. I just knew. I knew nothing about you. I just saw that, and I was like, that guy's gonna succeed. And you have.

Thank you.

And I called that thank you.

That means, I know that's ugly to.

Brag about it, but I can't help it. I knew that.

I appreciate that.

Thank you.

And I forgot I had one other gift to give you. Everybody gets one.

Thank you. I wear it with pride or without pants. Look at that.

Little something for the ride home.

Glasses.

There you go.

I can't take these. You know why?

Why not?

I think you know why.

Oh, no. Those illegal?

No. Cause I'll eat them. I turned 55. I can't eat fucking gummy bears. Are you joking? Like, how old are you?

Give them to the driver.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

That was awesome.

But, no. Thank you for coming. And, man, I hope to see you again, Tucker.

Oh, totally.

I wish.

Text me when you're in my name. I will. Awesome. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Hey, guys. Welcome to the candy Valentino show. I'm Candy Valentino. I was a founder before I could legally order a drink. And for more than two and a half decades, I've built, scaled, acquired, and exited multiple businesses in diverse industries. Now, my goal is to help you by sharing the knowledge that I've learned, the mistakes that I've made, and the wisdom that I've developed over my journey. Bi weekly episodes every Monday and Thursday.

The Candy Valentino show. Wherever you listen.